Sen. Coons: “The general public wants to know whether or not senators—both Republican and Democrat—are going to work together in a responsible and bipartisan way to get to the bottom of this.”

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, joined Anderson Cooper 360 last night to discuss recent news regarding the investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as former FBI Director James Comey’s recent allegations.

“I'm encouraged. His long record of service as a senior federal prosecutor and as former FBI director suggests that he's exactly the sort of person that many of us hoped would be named for special counsel. He has previous experience stepping up to an overreach, an exercise of power by an administration and withstanding them, under the Bush administration, when he and a number of other law enforcement officials threatened to resign if the president and the administration didn't respect their concerns about civil liberties. He is also a decorated Marine veteran, and someone who I think will enjoy the respect of a very wide range of members of Congress. I think this is a positive and important step.” 

“Whether he personally tried to intervene and pressure the FBI director to drop an investigation of his national security adviser. I think it's striking. And I think, in the end, the general public wants to know whether or not senators—both Republican and Democrat—are going to work together in a responsible and bipartisan way to get to the bottom of this.”

Full audio and video available here.

Excerpts from the interview:

Senator Coons on Robert Mueller being named special counsel: I'm encouraged. His long record of service as a senior federal prosecutor and as former FBI director suggests that he's exactly the sort of person that many of us hoped would be named for special counsel. He has previous experience stepping up to an overreach, an exercise of power by an administration and withstanding them, under the Bush administration, when he and a number of other law enforcement officials threatened to resign if the president and the administration didn't respect their concerns about civil liberties. He is also a decorated Marine veteran, and someone who I think will enjoy the respect of a very wide range of members of Congress. I think this is a positive and important step.

Senator Coons on Americans’ concerns about current investigations: As your panel has been discussing, that is a possible path. There will be prompt conversations between Special Counsel Mueller and the Senate Intelligence Committee. I think they need to coordinate, and I would expect that, I would hope that the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings will continue and will move forward. As you know, tomorrow, the entire Senate has in front of them in a closed briefing Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, and there's a number of important questions which I expect will still be asked of him about the role that Attorney General Sessions played in directing him to write the memo that led to Comey's firing and whether or not he exceeded the scope of his recusal, and about what the president's role was in the firing of FBI Director Comey. As you just heard from Carl Bernstein, there's a number of other issues that have not yet been brought in front of either the Senate Judiciary Committee or the Intelligence Committee that I think are also going to be of concern to us; it is my hope that at the end of this, there will be a public accounting of whether or not there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. And it's important for public confidence in the rule of law and in Congress that that result be reached. 

Senator Coons on the special counsel investigation: It's my expectation that the special counsel investigation will be fully staffed and resourced and the odds are that that will allow them to reach a conclusion sooner than they might have on the current trajectory, but it could take months or well into several years, because the current FBI investigation has both a counterintelligence and a possible criminal component. There are a lot of details to go through here, a lot of individuals to interview and a lot of documents to review. Because of former FBI Director Mueller's senior experience, I don't think it will take as long for him to come up to speed, to be engaged, and to be an effective leader of this ongoing investigation. But, the end result may be a year or two away.

More on the special counsel investigation:
I think what was striking was the number of my colleagues, Republicans, who did not step forward and say we needed a special prosecutor who did not step forward and say, particularly after last night's alarming allegations in the press, that we need to get to the bottom of this, that we need to understand whether or not our president has been inappropriately sharing highly classified information with our adversaries, Russia, in the Oval Office. Whether he personally tried to intervene and pressure the FBI director to drop an investigation of his national security adviser. I think it's striking. And I think, in the end, the general public wants to know whether or not senators—both Republican and Democrat—are going to work together in a responsible and bipartisan way to get to the bottom of this.  

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