Schiff: Republicans using Mueller team firings to discredit institutions

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday he views former FBI Director James Comey’s decision not to disclose an investigation into the Trump campaign prior to Election Day as more significant than recent accusations of anti-Trump bias among members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team.

“The intent here is nothing short of discrediting Mueller, then discrediting the Justice Department, then discrediting the FBI, then discrediting the judiciary should the judiciary convict some of the people Mueller has charged or will charge in the future,” Schiff said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Mueller over the summer removed a veteran FBI agent from his team investigating possible collusion between President Trump’s campaign and Russia after the agent sent anti-Trump text messages.

{mosads}Another member of Mueller’s team sent former acting Attorney General Sally Yates an email that he was in “awe” of her for refusing to defend Trump’s travel ban proposal. 

Republicans have suggested the two revelations amount to bias within the Mueller investigation against Trump. The president himself lashed out at the FBI last weekend, saying the bureau’s reputation is in “tatters.” 

Schiff said on Sunday that Comey’s decision to disclose the status of an investigation into Hillary Clinton, but not of one into then-candidate Trump, was more significant than the recent Mueller revelations.

Schiff called it an “error in judgment,” saying it is appropriate to do oversight of Comey’s investigation.

However, Schiff, the top ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that Republicans are attempting to discredit institutions that might hold Trump accountable.

“This is an effort to tear at the very idea that there is an objective truth. I think this president, in astonishing speed, has remade the Republican Party in his own deeply flawed image, and that will be ruinous to the Republican Party,” Schiff said.

“But as we depend on a two-party system with two functional parties, it will also be deeply damaging to our country,” he added.