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We know all about how McConnell pre-election watered down Obama’s warning of Russian interference. McConnell was able to browbeat Obama into a watered down statement by threatening to accuse Obama of something that for Obama-great President though he was-was the equivalent of calling him a child molester: partisan.
Then there was Paul Ryan who warned his GOP members to keep what they suspected about Trump’s relationship with the Russians and the interference ‘in the family.’
This was a conversation Ryan and his fellow GOPers wanted desperately to keep private.
Trump is clearly feeling himself after his vindictive firing of Andy McCabe and has now taken to for the first time attacking Mueller by name in his stupid tweets. GOP reaction as been tepid-no Trump shouldn’t fire him but they are convinced he won’t anyway-though based on what is not at all clear. In any case, as has been pointed out, Trump may well realize he can’t literally fire Mueller but he could possibly fire Rosenstein and Sessions and replace them with loyalists willing to do what’s necessary to greatly limit Mueller’s freedom of action.
As for Mitch McConnell he has little to say about Trump’s direct attacks on Mueller. Actually ‘little to say’ may be too strong: he’s had nothing to say.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has long believed he does not need to respond in real time or react to every controversial tweet or other action by President Donald Trump, according to people close to the senator.
While he has complained before about the abundance of tweets, he’s withheld revealing publicly the depths of his concerns.
That was the case this weekend when reporters pressed his staff for a response to Trump’s slamming of special counsel Robert Mueller that caused many Republicans to worry the President might fire the man heading the Russia investigation.
McConnell’s staff would only refer reporters back to a January statement from McConnell when he said he didn’t think Mueller needed any special protection because he didn’t think the President would fire him. The aide said McConnell’s position had not evolved since then.
Nothing has happened then for his position to ‘evolve’-huh? Trump attacking Mueller by name for the first time, saying the Mueller investigation should never have started, his lawyer John Dowd saying the investigation should end now, that in no way gives McConnell reason to ‘evolve’ his position.
And it’s true-in the 16 months since he refused to be part of a strong unified, bipartisan statement on Russian interference, McConnell’s position hasn’t evolved at all-he’s still a Republican first and an American second.