President Trump’s Republican allies want special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation to end now, or at least in time for the midterm elections.
“We want to make sure that he is thorough, that he gets the facts and the truth to come out, but I do think it’s important that it comes to a conclusion and it seems to me the longer this drags out, the more frustrated the American public is going to get,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told the Washington Examiner Thursday.
When asked about ending it before the Nov. 6 elections, Thune said that should be “more than sufficiently long to complete the work.
It’s been a long year for Republicans and the Trump administration since Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller, the director of the FBI from 2001 to 2013, to take over the federal government’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller was appointed May 17, 2017, and Republicans watching the investigation stretch into Year 2 don’t want to see it hit Year 3.
“I think the American people deserve a process that completes itself quickly with full transparency of information. That they let them know what they learned, happened, and to have it on the table,” said Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., ”Setting that aside, we just need to get this done … and let the American people know.”
While Democrats might see an electoral advantage in the ongoing investigation, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, said it could play to the GOP’s advantage the longer it goes.
“It has his people much more excited now than before,” the former New York mayor recently told Politico.
But most Republicans would rather see it go away. Rep. Todd Rokita, R-Ind., who lost to Mike Braun for the party’s Senate nomination, introduced a House resolution that would end Mueller’s work.
Aside from the political distraction it causes, Republicans say Mueller’s investigation is biased. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, notes that many Democrats are on Mueller’s staff.
“It was a serious mistake to staff the special counsel’s office with over a dozen partisan Democratic donors. The Department of Justice has an obligation to be apolitical, not to be seen as a partisan political operation, and filling that office with Democratic donors gravely undermined the credibility of anything the office did moving forward,” Cruz told the Washington Examiner.
History has shown that special counsels and independent counsels “are magnets for abuse,” he added.
“[I]ndependent counsels and special counsels, far too often become like Javert in Les Miserables — on a crusade to nail their target no matter what, and they are prone to becoming fishing expeditions moving far afield from their original mandate. That concern only grows each and every day,” Cruz said.
While Republicans want it to end, Democrats have been supporting legislation to make sure Trump can’t fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, which could be a way to get at Mueller. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he won’t bring the legislation to the floor for a full vote, but it was a launching pad for Democrats last month to tell their Republican counterparts how important it is to let Mueller finish his probe.
Democrats again on Thursday spoke to the importance of the investigation.
“The probe led by special counsel Mueller, a Republican and decorated Marine veteran, concerns the campaign of a hostile foreign power to interfere in and influence the outcome of an American election. There is nothing, nothing more serious to the integrity of a democracy than the guarantee of free and fair elections,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
“I would say to the president: It’s not a witch hunt when seventeen Russians have been indicted,” he added. “It’s not a witch hunt when some of the most senior members of the Trump campaign have been indicted. It’s not a witch hunt when Democrats and Republicans agree with the intelligence community that Russia interfered in our election to aid President Trump.”
Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, echoed Schumer’s assertion that Mueller’s operation is not a “witch hunt.”
“When you tune out the politics and the noise surrounding the Mueller probe, the facts speak for themselves: the Special Counsel is conducting a thorough, professional investigation into Russia’s attack on our democracy, which has yielded five guilty pleas, as well as the indictment of the President’s campaign manager and 13 Russian operatives,” Warner said. “That’s not a witch hunt; it’s a career lawman doing his job and doing it well.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told the Washington Examiner that it is “really important” for Mueller to continue on his investigation.
“This is the question: What are [Republicans] afraid of? If you’ve got nothing to hide, you should have nothing to fear on the Mueller investigation,” Van Hollen said. “This is a person of great integrity, and they’re going to follow the facts where they lead them, and it’s important they be allowed to do so. So we’ll have to see what happens here, but I think that those who are calling to prematurely terminate the investigation are apparently afraid of what Mueller might find.”
