[Washington Examiner] Former special counsel Robert Mueller has declined an invitation to testify about the Russia investigation before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to Chairman Lindsey Graham."He says he doesn't have enough time," the South Carolina Republican said Wednesday evening on Fox News host Sean Hannity's show. Graham also announced that former FBI Director James Comey agreed to testify at the end of the month, declaring "the day of reckoning is upon us when it comes to Crossfire Hurricane."
Graham is leading a congressional investigation into Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the FBI's counterintelligence inquiry into ties between President Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, which was wrapped into Mueller's special counsel investigation in May 2017. He has been pushing to hear from a catalog of witnesses and secure still-secret documents in the run-up to the 2020 election, which is now less than two months away, and the longtime South Carolina lawmaker is in what polls indicate will be a tight race against Democratic candidate Jaime Harrison to keep his seat.
Democrats pushed the chairman over the summer to invite Mueller to testify about his report as Graham set his sights on dozens of other officials from the Obama and Trump administrations who were involved in the Russia investigation. Graham said he would agree to invite Mueller to testify in July after the former FBI director wrote an opinion article in the Washington Post arguing that Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to Trump, "remains a convicted felon, and rightfully so." This was after Trump commuted Stone's sentence on seven felony crimes.
Hannity asked Graham on Wednesday if he would "accept" Mueller declining the invitation to testify given the disclosure last week of documents that show more than a dozen phones belonging to special counsel team members, including top prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, were "wiped" for various reasons. The senator demurred, saying he wants to ask "the people who did the erasing" and that he'll press the Justice Department and its inspector general to look into the matter.
Mueller has not testified about his report since the summer of 2019, and even then, he only spoke to two House committees. His unsteady performance shocked onlookers, including Democrats. After finishing his investigation, Mueller, now 76, rejoined the law firm WilmerHale.