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The Senate Judiciary Committee will consider the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act on Thursday, bipartisan legislation to establish Justice Department guidelines for protecting special counsel investigations as law. Under the legislation, a special counsel could not be fired without cause and would a 10-day window to challenge a dismissal in federal court. A controversial amendment from Chairman Chuck Grassley that would have allowed Congress to micromanage investigations has been removed. That means Democratic support is likely there in committee, so now Grassley has to fight his own party and leadership.
The tweaked amendment from Grassley came as other Republicans who are opposed to the legislation prepared their own plans for the markup. The second-ranking Senate Republican, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, introduced an amendment Wednesday to have a "sense of the Senate resolution" warning the White House not to fire Mueller, instead of a bill to formally protect the special counsel.
"I think that might be a way forward because it avoids the unconstitutionality issue on a bill the President won's sign and the House won't pass," Cornyn told reporters. "So, that may be a place for us to land. Because, as I've said, I think it would be a mistake for the President to fire Director Mueller and I think if we can come to some common ground on a resolution, that might be the path forward." […]
Grassley's amendment as filed has reporting requirements to Congress at the conclusion of the investigation, including whether the attorney general "granted or denied a request from the Special Counsel to change the Special Counsel's jurisdiction."
The amendment also requires information in that concluding report to Congress "detailing the factual findings of the investigation and explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the special counsel."
A sense of the Senate resolution has no teeth, so this would be a purely symbolic measure by Cornyn, probably with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's blessing, to make it look like the Senate was doing something and mollifying Republicans who might be concerned about Trump's interference in the investigation. Cornyn's amendment says that Congress "should not resurrect unconstitutional barriers to executive authority and weaken the separation of powers in the name of political expediency," and also that "Robert Mueller should be permitted to finish his work in a timely fashion." But there's no force of law behind any of that.
McConnell has said he wouldn't bring the Grassley bill to the floor, but Grassley remains stubbornly committed to doing it. He's also committed to pushing through Trump's deplorable judicial nominees, so it's hard to know exactly what is going on in Grassley's head. But this is at least a good thing for him to get his teeth into.