Our view: Protect Mueller from the president’s pique
Nearly a dozen times since last July, President Trump or his staff have denied that he ever contemplated firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller. “I haven’t given it any thought,” Trump told reporters in August.
All those comments have been rendered, to use a term made famous by Richard Nixon’s Watergate-era press secretary, “inoperative.”
Reports that the president sought to fire Mueller last June reinforce the need for Congress to move swiftly to protect Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Americans deserve to know whether Russia conspired with the Trump campaign and whether — since then — there has been an effort to obstruct justice in that investigation. Mueller, a highly regarded former FBI director, has already obtained indictments of four former Trump campaign officials — including former National Security adviser Michael Flynn — and is moving toward interrogating the president.
As the Russian investigation has unfolded, Trump has shamelessly brushed aside norms that have constrained other presidents. Even the publicly known events build a strong circumstantial case for obstruction. Consider how Trump:
Worked to control the investigation by (unsuccessfully) urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from overseeing it.
Demanded loyalty from then-FBI Director James Comey, urged him to go easy on Flynn and then fired Comey.
Told NBC’s Lester Holt that he fired Comey because of the Russia investigation, and told Russian officials in the Oval Office that the firing has “taken off ” the “great pressure” he was under.
Wanted to fire Mueller and, according to the New York Times report, backed down only because the White House counsel threatened to quit.
These are not the actions of someone with nothing to hide. At this point, does anyone really believe that if Mueller’s investigators close in on Trump and his family, the president wouldn’t out of desperation “fight back” and fire the special counsel, no matter the echoes of Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre”?
Two bipartisan Senate bills introduced last year can protect Mueller. One requires a judicial review to ensure any firing was appropriate. The other places authority for dismissal with a Senate-approved justice official.
Both measures stalled months ago. But after the story broke about Mueller’s near-dismissal, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told CNN he’s “open to considering those bills.”
That’s welcome news, but other Republicans in Congress are keeping their heads in the sand or, even worse, seeking to undermine Mueller’s inquiry with cockamamie conspiracy theories.
“I don’t think there’s a need for legislation right now to protect Mueller,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., insisted Sunday on Meet the Press. Actually, the time to protect Mueller is right now — before, not after, another Saturday Night Massacre.