WASHINGTON – Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said on Sunday that he would call on former special adviser Robert S. Mueller III to testify before his panel on the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and ties to the Trump campaign.
The announcement, part of an election year attempt by Senate Republicans to discredit the investigation, came after Mueller broke a nearly one-year silence on Saturday in an article for The Washington Post in which he defended Roger J.’s accusation in your office. Stone Jr. and his broader investigation. President Trump brought the investigation, which consumed much of his presidency, back to the fore when he commuted Stone’s sentence on Friday, and the White House issued a long statement denouncing Mueller’s investigation and the “overzealous prosecutors” who condemned Mr. Stone.
“Apparently Mr. Mueller is willing – and is also capable – to defend Mueller’s investigation through an article published in the Washington Post,” Mr. Graham wrote on Twitter. “Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee previously asked Mueller to appear on the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about his investigation. That request will be granted. “
A spokeswoman for the committee confirmed on Sunday that it was preparing a formal invitation to Mueller.
Although the special attorney’s investigation did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia, it outlined several contacts between them and documented several cases in which Mr. Trump took steps to prevent the investigation. Since the special attorney’s report was released last year, Republicans have sought to cast doubt on their findings by tainting Mueller and his investigators and painting the Trump campaign as victims of malicious attacks by police officers.
Last month, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to give themselves broad authority to summon dozens of national security advisers and several senior Obama administration officials, and Graham signaled that he would hold public hearings highlighting errors and omissions of investigators who had was discovered by an inspector general at the Justice Department. A similar investigation is being carried out by Republicans on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
“We need to look closely at how the Mueller investigation got off track,” Graham said before the vote. “This committee is not going to stay on the sidelines and move on.”
Democrats said Graham is wasting the committee’s time when the panel should address issues such as the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and racial discrimination on policing. They accused Republicans of using the committee as an election policy tool.
The effort reflects one of Mr. Trump’s own to rewrite the narrative of the investigation in Russia. At the end of last week, he publicly vented that neither his government nor the Republicans were properly investigating the baseless allegations that former President Barack Obama planned a plot to spy on his campaign.
“No response from the Republican Senate judiciary, NO ‘JUSTICE’, NO FBI, NO NOTHING,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter.
The president continued this effort on Friday night, while commuting the sentence of Stone, a longtime friend and former campaign advisor, shortly before he served a 40-month sentence in federal prison. He was convicted of obstructing a Congressional investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign and his ties to Russia, with prosecutors convincing jurors that he lied under oath, withheld a treasure trove of documents and threatened a damage associate if he cooperated with the Congress investigators. Mr. Stone maintained his innocence.
In announcing the switchover, the White House issued a speech condemning Mueller’s office, calling its prosecutors “out of control” and “desperate for flashy headlines to make up for a failed investigation”.
“As it became clear that this witch hunt would never bear fruit, the special attorney’s office resorted to lawsuit-based charges directed at high-profile people in an attempt to fabricate the false impression that crime lurks below the surface,” the statement said. . “These accusations were the product of recklessness born of frustration and malice.”
In his rebuttal in The Post, Mueller said he felt “compelled to respond to both broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate” and “specific claims that Roger Stone was a victim of our office”.
“We make all decisions in Stone’s case, as in all of our cases, based only on the facts and the law and in accordance with the rule of law,” wrote Mueller. “The women and men who conducted these investigations and prosecutions acted with the utmost integrity. Statements to the contrary are false. “