On Sunday, the Hill published an op-ed by former Bill Clinton aide Mark Penn urging an end to the Mueller investigation.
"Time and time again, investigators came up empty," Penn wrote. "Even several sting operations with an FBI spy we just learned about failed to produce a DeLorean-like video with cash on the table. But rather than close the probe, the deep state just expanded it."
Penn concludes by claiming that the Mueller probe has set a dangerous precedent and should conclude.
"Stopping Mueller isn’t about one president or one party. It’s about all presidents and all parties," Penn wrote. "It’s about cleaning out and reforming the deep state so that our intelligence operations are never used against opposing campaigns without the firmest of evidence. It’s about letting people work for campaigns and administrations without needing legal defense funds," he writes.
Penn's position might seem odd given his past work with the Clintons. In his bio, the Hill notes that he worked as an advisor to Bill Clinton and an aid to Hillary Clinton in 2008. But what the biography leaves out is the Penn is currently head of the Stagwell group, a public relations and consulting firm. According to their website, the group holds a stake in a GOP digital agency that's worked with Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker and Rick Perry, among others, as PR Week reported in 2017.
While there's no evidence that Penn's financial stake in GOP politics influenced his opinion on the Mueller probe, critics questioned whether his work for Stagwell presents a conflict of interest that should be addressed in his bio.
