On Friday, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) sharply criticized President Donald Trump over his secret conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin about special counsel Robert Mueller's report — and fired a warning shot at Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and his GOP colleagues for failing to hold the president accountable for this behavior.
"I doubt very much that he told Putin not to attack the American elections again," said Hirono. "That's not where the president goes. But frankly, we don't know what he talks about with Putin or practically any of the other totalitarian-type leaders that he seems to have an affinity for."
"Right now, with the entire Mueller situation, he considers it over and so does Lindsey Graham, but it is not over," said Hirono. "We'd like to hear from Mueller, and I stick by what I said: that Barr lied to Congress."
"We can expect that the Justice Department will not prosecute any kind of contempt of Congress decision," said Hirono, "but then we have to resort to the courts, which is what we have to do with just about every decision, every executive order that this president puts out."
"So this is the president once again doing the two things that he cares about most: protecting himself, and money, and right now he's very busy protecting himself," Hirono continued. "And that's why I've characterized what goes on at the White House as a moral dead zone, and you enter that dead zone and you end up with an attorney general who can't even tell me that telling the White House counsel to lie is not okay. He can't answer that."
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