Some GOP lawmakers remain far more committed to defending the president than they are to allowing the nation’s justice system to function unimpeded. Members of Congress in that group include House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, who, although he stepped back from his committee’s general Russia investigation, has carried on with an investigation of the nation’s justice system for supposedly proving corrupt in allowing the Russia investigation to move forward in the first place.
Another member of the House in that category is Indiana’s Todd Rokita, who is currently running for Senate against a fellow GOP U.S. Representative from his state.
No doubt aiming to score political points and thus proving guilty of the same behavior he is accusing others of, this Thursday, he introduced a resolution in Congress calling for an end to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe if a progress report is not delivered to the House within thirty days. Mueller, appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, operates, of course, independently of Congress, and so his investigation is naturally more free from partisan influence than efforts undertaken by bodies like the House Intelligence Committee.
It’s hardly especially likely that Rokita is going to be able to get a majority of the House on board with his resolution. Even though there are Congressional Republicans who have allied themselves with the president in his pressure on the Mueller probe, suggesting that a majority of the House will get on board with explicitly moving to impede the nation’s justice system makes Rokita’s resolution seem even more like a fool’s errand.
Even still, Rokita seems undeterred, commenting:
‘The Mueller investigation has dragged on for nearly a year at a cost of tens of millions of dollars without producing a shred of evidence of collusion — the matter it was tasked with investigating in the first place… No one in government should be without accountability, and for many Americans, this investigation looks more like an attempt by the Washington elite to destroy President Trump with innuendo, leaks, and baseless allegations than to provide justice.’
To be clear, Rokita is quite behind if he thinks it’s still a true open question whether or not the Trump team colluded with Russia, no matter the denials offered by his Republican colleagues. Numerous pieces of evidence have been uncovered at this point of members of the president’s team aiming to cooperate with Russia in their efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. Such evidence includes Donald Trump Jr.’s enthusiastic 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer who he’d been promised would bring Kremlin-sourced dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Even still, the president and his allies like Rokita insist that the whole thing is little more than a “witch hunt.”
Their assertions to that effect come even though an array of indictments have been handed out at this point, condemning both former Trump associates and Russian interests. Condemnation for actual crimes directly inherent in their collusion hasn’t come yet, but we’re far past the is this or isn’t this a witch hunt stage, no matter the number of angry tweets or angry GOP-driven House resolutions out there.
Rokita, though, definitely does know a thing or two about corruption, having been busted in seeming illegal accesses of a Republican donor database while serving as Indiana’s secretary of state back in 2009.
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