Senate Panel Approves Bill to Shield Mueller From Trump Firing

By Elana Schor, Politico

28 April 18

 

It’s a bipartisan rebuke to the president, who continues to rage against the expanding Russia probe.

he Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation Thursday that would protect Robert Mueller's job, a bipartisan rebuke that came hours after President Donald Trump said he may try to influence the special counsel’s Russia probe.

The measure still faces stiff opposition from the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has said he would not bring it to a vote in the full Senate. But the 14-7 committee vote indicates a growing appetite among GOP senators to pushing back against Trump as the president flirts with further involvement in the investigation of his campaign’s ties to Russia and potential obstruction of justice.

Every committee Democrat backed the bill, alongside four Republicans: Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona. The vote followed an early Thursday warning by Trump that he might try to play a more direct role in the DOJ’s inquiry.

The bipartisan Mueller-protection legislation, the product of lengthy negotiations among its initial backers — Graham, Tillis, and Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersely and Chris Coons of Delaware — would give any special counsel 10 days after a termination to challenge the move in court. Grassley agreed to call up the bill and worked with both parties to shape his own amendment to the plan.

Grassley acknowledged Thursday before the bill’s passage that “my constitutional concerns remain” about potential judicial review of a prospective executive-branch decision. Nonetheless, Grassley said, “I believe this bill should be considered by the full Senate.”

The revised version of Grassley’s amendment, adopted with broad Democratic support, would codify existing special counsel regulations, including reporting mandates for the DOJ to notify Congress about the establishment and closure of special counsel investigations. He initially proposed requiring that changes to the scope of Mueller’s probe be reported to Congress.

The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, called the revised Grassley plan “a compromise way to ensure appropriate congressional oversight while also inoculating the special counsel” from any attempted political interference.

Republicans continue to insist that Trump won’t fire Mueller, and others say Trump would simply veto the bill if Congress ever passed it. Those factors, as well as constitutionality concerns, largely drove the GOP opposition to the bill within the committee. GOP Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah and Orrin Hatch of Utah offered an amendment that would replace the special counsel protection provisions with a symbolic statement of support for Mueller’s probe, which the committee voted down.

Tillis, among the Republicans who voted against his three colleagues' alternative, told fellow senators that that approach “makes this about Mueller” alone when the bill’s backers intend its provisions to apply to future independent investigations at the DOJ.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was among those opposing the Cornyn-Lee-Hatch proposal, which stated that “Robert Mueller should be permitted to finish his work in a timely fashion.”

Grassley has taken heat from some fellow Republicans for pursuing the bill despite its slim chances of advancing, but he told POLITICO in a wide-ranging interview this week that “you've just got to do your job and let the chips fall where they may."

Asked why the committee would push ahead on a seemingly doomed bill — which itself long appeared short of GOP support in the panel — Graham cited the chairman.

"I think Senator Grassley said it well: The committee has an independent obligation to do what we think's best," Graham told reporters after the vote. "And I feel like the special counsel, now and in the future, needs protection."