WASHINGTON -- Republicans lashed out Thursday at fellow GOP Sen. Richard Burr for his committee's subpoena of President Donald Trump's son, a move that suggested the Russia investigation is not "case closed" as some in the party insist. Trump said he was "very surprised" at the move.
The anger by some against the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman comes after several news outlets reported the panel is calling in Donald Trump Jr. to answer questions about his 2017 testimony to the panel as part of its investigation into Russian election interference. But the issue of re-summoning Trump's son laid bare conflict inside the president's party over whether investigations involving Russian election meddling are still merited.
It's the first known subpoena of a member of Trump's immediate family and a new sign that the Senate panel is continuing with its own two-year-long investigation, even after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's call Tuesday from the Senate floor to move on.
The subpoena appeared to catch the president and many of his allies by surprise.
"My son is a good person," Trump said. "My son testified for hours and hours. My son was totally exonerated by Mueller." The president did not make clear whether he would fight the subpoena, saying, "We'll see what happens. I'm just very surprised."
Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said in a CBS interview that although he was not told that Trump Jr. would be subpoenaed, he did not know whether others in the White House had been informed.
"Possible, but unlikely," Mulvaney said, adding: "I'm not involved in the president's -- his legal matters regarding his business, his legal matters regarding his family. I don't do that. I handle the West Wing of the government."
The subpoena highlights a delicate bind facing Burr, a third-term senator who is not expected to run for re-election when his term is up in 2022. He has been adamant that the panel's Russia investigation be bipartisan and fair. But he was named in Mueller's report as having possibly shared information with the White House after a confidential FBI briefing in 2017. Burr has said through a spokesman that he doesn't remember the conversation.
The blowback against him inside the Senate was especially fierce from Republicans up for re-election in 2020.
"This case is closed. The Mueller Report cleared [Donald Trump Jr.] and he's already spent 27 hours testifying before Congress," tweeted Burr's fellow North Carolina Republican senator, Thom Tillis. "It's time to move on & start focusing on issues that matter to Americans."
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he understands the younger Trump's "frustration."
Cornyn, who is running for re-election, said he was not aware the subpoena had been issued and plans to speak with Burr and committee members about "what we need to do to wrap up our investigation."
"At some point, this is not about finding facts," Cornyn said, according to CBS News. "This smacks of politics. And I think we have an important job to do to try to keep the Intelligence Committee out of politics."
Asked to clarify, Cornyn then backtracked and said he was not accusing Burr of playing politics. A Cornyn spokesman said the senator was "saying at some point the congressional investigations smack of politics, not specifically this decision."
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has also publicly questioned Burr's decision.
"Apparently the Republican chair of the Senate Intel Committee didn't get the memo from the Majority Leader that this case was closed," Paul said in a tweet.
Criticism also came from the top Republican in the House.
"Endless investigations--by either party--won't change the fact that there was NO collusion. It's time to move on. It's time to focus on ISSUES, not investigations," tweeted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
But Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican member of the panel, said he thinks the criticism of Burr is "a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Senate intelligence committee is about," which is congressional oversight and not prosecution.
The suggestion that Burr is failing to properly lead the committee is the first real sign of any disagreement among its members, who have worked together quietly since the panel's Russia investigation began in early 2017. Burr and the top Democrat on the committee, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, have often won praise from the panel's members, and also from McConnell, throughout.
As the subpoena drew criticism from GOP ranks, Republicans scrambled Thursday to develop a more cohesive response.
McConnell said in his Tuesday speech that it was "case closed" on the Mueller investigation, but his office noted that he didn't go so far as to say the intelligence panel's work was done. McConnell's speech noted the importance of the committee's "upcoming report."
Mueller did not find evidence that Trump conspired with the Russians to meddle in the 2016 campaign, but did not make a recommendation on whether he obstructed justice.
Burr's committee had renewed interest in talking to Trump Jr. after the president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified earlier this year. Cohen told a House committee in February that he had briefed Trump Jr. approximately 10 times about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow before the presidential election. Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a separate interview in 2017 he was only "peripherally aware" of the proposal.
Burr has said that he hopes the committee's investigation will be completed by August. Asked whether that was a reasonable timeline, Warner told reporters it depends on the panel's findings, although he acknowledged Burr has "been under pressure to get it done."
"We started with this [idea] that we're going to follow the truth wherever it leads," Warner said. "I think that's still our mantra. I think to have it done by August, that's a goal I could support. But the remarkable thing is almost every path we've led to has opened up more people, more contacts, more connections."
He said that the panel had "90[%] to 95%" of the information Mueller's team had gathered on Russian interference efforts, but that it has also made additional discoveries not included in Mueller's report.
"We will have other areas that will frankly be much more extensive than what Mueller had and much more descriptive about the organized ongoing effort," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Mary Clare Jalonick, Jonathan Lemire, Laurie Kellman, Lisa Mascaro, Catherine Lucey, Eric Tucker and Padmananda Rama of The Associated Press; by Felicia Sonmez, Ellen Nakashima, Ashley Parker and Matt Zapotosky of The Washington Post; and by Annie Karni and Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times.
A Section on 05/10/2019