Senate Republicans are warning President Donald Trump not to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, despite growing concerns about Mueller’s conflicts of interest and his approach to the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
On Monday, reports emerged that Newsmax Media CEO Chris Ruddy had suggested that the president was thinking of firing Mueller. The president has the constitutional authority to fire a Special Counsel.
However, the suggestion was opposed vehemently by Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Susan Collins (R-ME), according to Politico.
“It would be a disaster,” Graham said. “There’s no reason to fire Mueller. What’s he done to be fired?”
Politico quoted Collins as saying that firing Mueller would “certainly be an extraordinarily unwise move.”
However, there is growing opposition to Mueller’s appointment among conservatives outside the administration.
Mueller is known to be close friends with former FBI director James Comey, whose credibility he would have to weigh against the president’s if Mueller decided to probe whether Trump committed obstruction of justice by expressing the hope that Comey would be lenient with former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
In addition, Mueller has added a former Clinton Foundation attorney to his investigative team. The attorney, Jeannie Rhee, defended the Clinton Foundation against Freedom of Information Act requests regarding Hillary Clinton’s illicit private email server.
Moreover, Comey admitted to the Senate last week that after he was fired, he deliberately leaked a memorandum — which may or may not have been illegal — to the New York Times for the explicit purpose of triggering the appointment of a special counsel.
And Comey also admitted that President Trump had been correct to state that Comey had told him on three occasions that he was not under investigation himself in the broad Russian inquiry, adding that Trump had encouraged him to investigate any other officials. That removed much of the initial justification for the appointment of the special counsel, which was only done because of concerns that the president may have been trying to protect himself by firing Comey.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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