Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Saturday that "there’s been no indication that the President or the White House are not cooperating with the special counsel." | John Shinkle/POLITICO McConnell: No need to pass bills to protect Mueller The Senate majority leader also expressed skepticism of legislation requiring social media companies to disclose the buyers of political ads.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Saturday that special counsel Robert Mueller is not in need of congressional protection from President Donald Trump.

"I don’t hear much pressure to pass anything," McConnell told MSNBC's Hugh Hewitt. "There’s been no indication that the President or the White House are not cooperating with the special counsel."


McConnell added, "I think the view up here is let him do his job."

Senators on both sides of the aisle have introduced bills to shield Mueller, whose investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential collusion between Moscow and Trump's campaign yielded two indictments and an unsealed guilty plea this week.

But those proposals have stalled in the chamber. And given that McConnell determines what bills get floor time in the Senate, it seems unlikely that will change.

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Even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the author of one of the two bills, told POLITICO earlier this week that he does not "feel an urgent need" to pass his legislation. Written with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), the proposal would require the attorney general to seek judicial review before a special counsel could be fired. Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) introduced separate legislation that would allow a special counsel to contest his or her firing in front of a panel of federal judges.

Since Monday's indictments, the White House has steadfastly repeated that Trump has no intention to fire Mueller.

McConnell also threw cold water on legislation requiring social media companies to disclose who pays for ads — part of a bipartisan effort intended to thwart future Russian attempts to secretly interfere in an election.

"I’m a little skeptical of these disclosure-type proposals that are floating around, which strikes me would mostly penalize American citizens trying to use the internet and to advertise," McConnell told Hewitt.

McConnell has a long history of pushing back on campaign finance regulations he sees as a threat to the First Amendment.

Asked by Hewitt if he would support a 9/11-style commission that looks at some of these issues, which Graham has floated, McConnell suggested it wasn't needed. "Yeah, I don’t know whether we need some special entity to do it or not. We have committees here."

He did take aim at top technology company CEOs, saying they should have appeared on Capitol Hill earlier this week when lawmakers questioned Facebook, Twitter and Google over their role in the Russian interference saga. All three companies have revealed that they found Russian hackers used their various platforms to spread false information and to try to sow discontent before Americans headed to the polls.

"Yeah, I think that’s not good," said McConnell, when asked about the CEOs refusing to speak to his colleagues. "And I mean they ought to be more interested in cooperating when you have a clear law enforcement issue, more interested in cooperating with law enforcement than they have been."

