In first bipartisan attempt to keep president in check amid Russia inquiry, two bills would take steps to prevent president from directly firing special counsel

US senators from both parties are seeking to protect the special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired by Donald Trump, marking the first bipartisan bid by lawmakers to impose a check on the president against the backdrop of the Russia investigation.

A pair of bills were unveiled on Thursday, co-sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, that would take measures to bar the president from directly firing the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US election and any involvement by the president and his team.

Mueller, who was appointed after Trump fired the then FBI director, James Comey, in May, has convened a grand jury in Washington, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Thursday, in a sign that his inquiry is escalating.

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Ty Cobb, special counsel to the president, said he was not aware that Mueller had convened a grand jury – a powerful institution in the US government charged with both investigating potential criminal conduct as well as determining whether criminal charges should be brought.

“Grand jury matters are typically secret,” said Cobb, in a statement provided by the White House.

“The White House favors anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly ... The White House is committed to fully cooperating with Mr Mueller.”

A spokesperson for Mueller would not confirm the report.

Reuters reported that grand jury subpoenas had been issued in relation to the June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, and the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.



The encounter was revealed last month and provided the first glimpse that the Trump campaign might have been willing to collude with the Russians. After initially misleading the public on the nature of the meeting, Trump Jr was forced to publicly release emails detailing how he accepted the meeting under the pretense of receiving “very high level and sensitive information” to incriminate Hillary Clinton.



Quick guide Who are the key Russian players in the Trump collusion accusations? Show Hide Natalia Veselnitskaya A Russian lawyer whose work has focused on ending US sanctions on Russia and who met with Trump representatives Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort at Trump Tower in June 2016. Read further. Sergey Kislyak Until recently, the Russian ambassador to the US. A hub for contacts with Trump representatives including Kushner, attorney general Jeff Sessions, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the president himself. Read further. Sergey Gorkov The Kremlin-connected head of Russian state investment bank Vnesheconombank. He met with Kushner during the presidential transition, but “no specific policies were discussed”, according to Kushner. Read further. Dimitri Simes President of the Center for the National Interest, a Washington thinktank, which hosted an April 2016 foreign policy speech by Trump. Trump, Sessions and Kushner appear to have met with Kislyak at the event, although both Kushner and Sessions have said any meeting was only in passing and they don’t recall what was discussed. Read further.

By Tom McCarthy

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and his then campaign manager, Paul Manafort, also attended the meeting. This week, a report alleged that Trump personally dictated a false statement on behalf of Trump Jr that mischaracterized the meeting’s purpose as discussing a ban on the adoption of Russian children by US citizens.

Efforts by members of Congress to insulate Mueller reflect a growing desire to ensure the independence of the federal investigation. The president has publicly criticized Mueller and has reportedly tasked his lawyers with examining ways to undercut the investigation by searching for possible conflicts of interest among the special counsel and his team of investigators.

One of the bills, co-sponsored by Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, and Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, would preserve the president’s authority to fire a special counsel but would enable the special counsel to challenge his or her termination in court. A three-judge panel would then review the challenge within a period of 14 days.

Tillis downplayed the idea that the aim of the legislation was to send a message to Trump, telling the Guardian he was “motivated by the need to help restore the Department of Justice and the agencies within it”.

“It’s a way to communicate to the American people that this is a unique institution among the cabinet positions and among the departments with the administration,” Tillis said.

“Anything we can do to ensure to the American people that it is truly independent, without either the president or the Senate having undo influence over its actions, I think that’s healthy.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer has become a flashpoint in the Russia investigation. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Tillis added that the intent of his bill was to ensure that the basis for the removal of a special counsel was warranted.

“I fully expect there will be a number of cases where it may be, but what we want to do is go against those where it may not have been appropriate,” he said.

The other bill goes even further by mandating that any special counsel may only be removed by the attorney general, and after a petition is filed before a federal court to establish misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or other cause for removal. The latter proposal was sponsored by Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina who ranks among Trump’s more vocal critics, along with three Democrats, Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

The co-sponsors of both bills sit on the Senate judiciary committee, which is overseeing its own investigation on Russian meddling in the election that may also examine whether Trump obstructed justice in his dealings with Comey.

“We should all be interested in making sure that special counsels have oversight. Special counsels must act within boundaries, but they must also be protected,” Graham said in a statement.

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“Our bill allows judicial review of any decision to terminate a special counsel to make sure it’s done for the reasons cited in the regulation rather than political motivation.”

Trump has long bemoaned the Russia inquiry, refusing to accept the conclusion of the US intelligence community that Moscow took active and extraordinary measures to influence the 2016 election and undermine Clinton’s candidacy. In recent weeks, he has focused his ire on the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from overseeing the FBI’s Russia investigation earlier this year due to his own previously undisclosed meeting with the Russian ambassador to the US.

Trump’s public humiliation of Sessions, delivered in a series of scathing tweets over consecutive days, sparked criticism on both sides of the aisle as lawmakers appeared newly concerned with the president’s apparent lack of regard for the separation of powers.

Trump also fired warning shots at Mueller in a highly publicized interview with the New York Times this month, saying he would make public “at some point” information that the special counsel’s team had potential conflicts of interest. He also signaled ramifications if Mueller went beyond the scope of investigating matters pertaining to Russia, such as his finances, and has declined to offer assurances that he will not fire Mueller.