Senator Rand Paul had harsh words for Special Counsel Robert Mueller Sunday, telling CNN’s “State of the Union” that Robert Mueller needs to conclude his “witch hunt” before the November elections, and that “we need to be done.”
Paul appeared on the Jake Tapper-hosted Sunday program to discuss Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russian individuals, whom the Department of Justice claim hacked into a DNC server, making thousands of internal emails public in an attempt to undercut American confidence in Democratic party leadership.
The Kentucky senator is often a harsh critic of President Donald Trump, but warned Mueller that his investigation into the president is dragging on without an end in sight, and without any major discoveries.
“If we have proof that they did it, we should spend our time protecting ourselves instead of having this witch hunt on the president,” Paul said. “I think we need to be done with this so we can protect our election.”
“I think we mistake our response if we think it’s about accountability from the Russians. They’re another country, they’re going to spy on us, they do spy on us, they’re going to interfere in our elections.” Paul added.
Paul went on to note that Russia is unlikely to extradite any of the conspirators to face justice in the United States, and he feels it’s clear from the Justice Department’s actions that there was no real collaboration between Russian officials and the Trump campaign — though he tinged his statement with a little conspiracy of his own.
“They are going to spy on us, do spy on us. They are going to interfere in our elections, we also do the same,” Rand said, adding that he felt it was more important to ensure our elections are safe from that meddling than to continue ferreting out bad behavior in the Trump and Clinton campaigns.
“I would say it’s not morally equivalent [to American influence],” Paul said of the interference discovered so far. “But I think in their mind it is. It’s important to know in your adversary’s mind the way they perceive things. They react to our interference in their elections and one of the reasons they didn’t like Hillary Clinton, they found her responsible for some of the activity by the U.S. in their elections under the Obama administration.”
President Donald Trump and the White House both issued similar statements, claiming that if Democrats were so concerned with election security, they should have taken measures to protect American elections before 2016.