Schumer: McConnell trying to ‘whitewash’ Mueller report findings

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday fired back at comments made by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), saying the Senate leader was trying to “whitewash” the findings from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.  

“So our leader says let’s move on. It’s sort of like Richard Nixon saying let’s move on at the height of the investigation of his wrongdoing,” Schumer said from the Senate floor.

{mosads}Schumer’s remarks come after McConnell blasted Democrats in his most extensive remarks to date on Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The GOP leader accused Democrats of having an “absolute meltdown” over Mueller’s findings and urged them to “come back to reality.”  

Schumer, however, dismissed McConnell’s speech as an “astounding bit of whitewashing” and the GOP trying to “circle the wagons” around Trump and “silence” the threat of election interference. 

“He doesn’t want to move on. He wants to run away from these awful facts that relate to the wellspring of our democracy — foreign interference in our election and a president who is lawless” Schumer said. “That’s what he wants to push under the rug.” 

Schumer said McConnell hadn’t batted down attempts by some of Trump’s allies, on and off Capitol Hill, to undercut Mueller over the past two years and that he had failed to bring up election security legislation.

A bill from Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has stalled, and top GOP senators said last week that they did not expect the Senate to take up election security legislation in the lead up to the 2020 elections. 

“The leader sits on his hands, does nothing, creates a legislative graveyard for these and every other issue and then says let’s move on,” Schumer said. “No way.”