Rep. Biggs wants Mueller off query of Russia-Trump

We’ve known from the moment he announced his run for Congress that Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs was a coattail-riding groupie for Donald Trump. That kind of political opportunism happens all the time. Republicans do it. Democrats do it.

But there is a difference between being an obedient political minion and attempting to undermine an investigation by the special counsel appointed to investigate Russian meddling in U.S. elections.

Biggs has joined Trump toadies like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in calling for special counsel Robert Mueller to recuse himself from the investigation.

Gingrich now says Mueller can’t be trusted. Meaning, I suppose, he’s afraid Mueller is actually going to do his job.

After all, it was Gingrich who tweeted in May:

“Robert Mueller is a superb choice to be special counsel. His reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity. Media should now calm down.”

Trying to besmirch someone like Mueller is an old-school, ham-handed strategy. If you’re afraid an investigator is competent enough and honest enough to find something damaging to your boss or political patron, you try to discredit the investigator. Biggs tweeted: “Special counsel Robert Mueller should recuse himself from the Russian investigation...”

He sent out a press release essentially saying Mueller is prejudiced against Trump and adding, “It is time for Congress and the Department of Justice to regain full control of these investigations and allow the President to govern the country as he was elected to do.”

In other words, he would take the investigation out of the hands of an independent special counsel with an impeccable record and give it to partisan hacks who can kill it at the urging of their boss the president.

Before that happens, we should simply consider who Robert Mueller is. He is a man in his 70s, like Trump. He attended Princeton University and could easily have found a way to avoid Vietnam-era military service.

Instead, he served as a Marine Corps officer for three years, spending a year in Vietnam leading a platoon, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.

That was followed by a master’s degree, law school and jobs at the Department of Justice. Among many cases, he prosecuted those responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

George W. Bush named him FBI director a week before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He stayed on the job 12 years. Federal judges have appointed him as “special master” in several high-profile cases since then.

And now, we’re supposed to believe that after 50-plus years of honorable service, Mueller would abandon his lifelong principles to become a partisan hack? Pa..leeze.