Two Republican senators on Sunday said that US President Donald Trump would be wise to keep a public silence on an independent investigation into his 2016 campaign’s contacts with Russia in the wake of news reports that he sought to fire the special counsel.
US senators Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins also urged special counsel Robert Mueller to review whether Trump tried to fire him in June last year, an accusation Trump has labeled “fake news.”
“Mueller is the best person to look at it,” Graham said. “I’m sure that there will be an investigation around whether or not President Trump did try to fire Mr Mueller.”
Graham, co-sponsor of legislation that would protect Mueller from being fired without a legal basis, said he would be “glad to pass it tomorrow.”
However, he said that Mueller’s job appeared to be in no immediate danger, pointing to the political costs if Trump did remove him.
“It’s pretty clear to me that everybody in the White House knows it would be the end of President Trump’s presidency if he fired Mr Mueller,” he said.
Collins said it would certainly “not hurt” for the US Congress to approve added protections for Mueller given the recent media reports.
However, she did not offer a timeline.
“I think the president would be best served by never discussing the investigation, ever, whether in tweets, except in private conversations with his attorney,” she said.
The New York Times and other outlets reported that Trump backed off his attempt to fire Mueller in June last year only after White House lawyer Don McGahn refused to relay his directive to the US Department of Justice and threatened to quit if Trump pressed the issue.
According to the reports, Trump said that Mueller could not be fair because of a dispute over golf club fees that he said Mueller owed at a Trump golf club in Sterling, Virginia.
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