Mueller should recuse from Russia investigation
Robert Mueller is a man of integrity with a long record of public service. In the abstract, he would be the right selection as special counsel in the Russia investigation. Under the specific circumstances, however, with his longtime friend James Comey at the center of the inquiry, Mueller’s the wrong choice.
I met Mueller only once, when he was assistant attorney general for the criminal division. From what I know, he’s an honest, nononsense, effective prosecutor. But not without regret, I believe that the same ethics rules that Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited in his Tuesday testimony counsel against Mueller’s continuing to serve in the role assigned to him.
Sessions testified that he felt he had no proper choice because he had a potential political conflict of interest, having been a campaign adviser to President Trump. Mueller has a potential personal conflict of interest.
Comey and Mueller have been friends for nearly 15 years. In 2004, Comey, as deputy attorney general, and Mueller, then head of the FBI, together confronted White House counsel Alberto Gonzales in the hospital room of then-seriously ill Attorney General John Ashcroft in a successful attempt to block the White House from implementing a surveillance protocol that Gonzales and, tentatively, President George W. Bush favored.
Questions now swirl around Comey — about whether the president wanted/hinted/hoped/ asked/directed/or something else the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn to be stopped/abandoned/ slowed/soft-peddled/something else. This is probably the central element of the obstruction of justice case that Trump’s opponents would like to see made.
Questions also swirl about Comey’s notes on this conversation and why he gave them to a private individual (professor Dan Richman of Columbia Law) to convey to journalists. Additional questions have arisen about whether this curious and seemingly devious means of putting the contents of the notes in the public domain (leaking, in other words) was designed specifically to bring about the appointment of a special counsel outside the president’s direct reach — and, indeed, whether Comey wanted, expected or intended his friend Mueller to get the job.
One thing that can be said with clarity is that, under the ethics rules cited by Sessions, Mueller has a long-term relationship with Comey that “may result in a personal ... conflict of interest, or the appearance thereof.” I hope and suspect that Mueller, whom I believe to be a partisan of the rule of law, will see this. If he doesn’t, I hope Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will.
There is no way Comey is anything but a central witness in this investigation — if not a subject. Even less is there a way Mueller can be expected to evaluate Comey’s credibility with the fresh neutrality, arm’s-length curiosity, and objective sharp eye his job demands.