Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said Friday that “rumors” on Capitol Hill suggest President Trump could fire special counsel Robert Mueller before Christmas, after Congress leaves Washington for the winter recess.
“The rumor on the Hill when I left yesterday was that the president was going to make a significant speech at the end of next week. And on Dec. 22, when we are out of D.C., he was going to fire Robert Mueller,” Speier told California’s KQED News.
Speier, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said that Trump was trying to shut down the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, pointing to the lack of interviews scheduled for the new year.
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The New York Times reported Friday that the committee is scheduling its final witnesses of the year to testify in New York, despite important votes coming up in Washington, D.C., and confirmed no additional witnesses are scheduled yet in 2018.
“We can read between the lines I think,” Speier said. “I believe this president wants all of this shut down. He wants to shut down these investigations, and he wants to fire special counsel Mueller.”
The ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), also said Friday that he is worried that Republicans leading the committee are seeking to shut down the committee’s investigation by the end of the year.
“Republicans have scheduled no witnesses after next Friday and none in 2017 [sic]. We have dozens of outstanding witnesses on key aspects of our investigation that they refuse to contact and many document requests they continue to sit on,” he tweeted Friday.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rumors that Trump could fire Mueller have swirled since Mueller’s appointment in May.
“There is no intention or plan to make any changes in regards to the special counsel,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in October.