The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday that the president is working to discredit and “take down” special counsel Bob Mueller, just as Mueller’s probe is beginning.
Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller to oversee the FBI investigation into Russian election interference, including any potential links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, in May.
“The president wants to take down Bob Mueller. His lawyer wants to take down Bob Mueller. The question is, why?” California congressman Adam Schiff said on ABC’s This Week. “They want to lay the foundation to discredit whatever Bob Mueller comes up with. They’re essentially engaging in a scorched earth litigation strategy.”
Trump has in recent days expressed frustration with Rosenstein, who has the authority to fire Mueller. He has also repeatedly condemned the ongoing probes that involve his associates as a “witch hunt.”
Speculation surrounding a potential Mueller firing ramped up last week, after a friend of the president’s said that Trump was “weighing” whether to terminate the special counsel.
The White House has said Trump does not intend to do so. Rosenstein told lawmakers last week that he did not see good cause to fire Mueller, and would not follow orders unless they were “lawful and appropriate.”
Trump ally Newt Gingrich said Sunday that he began to grow skeptical of Mueller after fired FBI director James Comey testified that he had leaked details about his conversations with the president in order to prompt the appointment of a special counsel.
“The special counsel happens to be a close friend of Comey, which is weird,” Gingrich said on This Week.
Schiff also said Sunday that he believes there is some evidence of collusion between the Trump team and the Kremlin. Committee chairman Devin Nunes, who stepped aside from the panel’s Russia investigation in April, has said he has seen “no credible evidence” of collusion.
“I think there is evidence. I can’t go into the particulars of our closed investigation,” Schiff said. “I’m not prepared to say that there is proof you could take to a jury, but I can say there’s enough that we ought to be investigating.”
Schiff added that he believes there is evidence of obstruction of justice related to the president’s firing of FBI director James Comey.
Gingrich said that the dismissal did not impede the FBI probe, and that Trump fired Comey because his public behavior was “destructive.”
“Comey would not say in public what he was saying to Trump in private, which is you’re not being investigated,” he said.
