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Push for Special Counsel Bill Shows GOP’s Rising Fear Mueller Will Be Fired

WASHINGTON — Sen. Mitch McConnell’s unilateral declaration this week that he would not allow a vote on legislation to protect the special counsel, Robert Mueller, provoked outrage from Democrats who said McConnell was giving President Donald Trump carte blanche to oust the leader of the investigation into Russian election interference and the president’s inner circle.

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Push for Special Counsel Bill Shows GOP’s Rising Fear Mueller Will Be Fired
By
CARL HULSE
, New York Times

WASHINGTON — Sen. Mitch McConnell’s unilateral declaration this week that he would not allow a vote on legislation to protect the special counsel, Robert Mueller, provoked outrage from Democrats who said McConnell was giving President Donald Trump carte blanche to oust the leader of the investigation into Russian election interference and the president’s inner circle.

In reality, the bipartisan bill would stand little chance of passage even if McConnell, R-Ky. and Senate majority leader, relented and allowed it to be debated and approved by the Senate. House Republicans are adamantly opposed. And if the bill somehow cleared Congress, Trump would have no incentive to sign a measure limiting his power. On top of that, the legislation might not be constitutional.

But supporters of the bill are pressing ahead anyway, intensifying a dispute that underscores both rising concern among Republicans that Trump might fire Mueller and uncertainty about just how they would react if he did.

McConnell’s stance has serious consequences. Backers of the legislation believe that a strong Senate show of support for Mueller and his inquiry would send an unmistakable signal to Trump that dismissing Mueller would present serious complications for his presidency.

“It would send a message,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who recently endorsed the special counsel proposal written by two Republican senators, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and two Democratic senators, Chris Coons of Delaware and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Republicans both inside and outside the government warn that firing Mueller would be very unwise.

“You need to leave him alone, let him do his job and get it over with,” said Saxby Chambliss, a retired senator from Georgia who was the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee and talks frequently with his former colleagues about Trump and the special counsel. “The president keeps slamming Mueller, and I think that politically just doesn’t play well, even with folks I know who are part of the president’s base.”

McConnell’s argument has consistently been that such legislation is not needed because Trump will not take action against Mueller. But the president’s increasing anger and frustration about the inquiry has other Republicans joining Democrats in worrying that the counsel might be about to lose his job. Although top Republicans have said there would be significant blowback, it remains unclear what steps would be taken beyond admonishment and hand-wringing.

One top Senate Republican acknowledged privately that there may be little else the party would do. Any move toward impeachment seems out of the question in the Republican-controlled Congress. Conservatives in the House are instead demanding an end to the Mueller inquiry.

While the Senate could censure the president, it is doubtful Republicans would take that action before midterm elections in which they will be relying on Trump supporters to help them hold the Senate. It has been done only once before, in the case of Andrew Jackson (coincidentally a Trump favorite), and was later reversed.

Another Republican suggested that the Senate could refuse to consider Justice Department nominees unless the president agreed to the naming of a new counsel, a reaction Democrats would consider woefully insufficient. Democrats fear they might not learn the Republican reaction until after the president takes his own action.

“Why not head off a constitutional crisis at the pass rather than waiting until it’s too late?” Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Thursday in calling for approval of the special counsel legislation. “Why even flirt with the prospect of a president challenging the very nature of our system of government?”

Democrats are just as concerned that Trump and House Republicans are building a separate case for firing Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who is overseeing the investigation as a result of the decision by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself. They fear that a move against Rosenstein would not grab as much attention as dismissing Mueller and that Rosenstein’s successor could then constrain the inquiry.

Pressed again Wednesday evening at a news conference about whether he intended to fire either of them, Trump repeated his denunciation of the idea of collusion between Russia and his campaign as a hoax and called for the inquiry to be wrapped up. “As far as the two gentlemen you told me about, they’ve been saying I’m going to get rid of them for the last three months, four months, five months,” he said. “And they’re still here.”

Despite McConnell’s resistance, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, still plans for his panel to take up the special counsel bill next week. It appears to have a strong chance of receiving the committee’s approval.

“The views of the majority leader are important to consider, but they do not govern what happens here on the Judiciary Committee,” Grassley said Thursday. McConnell has previously demonstrated that he is willing to bottle up a bill he believes could divide Senate Republicans or prove politically problematic, even if it has bipartisan support from members of the Judiciary Committee. In 2016, he refused to take up a criminal justice overhaul that could have passed the Senate with the backing of Grassley and many other Republicans, citing objections from a handful of conservatives.

Tillis and his allies say they still hope to sway McConnell. “It’s on us to convince the leader that it’s a worthwhile effort,” Tillis said. “We’ve got to get the votes, and that will come if we get a successful outcome out of Judiciary.”

The fight over the measure is taking place as James Comey, the former FBI director, continues a high-profile media tour promoting his tell-all about clashes with Trump. Collins and other Republicans say they have found the entire exercise unseemly and damaging to the FBI. They contrasted Comey’s performance with what they say is the professionalism being exhibited by Mueller, a man well known to many lawmakers from his time at the FBI and Justice Department.

“James Comey is no Bob Mueller,” Collins said.

Now she and many others are eager to protect Mueller from suffering Comey’s fate — fired by Trump over the Russia investigation.

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