Dems plan to bring in Mueller for televised hearings if Trump fires him: report

Top Democrats in the House are reportedly planning to invite Robert Mueller to testify on Capitol Hill in televised hearings if President Trump takes action to fire the special counsel and shut down the Russia investigation.

Senior Democratic aides told Politico that if Trump were to fire Mueller and other members of the Justice Department’s leadership in a scenario similar to Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre, Democrats would respond by inviting Mueller to testify before the House in a televised hearing.

{mosads}”I think you could expect Democrats to take pieces of what they shut down and expose it publicly,” a senior aide familiar with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) thinking told Politico.

“This is a report paid for with taxpayer dollars. So taxpayers would have a right to know what Mr. Mueller found,” the aide continued.

Trump has attacked Mueller and the special counsel investigation, which he calls a “witch hunt,” for months despite several top members of his campaign being ensnared in criminal charges related to the investigation.

In April, the president suggested that he has been advised to fire the special counsel, and it was reported that Trump had previously attempted to do so last year.

The White House has publicly maintained that Trump has no plans to fire the special counsel or other top leaders at the Department of Justice, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is expected to exit following this week’s midterm elections.

“As we’ve said many times before, we have no intention of firing the special counsel,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a press briefing in April.

“We’ve been beyond cooperative with them, we’re continuing to cooperate with them,” she added.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is set to become the new chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on MSNBC that Democrats could protect Mueller the way Republicans would not do.

“I think that the chances that Bob Mueller will be able to finish his work improved for the reason that our committee and others like the Government Reform Committee and the Judiciary Committee, which under Republican leadership served as basically surrogates for the president in their efforts to batter down the Justice Department, to give the president a pretext … to fire people in the Justice Department, all of that tearing down of the independence of these institutions is going to end,” Schiff said.

“Now that doesn’t mean the president can’t still act in ways that are antithetical to the rule of law and the interest of justice, but it does mean that we’re better able to protect our institutions and see this investigation, I hope, complete.”