President Trump must not fire the man leading a special investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, a senior Senate Republican said Wednesday.
Trump’s attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions and stated frustration that former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel have fueled speculation that he plans to kill the probe. But Sen. Bob Corker, who was once a contender for a spot in the Trump administration, warned against such a move.
“I cannot imagine a serious conversation taking place in the White House about firing Mueller,” Corker, a Tennessee Republican who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday. “That would be a major mistake, a major miscalculation. For that reason, I cannot believe there’s a serious discussion taking place and discussing it publicly is, I hope and believe, an unnecessary waste of time.”
Trump has made a series of public attacks on Sessions in the last several days, stemming from his frustration with the conduct of the Russia investigation. Sessions recused himself from the probe, which includes a review of potential Trump campaign contacts with the Russian government, a decision that delegated the authority to appoint a special counsel to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
“Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else,” Trump told the New York Times last week.
Soon after, he began tweeting criticisms of the attorney general, such as faulting him for not leading a prosecution of Hillary Clinton. Trump confirmed Tuesday that he is “looking at” firing Sessions and downplayed the significance of the former Alabama senator’s support for him in the 2016 Republican primary season.
“He was a senator from Alabama,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal. “I won the state by a lot, massive numbers. A lot of the states I won by massive numbers. But he was a senator, he looks at 40,000 people, and he probably says, ‘What do I have to lose?’ And he endorsed me. So, it’s not like a great loyal thing about the endorsement. But I’m very disappointed in Jeff Sessions.”
Corker — who by turns was considered as a potential running mate for Trump and then emerged as a contender to lead the State Department before the president tapped former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson for the job — said it would be “highly problematic” if Trump were to fire Sessions.
“I don’t get any sense that the president is going to take steps to actually fire Sessions,” he said during a forum hosted by the Washington Post. “I think they understand that’s problematic — highly problematic. But I do think it’s evident that the president is making it difficult for Attorney General Sessions, so look, I think that’s something Jeff has got to to decide. I know of no professional reason for Jeff to step down.”
