Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) couldn’t “get over the fact’ President Donald Trump was president.
Partial transcript as follows:
MULVANEY: I know Adam, I used to serve with him in Congress. Everything he listed right there was available to Mr. Mueller, probably in greater detail than Adam goes into right there. Yet, Mr. Mueller found no collusion and no obstruction.
TAPPER: Right, not a crime. What about the ethics or morality of those things?
MULVANEY: The issue is not whether it’s ethical. Mr. Schiff runs the House Intelligence Committee. People don’t realize this. He gets to see stuff that a lot of members of Congress don’t get to see. I didn’t get to see what he was seeing when I was in the House. That role takes with it a huge responsibility. One of those responsibilities is to not be partisan. It’s why you saw so many Republicans this week called for Adam to resign his position. That position is so critical that, if someone comes forward and they’re the House Intelligence Committee chairman and look at the other members and say, look, I’ve seen a bunch of stuff. Trust me, it says x, y, z. They have to be able to trust that person implicitly. Adam has lost that ability to do it. That’s why you heard so many Republicans call for his resignation this week. There are some Democrats who simply can’t get over the fact that President Trump is president. I get that. Adam is apparently one of them. But we really do think enough is enough and it’s time to move on to other things.
TAPPER: All I’m saying here is you’re setting the bar on criminal charges or evidence of a conspiracy. I agree with what you’re saying, that there is none there. He’s talking about ethics and morality. You’re saying that’s not his job. Okay, fair enough. Forgetting Adam Schiff, what about the larger point about ethics and morality?
MULVANEY: I think the voters will decide on the ethics and morality of the people they vote for on either side. People liked Bill Clinton, but they might not have thought that he was so ethical. That’s not the job of the House Intelligence Committee, it’s not the job of the House Judiciary Committee, it’s not the job of the House Oversight Committee. They’re supposed to review the functioning of government. Voters make decisions about the candidates in other places, and importantly, members of Congress, even if they are the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, don’t get to substitute their judgment for the voters. And that is what this is all about at the end of the day. That’s what the Mueller report was about. That’s what you’re seeing now on the Hill. It’s about trying to figure out how to undo what the voters did in 2016. That’s where I think people have just had enough. Look, we gave Mueller the time, we gave him all the resources in the world. Millions of dollars, two years. A lot of folks, including this station, said give Mueller the time, let him do his job. The decision is in. The president did not collude and did not obstruct. It’s time to move on.
(h/t RCP Video)
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.