Sen. Cory Booker on protecting special counsel, Trump immigration proposal
President Trump is facing outrage over a report that says he ordered special counsel Robert Mueller to be fired last June. The New York Times reports Mr. Trump reportedly backed off after White House counsel Donald McGahn threatened to quit. On Friday, Mr. Trump called the story "fake news." He had said on Wednesday he's "looking forward" to speaking with the special counsel.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, reacted to the report, saying the effort or thought to fire Mueller "would really plunge our country into a constitutional crisis."
"To fire the special prosecutor, especially after the fact pattern we're seeing about the firing of the FBI director [James Comey], really presents a problem for our nation as a whole to have an unaccountable president undermining, actively undermining an ongoing investigation into his administration and his campaign where a number of close allies and associates have already faced indictment, have already faced serious levels of investigation," Booker said Friday on "CBS This Morning."
He and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., presented a bipartisan bill last year that would protect the special counsel and limit the president's power to remove them.
"The reality is, we are in a position right now where, should the president order firing of the special prosecutor, we really have no check or balance on his power," Booker said. "This is something that is clearly needed right now, and, frankly, it's something that I think would be needed in future generations so that there would be an independent overview of the president's power to remove a special prosecutor. And you have to understand, right now there is no check. There is no presidential accountability. And we believe that should lie with the judiciary."
Booker also commented on the White House immigration proposal to create a path to citizenship for so-called "Dreamers," undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, in exchange for $25 billion in funding for border walls. He said the current proposal was "unacceptable" and defended Dreamers, calling them "American citizens in every single way except for a piece of paper."
"What is offensive about the president's proposal is he wants to put tens of billions of dollars -- at the time the country is screaming for infrastructure investment -- that many of the best experts of homeland security do not believe we need," Booker said. "This is like money for a 19th century technology at a time that we could use 21st century technology, less expensive to protect our borders. There's not a senator in Congress that doesn't want secure borders, but the way this president is going about it seems to be more about a campaign promise and campaign rhetoric than what's best to secure this country."
Booker said Dreamers being used as "a political pawn right now is to me reprehensible when everyone knows these kids right now are suffering. They're in severe anxiety that's upending their education and their work."
"They've served in our military, pledged allegiance to our flag. They've taught in our schools. They're entrepreneurs. They're creating jobs," Booker said.