For months, efforts to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign flickered at the fringes of political debate.
Now, the allegation that FBI and Justice Department officials are part of a broad conspiracy against President Donald Trump is suddenly center stage, amplified by conservative activists, GOP lawmakers, right-leaning media and the president himself.
Trump and some Republican lawmakers have increasingly argued there's evidence that officials at the FBI, including Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, were biased toward Democrat Hillary Clinton and against Trump in the run-up to last year's presidential election.
McCabe, 49, has served as the No. 2 official at the FBI since February 2016, and plans to retire next year.
[RUSSIA REPORT: Documents on Russian interference in election ]
"There would appear to be conflicts of interest" and it's "better for everyone if he does step aside," Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, said of McCabe on Fox News Channel's Sunday Morning Futures.
FBI Director Christopher Wray is considering replacing McCabe with David Bowdich, the bureau's third-ranking official, The New York Times reported, citing people familiar with the situation. Trump chose Wray to head the FBI after dismissing James Comey in May.
Trump is "very pleased to have Chris Wray now running the FBI," Marc Short, Trump's legislative affairs director, said on Fox News Sunday.
Short denied that the president's assertions of bias at the FBI were intended to undermine Mueller's investigation.
It's "important to segregate and separate that from the special counsel because the White House has cooperated in every way with that investigation, and after millions and millions of dollars no collusion has been proven," Short said.
"When we put all of our faith and our confidence in the Department of Justice and the FBI knowing that there should be no bias there, [Trump] is making the point that we need to be sure there's no bias," he said.
But Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a Republican critic of Trump, said on ABC's This Week that it "puts us in peril" if the president continues to undermine the legitimacy of the special counsel's investigation.
Flake and Sen. Bernie Sanders both warned Trump against pardoning former national security adviser Michael Flynn or other former aides who've been indicted by Mueller.
"To say the least it would be provoking a constitutional crisis," Sanders of Vermont, who ran against Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, said on CNN's State of the Union.
McCabe's tenure has become entangled in recent years in politically charged controversies, including the investigation into Clinton's use of private email when she was secretary of State, and the ongoing criminal probe into Russian interference.
Most recently, House Republicans demanded to know what discussions McCabe might have had in 2016 with two FBI officials who exchanged text messages critical of Trump.
One of them referred to a meeting in "Andy's office" where they discussed "that there's no way" Trump would be elected but "we can't take that risk."
Republicans have suggestedthat this may have spawned an action plan for the FBI to exploit a dossier of unverified allegations against Trump that was compiled by a former British spy and financed largely by Clinton's campaign.
The officials, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, are no longer part of the investigation.
Additionally, Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, obtained emails regarding McCabe that the group says shows he was involved in helping his wife, Jill, run as a Democratic candidate for a state Senate seat in Virginia.
McCabe was told in one email that then-Director Comey had "no issue" with McCabe's wife seeking the seat.
Another document said Clinton attended a June 2015 fundraiser for Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's political action committee, which in turn gave nearly $500,000 to Jill McCabe for her state Senate bid.
Trump tweeted over the weekend about McCabe's wife's campaign being given money by "Clinton Puppets."
Among current and former law enforcement officials, the public attacks on the FBI are seen as an indirect way of trying to discredit Mueller and blunt future findings he may issue, a view shared by many Democratic lawmakers.
"There is a concerted push from the White House ... and their allies to bring the investigations to a halt," Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview.
"They are also trying to attack Mueller's credibility and the credibility of the FBI, so that whatever Mueller finds can be rejected ... as a fake."
"The White House would like to have the best of both worlds," he added. "They make the public case that they are cooperating, while their allies do the dirty work."
In response, Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer overseeing the response to the Russia investigation, said in a statement that "the President respects the Special Counsel and his process and will continue to fully cooperate with the Special Counsel."
A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.
The calls for Mueller's ouster are strongest in the House, where a group of Republicans have been calling for the special counsel to resign.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has said Mueller's investigation should proceed without interference. But he has allowed several committee investigations that are calling into question the integrity of the probe.
"The House has a constitutional obligation to exercise congressional oversight, and the speaker is supportive of our committee chairmen carrying out their work," said Ryan spokesman AshLee Strong.
In recent days, for example, three House committees grilled McCabe over his participation in the FBI's Russia investigation and his role in the FBI examination into Clinton's use of a private email server.
Democrats called it a thinly veiled attempt to weaken McCabe and slow down Mueller's probe.
At the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and a small group of Republican lawmakers are discussing writing a report next year that would highlight alleged "corruption" at the FBI, according to people familiar with the plans.
Such a report would focus on information about the conduct of FBI officials in the course of the Russia investigation, those people said.
On the Senate side, one of the loudest voices has been Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who has raised questions about the impartiality of Mueller's probe.
He has called for McCabe to be fired and shown a willingness to dig into Mueller's past tenure as FBI director, complaining Thursday that the FBI and Justice Department have been too slow to rout out people peddling "political influence."
Grassley has also called for a second special counsel to look at decisions the FBI and Justice Department made at the time that former President Barack Obama's administration approved a uranium deal giving Russia a significant stake in the U.S. market.
The inquiry would bring de facto scrutiny on Mueller, who was FBI director at the time.
Grassley said that his staff is in touch with Nunes' staff, though he would not specify exactly what elements of their committees' parallel inquiries they were communicating about.
"I wouldn't want to say there's coordination," Grassley said. "There's communication."
He insisted that he was not aiming to discredit Mueller, adding that he has "got confidence [Mueller]'s going to be able to do what he's doing."
Trump, meanwhile, has continued to urge on the questions. This month, he tweeted that after the FBI's "phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more) ... its reputation is in Tatters - worst in History! But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness."
Information for this article was contributed by Michael Kranish, Devlin Barrett, Karoun Demirjian, Tom Hamburger and Alice Crites of The Washington Post; by Chris Strohm, Billy House and Steven T. Dennis of Bloomberg News; and by Sadie Gurman and Eric Tucker of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/25/2017