'Remember what this investigation led to': CNN legal analyst warns Republicans against going after Mueller and the FBI

In a Tuesday panel discussion, CNN legal analyst Jeff Toobin nailed Attorney General Bill Barr for a purely partisan political crusade against the FBI and Justice Department investigators.

"Let's remember what this investigation led to," Toobin explained to CNN's Anderson Cooper. "We're not talking about, you know, 'Oh, the crazy FBI, just this one meeting and they set off on this wild goose chase.' It wasn't a wild goose chase. They found that there was this incredibly elaborate effort by the Russians to elect Donald Trump president. They found the Internet research agency in St. Petersburg, which was using social media. They found that the GRU was hacking the DNC e-mails."

Republican Trump supporter David Urban asked whether former President Barack Obama knew about what was happening.

"They knew some of it and Mitch McConnell wouldn't agree to have it made public," Toobin cut in. "You know, Mitch McConnell said, 'If you reveal this, I'm going to say it's a partisan smear against Donald Trump.'"

Toobin also noted that the act of going after the FBI and DOJ prosecutors like this sets an alarming precedent.

“Think about the chilling message it sends to career non-political people in the FBI and the Justice Department,” he said. “What it means is if you defy the president’s wishes, his political appointees like the attorney general, they won’t initiate one investigation, they won’t initiate two, three investigations of you for doing your job.”

He characterized it as "harassing people" for nothing more than doing their jobs.

Trump and his cadre of apologists have argued that Americans deserve answers for what happened and why the investigation was launched. Such an investigation will likely reveal Sen. McConnell's decision not to tell Americans and bar Obama from doing so and will ultimately prolong the story about Russia intervening with Russia to help Trump win.

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