Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is pushing for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold an urgent hearing on the White House’s politicization of the Russia probe.
“Never has our Committee’s oversight authority of the Justice Department been more critical than now,” Leahy wrote in a letter to chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. “I fear the damage being done to the FBI, and to our nation’s institutions more broadly, will far outlast any current crises unless we take decisive, bipartisan action.”
The letter comes one day after Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Andrew McCabe just two days before McCabe’s scheduled retirement date. McCabe, the onetime FBI deputy director who took leave in January, had long been criticized by President Donald Trump.
Trump called his firing, “a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI – A great day for Democracy” and said McCabe, “knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!”
Leahy’s letter also came hours after Trump’s personal lawyer John Dowd told the Daily Beast that he hopes Rod Rosenstein, the No. 2 Justice Department official, brings the Russia investigation “manufactured” by former FBI Director James Comey to an end.
“In the last few hours the President’s personal attorney has called for the Justice Department, without even an arguably legitimate basis, to prematurely shut down the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation,” he wrote. “And the Attorney General, in a clear violation of his promised recusal under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee, fired a career civil servant days before he could retire, following months of the President’s relentless and outrageous prodding.”
“During my four decades in the Senate, I have never before seen our nation’s career, apolitical law enforcement officials so personally and publicly maligned by politicians — indeed, by our President. And I have never been so concerned that the walls intended to protect the independence of our dedicated law enforcement professionals, including Special Counsel Mueller, are at risk of crumbling,” he added.
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