Congressman Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., says it’s not too late for Attorney General Jeff Sessions “to do the right thing” by reversing his recusal in the Russia investigation and firing special counsel Robert Mueller.
“I still think there’s time for Jeff Sessions to do the right thing,” Gaetz told Politico podcast “Off Message.”
If Mueller is to keep his job, Gaetz argued, he should reveal any evidence of the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. If Mueller can’t show that such evidence exists, “then let’s go ahead and wrap this thing up,” he said.
Though he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to interfere in the 2016 election, at least partly because Putin didn’t want Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to become president, Gaetz thinks the meddling didn’t play a big role in the election.
He told Politico that Russia’s meddling in the election was like “emptying a thimble of vinegar into the ocean hoping to change its chemical composition.” And, he says, Trump’s campaign was such a disaster that staffers wouldn’t have been able to figure out how to collude with Russia.
“The Trump campaign was lurching from one event to the next. I had some familiarity with the campaign. I spoke at, I think, four of the Trump rallies that were in Florida, and these were not highly coordinated events. I would often learn of the program of one of these events just a day or so before the event itself,” Gaetz said. “That seems to evidence the point that these were not people off colluding with Russia.”
