Schumer: Graham ‘has an obligation’ to ask Mueller to testify

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Saturday ramped up pressure on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to call on special counsel Robert Mueller to testify before the Senate.

“I will keep pushing Chairman Graham because he has an obligation to ask Mueller to come testify before the Judiciary Committee at a public hearing without constraints,” Schumer tweeted.

This is not sufficient.

I will keep pushing Chairman Graham because he has an obligation to ask Mueller to come testify before the Judiciary Committee at a public hearing without constraints. https://t.co/mT1rbvkWQH

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) May 4, 2019

Graham, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, pushed back this week on calls from Democrats to have Mueller appear before the Senate panel.{mosads}

But on Friday, the GOP chairman invited Mueller to testify about his phone call with Attorney General William Barr in which the two discussed Barr’s summary of the findings of Mueller’s probe into Russia’s election meddling and possible obstruction of justice. 

Graham wrote in a letter to Mueller that it would be an opportunity to testify about “any misrepresentation” of the call after Barr discussed it during an appearance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. 

“Please inform the Committee if you would like to provide testimony regarding any misrepresentation by the Attorney General of the substance of that phone call,” Graham said in the letter to Mueller. 

Barr this week recounted a conversation he had with Mueller in late March after the attorney general sent a four-page letter to Congress summarizing the special counsel’s findings. 

“The summary letter … did not fully capture the context, nature and substance of this office’s work and conclusions,” Mueller wrote in a letter to Barr on March 27.

However, Barr maintained that Mueller’s gripes were with the media coverage surrounding the summary, not the attorney general’s letter itself.

“He was very clear with me that he was not suggesting that we had misrepresented his report,” Barr told lawmakers. 

Democrats have latched on to Mueller’s letter to Barr, saying it is evidence the attorney general misrepresented the special counsel’s conclusions as a way to defend the president.