Chuck Schumer: We'll tie Mueller protection bills to must-pass spending bills - Polidicks

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/11/chuck-schumer-robert-mueller-spending-bil/1967118002/ Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said Sunday that Democrats might tie their support for the next spending bill to legislation that would protect special counsel Robert Mueller – although he stopped short of saying he would be willing to risk a shutdown. The New York Democrat said President Donald Trump's choice of Matthew Whitaker to head the Justice Department could threaten Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling and potential ties to the Trump campaign. Trump named Whitaker as the interim attorney general after Jeff Sessions' ouster last week. "The appointment of Mr. Whitaker should concern every American – Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative – who believes in rule of law and justice," Schumer said during an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "He has already prejudged the Mueller situation. If he stays there, he will create a constitutional crisis by inhibiting Mueller or firing Mueller, so Congress has to act." Schumer cited Whitaker's public comments that he does not believe Russia interfered in the 2016 election and that the funding to Mueller's inquiry should be cut as examples of why Whitaker should not be in charge of the special counsel's investigation. He said Democratic leaders in the House and Senate plan to send a letter to the chief ethics officer of the Justice Department asking for an opinion on whether Whitaker should recuse himself from the investigation. If Whitaker does not recuse, Schumer said, Democrats in both houses of Congress will "attempt to add to must-pass legislation, in this case the spending bill, legislation that would prevent Mr. Whitaker from interfering with the Mueller investigation." "With Whitaker, there is every reason to believe there will be interference, based on what Mr. Whitaker has said. The world has changed from when Rosenstein was in charge of the investigation, and I think, I believe, that many Republicans will find the same," Schumer said. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who is likely to take over the powerful House Judiciary Committee in January, told Tapper that protecting Mueller from Whitaker, whom he derided as a "complete political lackey," will be his top priority. Nadler said Whitaker would be the "very first witness after Jan. 3" – when the new Congress begins – after being summoned or, if necessary, subpoenaed, to address how he could supervise Mueller when he has said "the investigation is invalid." Nadler said Whitaker is "totally unqualified" to lead the Justice Department and Trump wants him in charge only "to be the hatchet man to destroy the Mueller investigation."

Do it.

A rare example of an omnibus bill being a good thing.

Knowing Schumer, he'll do this after making massive concessions to the republicans and try to claim it as a victory despite the fact that the House Intelligence Committee can already scoop Mueller if he's fired.

Even outside the Mueller investigation, these sorts of protections are desperately needed as the congressional special council statute was so heavily abused by partisans in the 90s and having it under the doj and thus the president is an obvious conflict of interest, having them be independant of both congress and the doj's direct influence is at least a step in the right direction for future probes

Just pointing this out, don't you think the "other guys" say the exact same thing about their omnibus bills...?

Do you have any examples?

Somehow I feel like the bill will feature one line about Trump not being allowed to personally strangle Mueller, and as a concession to the Republicans, 75 billion dollar funding for the border wall

This is a bluff, and Trump will not hesitate to call it. He’d happily shut the government down if it means buying himself another day outside a jail cell. And he’s desperate for a political victory right now—a possible government shutdown only gives him ammunition to work with.

This is exactly what the legislature should not be doing, but it seems like it's become the optimal strategy in the last few decades. Get ready for another fucking shutdown, folks.

While the intent is noble, it is nonetheless a rider, and riders ought to have no place in the legislative process. I wouldn’t call riders anti-democratic, but they are contrary to having a healthy democracy.

Remember when the Republicans shut down the government when Obama was in charge and that was all his fault? Now they shut it down left and right and the Republicans eat it up.

Because Fox has fostered a frankly unhealthy attitude of win at all costs, refusing to acknowledge anything Democrats do as good in any way.

This isn't some minor political issue over funding issues like Obamacare that the Republicans would shut the government down over. - We're talking about a shut down to save the United States. We're talking about a constitutional crisis. Now isn't the time for compromise. Deflect all republican tactics from the last 10 years back at them. Shock them back into civil politics by reminding them why the parties at least compromised enough in the past to make the country function.

And this is unfortunately exactly why the Democrats having to do stupid shit that most of us already thought was stupid, like using a rider bill for something like this, because otherwise it simply lets them win. At the rate they're going, they may just totally pervert the system before the people playing by the rules can catch up. And if that happens then the people playing by the rules will never catch up. So the only adequate step is, unfortunately, to start playing dirty yourselves.

This won't work. Democrats have been taking the high road (as much as can be said about them) for 10 years, which means if they just use the same tactics they will only seem like hypocrites.

The alternative is being able to say "we lost honourably" when Repubs take over the next interval and resume burning everything to the ground after refusing to compromise with Democrats while they held power. Moral superiority isn't worth a thing if it was gained off the back of being the ineffective patsy to manipulative corporate shills and fundie societal throwbacks who've already had practice with stonewalling Congress until they win.

Don't get me wrong, I agree completely. I only said it won't work because the republican propaganda machine is a finely tuned machine. It won't matter that this is par for the course for republicans, it's only gonna be spread that them godless Demoncrats are ruining america by opposing sensible bipartisan legislature.

Tough shit, we gotta punch back.

A shutdown over this turns into massive political capital for the Democrats. Shutdowns are kind of a big deal, and if the reason for forcing a shutdown this time is because the Republicans are desperate to obstruct a certain criminal investigation, it'll raise questions among all the Republicans who aren't firmly in Trump's 30% camp of degenerates.

Federal workers tend to live in blue districts; they'd blame the republicans

Isn't that just an Independent Counsel, like in the 90s?

Preserving the existence of democracy should not be a partisan issue.

Kinda weird how the right, the republicans, the GOP, and basically every vocal facet of the right never cared about this until it's time to use it against them.

not exactly because congress has to authorize the independent council.

The Republicans moving further and further right and taking obstructionist attitudes pretty much kissed away any chance of us having an effective legislature to begin with.

The so-called values, principles and ideals of various facets like patriotism, capitalism or religion of the right are nothing more then convenient tools that get dropped the instant they aren't useful to them anymore. The GOP and their propaganda machine is only interested in two things. Money and power which manifests in mostly 2 ways: Bullshitting their base to keep extracting votes and money from them Pleasing their fat cat political donors Like the recent example, why did they all nearly uniformly lie about wanting to "preserve medicare" while acting in the opposite way. Easy, they would have lost too many votes and with that would've lost power The sad thing is, most US media is actually slanted to favour airing Republican viewpoints because it brings better ratings instead of acting in a truly fair and balanced way to protect democracy.

I would caution you against viewing any ideology as monolithically and internally consistent as your post suggests. While a majority of Republican legislators may view shutdowns as an effective political tool, I would wager that most folks probably want to see their government function the way it is supposed to. That these people -- myself included -- do not share their opinions on the Facepunch Polidicks subforum every time it is relevant is itself not evidence of some ulterior motive. I think you know this though, and are just willfully ignoring the possibility in favor of a quick snipe. Congratulations on your little green checkmarks.

Sorry, the right is the demographic least deserving of the benefit of the doubt, they themselves paint with wide strokes all the time in more dishonest ways. Yes, speaking of whole ideologies is always gonna be messy but the overall major trend is certainly there. The GOP and the very vocal part of the right have been facilitating and thriving on the divide for years, but wait, oh no we painted a bit too much of the right in a bad way which may not apply across the board 100%, lets get hung up on that minor detail. Nah, I don't think so, the civility and tolerance fad is a bit played out right now. The right as in the Republican voters have to take some responsibility, own up to the fact that they voted for and elected those people -- as their representatives, as a simple matter of fact.