Former special counsel Robert Mueller has declined an invitation to testify about the Russia investigation before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to Chairman Lindsey Graham.
“He says he doesn’t have enough time,” the South Carolina Republican said Wednesday evening on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show. Graham also announced that former FBI Director James Comey agreed to testify at the end of the month, declaring “the day of reckoning is upon us when it comes to Crossfire Hurricane.”
Graham is leading a congressional investigation into Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the FBI’s counterintelligence inquiry into ties between President Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, which was wrapped into Mueller’s special counsel investigation in May 2017. He has been pushing to hear from a catalog of witnesses and secure still-secret documents in the run-up to the 2020 election, which is now less than two months away, and the longtime South Carolina lawmaker is in what polls indicate will be a tight race against Democratic candidate Jaime Harrison to keep his seat.
Democrats pushed the chairman over the summer to invite Mueller to testify about his report as Graham set his sights on dozens of other officials from the Obama and Trump administrations who were involved in the Russia investigation. Graham said he would agree to invite Mueller to testify in July after the former FBI director wrote an opinion article in the Washington Post arguing that Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to Trump, “remains a convicted felon, and rightfully so.” This was after Trump commuted Stone’s sentence on seven felony crimes.
Hannity asked Graham on Wednesday if he would “accept” Mueller declining the invitation to testify given the disclosure last week of documents that show more than a dozen phones belonging to special counsel team members, including top prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, were “wiped” for various reasons. The senator demurred, saying he wants to ask “the people who did the erasing” and that he’ll press the Justice Department and its inspector general to look into the matter.
Mueller has not testified about his report since the summer of 2019, and even then, he only spoke to two House committees. His unsteady performance shocked onlookers, including Democrats. After finishing his investigation, Mueller, now 76, rejoined the law firm WilmerHale.
Graham said he was interested to hear the former special counsel and others respond to a Justice Department inspector general report released in December that found the investigation was properly predicated but also criticized some aspects of the FBI’s work.
Graham said that Comey, who oversaw the Crossfire Hurricane investigation before he was fired by Trump in May 2017, agreed to testify, without the use of a subpoena, on Sept. 30. “I appreciate Mr. Comey coming before the committee. He will be respectfully treated but asked hard questions,” he said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security Committee, run by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, voted to authorize subpoenas for Comey and other Obama administration officials as part of its review of the Russia investigation.
The judiciary panel is “negotiating” with Comey’s former deputy, Andrew McCabe, about appearing for testimony, Graham added. “We’re hoping to get him without a subpoena. Time will tell,” the senator said.
Graham also said that his team will speak with FBI officials who interviewed a key subsource for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s flawed anti-Trump dossier, which the bureau used to obtain warrants to wiretap a member of Trump’s campaign, in the next week to 10 days, and noted that Peter Strzok, the fired FBI agent who played a key role in opening the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and is now on a book tour, has been invited to appear. “We’ll see if Mr. Strzok will come without a subpoena,” he said.
Graham has said his inquiry, which has already taken in testimony from former Deputy Attorneys General Rod Rosenstein and Sally Yates, is intended “to find out how the Department of Justice and the FBI got Crossfire Hurricane so wrong, why they lied to the FISA court, [and] to make sure it never happens again.”
As for investigating whether any crimes were committed, the senator said that is up to U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is conducting a criminal inquiry into the Russia matter and has so far secured one plea deal from former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith for altering an email.
Last week, Graham told Hannity he would be “shocked” if Clinesmith is the only person to be charged as part of Durham’s investigation.
