As bombshell reports about the circumstances of former FBI director James Comey’s firing continue to rock the White House, Democratic lawmakers have increasingly said it’s starting to sound like President Trump may have obstructed justice. But the appointment of Robert Mueller as a special counsel won’t get at the root problem of Russian meddling into the US, according to New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
“I believe we should look into obstruction of justice,” Gillibrand told David Axelrod on The Axe Files, a podcast from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN. “I think this is a serious concern to be firing a FBI director in the middle of an investigation that relates to you and your administration.”
Gillibrand called Comey’s unexpected dismissal by President Donald Trump on May 9 “so shocking.” Moreover, she said the spate of allegations that have come to light in the meantime– that Trump reportedly asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation, that Trump reportedly told Russian officials that “great pressure” had been “taken off” because of the firing — further indicate the need for an investigation into whether the President committed obstruction of justice.
“It’s hugely problematic” if these reports are true, Gillibrand said. “These are horrible things and they all sound like obstruction of justice.”
Although Democrats have been leading the call for such an inquiry, Gillibrand believes that these reports are concerning to members on both sides of the aisle.
“Everyone’s concerned. This is something that’s touching all of us because our constituents are concerned the American people are concerned,” she said. “People are very worried and they need to know that no president is above the law and they need to know the Congress takes that really responsibly and is going to look to the very end to get to the bottom of it.”
Gillibrand believes that the potential for special counsel Robert Mueller to lead an obstruction of justice investigation influenced what deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein told senators during a classified briefing last week. The White House initially pinned Comey’s ouster on a recommendation made by Rosenstein. In a memorandum, he said Comey had mishandled his investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, specifically noting that he attempted to “usurp the attorney general’s authority” by publicly announcing in July 2016 that he would not seek charges on Clinton’s handling of classified information while secretary of state.
Rosenstein “must be thinking of whether there’s an obstruction of justice charge and whether these actions could be related to it,” Gillibrand said. “I was frustrated that he was making the calls about what he wanted to tell us and what he didn’t want to tell us based on an assumption that the special counsel Mueller might decide to investigate that part as part of his probe into perhaps the Russian investigation.”
Gillibrand applauded the appointment of a special prosecutor, but also suggested a “9/11 style commission” to investigate the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
“I really believe that the separate issue is: did Russia hack our election, did they penetrate our electoral systems, did they undermine any of our voting systems and voter registration? What was lacking in our systems that couldn’t have prevented that and what do we do to prevent it in the future?,” she told Axelrod. “Which is exactly what the 9/11 Commission did. They said what happened and then they said what did we not have that we needed to have and what do we need to build in the future to prevent a similar terrorist attack. We need the same analysis.”
Listen to the whole conversation with Gillibrand at podcast.cnn.com. To get “The Axe Files” podcast every week, subscribe at http://itunes.com/theaxefiles.