In Warning to Trump, Senators Advance Bill to Protect Mueller

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee fired a political warning shot at the White House on Thursday, advancing on a bipartisan vote long-stalled legislation to allow special counsels such as Robert Mueller to appeal their firing to a panel of judges and possibly be reinstated.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate majority leader, has stated unequivocally that he will not bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote. But with four Republicans, including the committee’s chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, joining Democrats to vote in favor it, the measure sent a clear message to President Donald Trump that there would be serious consequences to firing the special counsel.

Even senators who voted against the legislation warned Trump against trying to dismiss Mueller. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving Senate Republican, said that “firing Mueller would cause a firestorm and bring the administration’s agenda to a halt. It could even result in impeachment.”

Trump seemingly offered fresh reason for their concern earlier Thursday. In a telephone interview with “Fox & Friends,” Trump again aired his frustration with the Justice Department and with Mueller’s team, which he dismissed as being filled with partisan Democrats. He said he had been trying not to interfere in matters before the Justice Department.

But, Trump warned, “at some point I won’t.”

Democrats have been clamoring for the Senate to move the legislation for weeks, as Trump has escalated his attacks on the special counsel investigation and contemplated removing key figures overseeing it. They claimed Thursday’s vote as a modest, if mostly symbolic, victory.

“Frankly, I’ve never been so concerned that the walls protecting the independence and integrity of our law enforcement institutions are at risk of crumbling,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the longest-serving member of the Senate. “I’m hoping that the strong bipartisan stance we are taking today may save us from waking up to a tweetstorm that sends us careening toward a constitutional crisis.”

Republicans who support the measure have been careful to present it as a necessary and appropriate check on the authority of the presidency itself, whoever is in office.

“It’s not about Mr. Mueller,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of the bill’s authors. “It’s not about Trump. It’s about the rule of law.”

The bill, called the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, would codify into law the existing Justice Department regulation that says a special counsel may be fired only by the attorney general and only for good cause.

It would create a 10-day window within which a special counsel could petition a panel of judges to determine if the firing was for good cause. If it were judged not to have been, the counsel would be reinstated. The bill would ensure that the special counsel’s staff and investigative materials would be preserved in the interim.

The senators also voted to include an amendment by Grassley that would require special counsels to produce to the attorney general and to Congress a report at the end of their investigation or in the event that they are fired. Such a report would include significant findings of the case, as well as information about decisions to file charges or not to file charges, among other details. Currently, special counsels like Mueller are required to make a report to the attorney general, but that information will not necessarily be shared with Congress or the public.

The committee voted to reject another amendment that would have replaced the bill with a nonbinding resolution saying it was the sense of the Senate that Mueller should be allowed to finish his work.

Several Republican senators raised concerns about the bill's constitutionality and the ability of Congress to shield a special prosecutor from being fired by the attorney general at the president’s direction. Congress, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, created the position of an independent counsel who answered to a panel of judges, not to the attorney general. The Supreme Court upheld that arrangement in 1988. But after the Iran-Contra and Whitewater investigations, both parties came to view the position as far too powerful, and Congress let the independent counsel statute lapse in 1999.

Grassley said he shared some of the constitutional concerns, but gave the bill his stamp of approval anyway.

“It’s possible the bill goes too far, and I understand the position of those with strong constitutional objections who will vote against it,” Grassley said before the vote on Thursday. “But, at the very least, if my amendment is adopted, it will require the executive branch to give more information to Congress.

Republican and Democratic senators first introduced bills aimed at protecting Mueller late last summer. The Judiciary Committee held a hearing to consider their constitutionality not long after. But an effort to combine two competing and bipartisan bills languished for months, as the urgency among Republicans dissipated.

That changed with Trump’s recent combativeness toward investigators, and four senators — Graham and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both Republicans, and Chris Coons of Delaware and Cory Booker of New Jersey, both Democrats — reached a compromise this month.

McConnell remains opposed to the legislation, which he says would split Senate Republicans and could goad Trump into retaliating. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has offered no more support for parallel legislation in the House. And Trump would most likely veto the bill if it got to his desk.

Still, Democrats, led by Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, urged McConnell to change his mind and put the bill up for a vote immediately.

“Rather than waiting for a constitutional crisis, the full Senate should act now,” he said.