anthropodSenators launch bipartisan effort to ensure Trump cannot fire Mueller
US senators from both parties are seeking to protect the special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired by Donald Trump, marking the first bipartisan bid by lawmakers to impose a check on the president against the backdrop of the Russia investigation.
A pair of bills were unveiled on Thursday, co-sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, that would take measures to bar the president from directly firing the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US election and any involvement by the president and his team.
Mueller, who was appointed after Trump fired the then FBI director, James Comey, in May, has convened a grand jury in Washington, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Thursday, in a sign that his inquiry is escalating.
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Ty Cobb, special counsel to the president, said he was not aware that Mueller had convened a grand jury – a powerful institution in the US government charged with both investigating potential criminal conduct as well as determining whether criminal charges should be brought.
“Grand jury matters are typically secret,” said Cobb, in a statement provided by the White House.
“The White House favors anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly ... The White House is committed to fully cooperating with Mr Mueller.”
A spokesperson for Mueller would not confirm the report.
Reuters reported that grand jury subpoenas had been issued in relation to the June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, and the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
The encounter was revealed last month and provided the first glimpse that the Trump campaign might have been willing to collude with the Russians. After initially misleading the public on the nature of the meeting, Trump Jr was forced to publicly release emails detailing how he accepted the meeting under the pretense of receiving “very high level and sensitive information” to incriminate Hillary Clinton.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/au...MP=share_btn_fb
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