Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., marking the one-year anniversary of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, ripped into Republicans accusing them of lying and damaging democracy, the Washington Examiner is reporting.
"We should all be aghast at the relentless parade of conspiracies manufactured by the most extreme elements of the Republican Party and conservative media to distract from the special counsel's investigation," he said Thursday on the Senate floor.
"The volume of mistruth, the weight of distortions and fabrication, is hurting our democracy."
And he noted Mueller's investigation has already led to the indictments of 17 Russians, along with two former Trump campaign officials.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump lashed out at the Mueller probe and once again called it a "witch hunt."
But Schumer said: "Any fair-minded citizen and even the most ardent partisans should be able to look at the facts and say this investigation is not a witch hunt."
Schumer had blasted the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday after it released more than 1,800 pages of transcripts of its interview with Donald Trump Jr. and others who attended a meeting with a Russian attorney at Trump Tower before the 2016 election.
Schumer had said the probe of Russian meddling in the election by GOP lawmakers on the panel was a "whitewash." He maintained the panel's investigation was "designed to let the president and his lawyers interfere with the Mueller probe and get a peek at any potential evidence."
But, according to The Hill, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee chairman, is now firing back.
"The claim that there was some secret plan to help one side or the other in the Mueller probe is absolutely absurd," he said.
"My only motivation was the same as the ranking member's: transparency for the American people on this controversy," Grassley added, referring to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the panel.