Senator Mark Warner on Fox News: We must protect Rosenstein and Mueller

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, sat down for a live interview in Washington with Neil Cavuto on Fox News, where he had one key message for President Trump: back off the attacks on our nation’s law enforcement.

“The President of the United States has been obsessed about this investigation from the beginning… What particularly concerns me with this President is when he makes broad-based, ad hominem attacks on, basically, the integrity of everybody at the FBI and everybody at the Department of Justice. His frustration with Mueller is creeping into attacks on our basic institutions of justice. My concern is you then in effect give license to people who say ‘maybe we shouldn’t trust any of our law enforcement, maybe we shouldn’t trust rule of law,” Sen. Warner told Cavuto.

Vice Chairman Warner also used the opportunity on the President’s favorite news channel to stress the need to protect two lifelong Republicans from his anger: Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the man overseeing that investigation, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Responding to comments earlier in the show by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dismissing the need for legislation to protect the independence of the Special Counsel’s investigation, Sen. Warner said, “I disagree. If the President isn’t going to do it [fire Mueller], then let’s go ahead and make sure that the independence of Mr. Mueller – and for that matter, Mr. Rosenstein, who is supervising Mr. Mueller – that we protect those public servants. They are both, if you look at their partisan basis, they are both lifelong Republicans. I believe the rule of law ought to be followed. This President sends out very unusual signals, to say the least, when he attacks the FBI, attacks the Justice Department, attacks these investigations. If there is not going to be a firing, let’s make sure we maintain that independence.”

A partial transcript of the interview follows. Video of the full interview is available here.

Sen. Warner on Fox News’ Your World With Neil Cavuto

Neil Cavuto: I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the Bob Mueller probe that’s ongoing. There has been some frustration in the President’s camp here that it’s veering out of control, ransacking his personal lawyers offices and homes, much as they did to Paul Manafort, his former campaign manager, and his home in the early morning. And then he feels he is not being treated fairly. He feels that he is being targeted. He hasn’t talked about firing Bob Mueller. I know that’s been raised by some, but do you think the way this investigation is going that he might have a point that this is veering kind of in crazy territory?

 Sen. Warner: Respectfully, no. I think Bob Mueller is a classic professional and the notion—

 Cavuto: What prompted him to issue something today to say a lot of this is, you know, false reporting and gossip, and all of that?

 Warner: Listen, the President of the United States has been obsessed about this investigation from the beginning. And I believe Special Prosecutor Mueller, the law is pretty clear, if you have got a lawyer that is doing something inappropriate, there are appropriate channels you go through. He handed it off to a different prosecuting attorney. That attorney had to sign off. A judge had to sign off. There is a high bar to meet—

 Cavuto: I remember Democrats being upset at Ken Starr from going far afield from his White Water transactions into an intern and a dress—

 Warner: Neil…

 Cavuto: It is what it is.

 Warner: What particularly concerns me with this President is when he makes broad-based, ad hominem attacks on, basically, the integrity of everybody at the FBI and everybody at the Department of Justice. His frustration with Mueller is creeping into attacks on our basic institutions of justice. My concern is you then in effect give license to people who say ‘maybe we shouldn’t trust any of our law enforcement, maybe we shouldn’t trust rule of law.’ And there are some—

 Cavuto: Hearing what you are hearing out of James Comey now, what you are hearing out of Andy McCabe, his former number two. I mean, you do get a feeling that sometimes, you know, what do they say about the paranoid? Sometimes it’s a good thing for them to look over their shoulder because people are out to get them.

 Warner: I can tell you this much, Neil. A year ago when I started the investigation, and our bipartisan Senate Intelligence investigation is the last one standing, I said it was the most important work I would probably ever do in politics. I believe that 14 months later. The American people, both supporters and opponents of the President deserve the full truth.

 Cavuto: Would have you thought then though, Senator, again, wherever this investigation goes, you are right, it goes where it goes and that’s how these things go, that it would have ended up on the President and his personal lawyer’s business dealings going years back?

 Warner: If the accusations that have been made about the President’s lawyer, who clearly is not just a lawyer but a fixer, whether it was the payments to the porn star or more importantly this investigation. The fact that there were of him meeting with Russians in Europe, some of that is still remains proven or not proven, the fact that clearly Mr. Cohen was engaged in efforts to try to bring a trump tower to Moscow. I think those business dealings very much—

 Cavuto: We don’t know a lot of that yet. You don’t find anything unsavory here that would make you think that this has veered out of control?

 Warner: From where I sit…

 Cavuto: Right.

 Warner: …as somebody who is privy to more information than most, I don’t know all that Bob Mueller has, but I think he is conducting himself in an appropriate manner.

 Cavuto: But you don’t share – Mitch McConnell was with me just a second ago, sir, and he said there is no need to do this legislative sort of insurance to keep Bob Mueller in his post—

 Warner: I disagree.

 Cavuto: …because the President isn’t going to do it and he probably wouldn’t sign that legislation.

 Warner: Well, if the President isn’t going to do it [fire Mueller], then let’s go ahead and make sure that the independence of Mr. Mueller – and for that matter, Mr. Rosenstein, who is supervising Mr. Mueller – that we protect those public servants. They are both, if you look at their partisan basis, they are both lifelong Republicans. I believe the rule of law ought to be followed. This President sends out very unusual signals, to say the least, when he attacks the FBI, attacks the Justice Department, attacks these investigations. If there is not going to be a firing, let’s make sure we maintain that independence. If there is not going to be—

 Cavuto: Comey said he is not morally fit to be President.

 Warner: If there is not going to be a firing, let’s make sure we maintain that independence.

 Cavuto: Well, you and Mr. McConnell are on opposite sides on that but let me ask you about Mr. Comey’s explosive charge on the president. He says he’s a smart guy, above average intelligence but can’t be trusted, lies a lot, and not morally fit to be President.

 Warner: This President has shown repeatedly that he stretches the truth. That he is willing to make up things. That—

 Cavuto: Did Bill Clinton stretch the truth?

 Warner: Listen, we are talking about—there is plenty of criticism against Bill Clinton. I offered some of that back in the nineties—but we’re talking about this President, at this moment in time. I ask, you would you say to your kids, your grandkids, this is a person you want to have as a role model. I would tell you, to my kids I would not—

 Cavuto: You said that about Bill Clinton twenty years ago?

 Warner: I said plenty of things about Bill Clinton back in the nineties that got me cross wised with folks.

 Cavuto: No, I understand that but you see what I’m saying?  It seems so overtly political on both sides.

 Warner: But it seems to me that, Mr. Trump, with some of his comments, with the fact that three or four of his Cabinet Secretaries are in the middle of swampy type crises, whether it is a forty three thousand dollar secret phone booth for the Secretary of the EPA or Mr. Carson’s tables, or Mr. Zinke’s extraordinary use of taxpayer dollars. In a normal Administration, any one of these [stories] would dominate the news. I don’t think Mr. Trump has shown any willingness to drain the swamp. I think his personal behavior, frankly, is beyond the pale. And I worry when he is so erratic, going back to the original topic around Korea, when he basically acts so erratic that even our allies don’t know what his next step may be, I think he sometimes puts us in jeopardy.

 Cavuto:  Senator Warner, thank you very, very much.