GOP senators offer Mueller cover from doubters

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans are working to shield special counsel Robert Mueller from mounting GOP fury about new evidence that members of his team were biased against President Donald Trump, as factions of the party contend that his entire investigation is tainted.

The stakes are high: If the GOP moves to hold Mueller accountable for his former subordinates' actions, it could enable Trump to order his ouster and cripple the inquiry he has run examining Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether the president's campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to tilt its outcome in his favor.

But as House Republicans demand that the special counsel face a reckoning over the newly released details of anti-Trump, pro-Hillary Clinton text messages sent between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, Senate Republicans are fighting to preserve Mueller's ability to steer the Russia investigation to its conclusion.

"There's all kinds of reasons to believe there's political interference, and we ought to get to the bottom of it," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said, adding: "I've got confidence in Mueller, as far as what he's doing in the Trump-Russia investigation, and I don't have any reason to believe otherwise."

[RUSSIA REPORT: Documents on Russian interference in election ]

Grassley, who is running one of three congressional inquiries looking at aspects of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, was one of the first lawmakers this year to call for a second special counsel to look into the circumstances of a 2010 deal that gave Russia a significant stake in the U.S. uranium market, and he now thinks the special counsel could look at the Strzok-Page texts, too.

He was also one of the first and most consistent voices insisting that investigators focus on a dossier of salacious but unsubstantiated allegations surrounding a trip to Moscow that Trump took in 2013, based on research that the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign later were found to have paid for.

But when asked if Mueller's former team members' texts were fueling opposition to Mueller's Russia investigation, Grassley's answer was direct and simple: "No."

Several other GOP senators echoed that sentiment, taking pains to spare Mueller from censure even as they expressed anger that FBI officials capable of expressing such bias had ever been allowed on the team.

"Mueller's public service has been commendable up until now... . He's a very capable guy, and I don't think you benefit by starting this process over again," said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a member of the Senate Republican leadership team and the Intelligence Committee, which also is investigating Trump's alleged Russia ties.

"I am concerned that he couldn't put a team together that wasn't so overwhelmingly on one side of the ideological spectrum," he added. "But maybe even somebody as capable and experienced as Mueller can learn a lesson from this."

Others found solace in the fact that Mueller removed Strzok upon learning of his texts with Page, who had left Mueller's team weeks earlier for unrelated reasons. But these lawmakers insisted that the texts were reason to have a second special counsel look into evidence of political bias at the FBI.

"This FBI agent doesn't taint Mueller's investigation, because Mueller's going to be responsible for the final product. Mueller fired the guy, I liked that," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a leading member in the Judiciary Committee's investigation. "But we need to have somebody looking at this other stuff, and it can't be Mueller."

Graham has not shied away from criticizing Trump. But even the president's staunchest supporters in the Senate have made a concerted effort to preserve a decent opinion of Mueller as their estimation of the inquiry plummeted.

"Set Mueller aside. I don't know. But I have to tell you this: I think those texts, I believe those texts totally taint the investigation that's going on right now," said Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, a senior member of the Intelligence Committee.

"I don't know who hired those people, but they need to be replaced," he continued. When pressed about whether Mueller bore responsibility for assembling his team, he repeatedly declined to draw the connection, insisting, "I'm not going to use those words."

This sentiment, though problematic for Mueller, stands in sharp contrast to that in the House, where the special counsel's critics are openly calling for his removal.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who last month filed a resolution calling for Mueller to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, said Wednesday that he had been "a lone voice in the wilderness" for the past few weeks. But since the Strzok-Page texts emerged, "now I find a chorus singing loudly behind me," he said.

A Section on 12/15/2017

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