Another conflict-of-interest charge was leveled against special counsel Robert Mueller’s team when a witness pointed out Tuesday the special counsel lawyer questioning her represented Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation only a short time ago.
Now, the former Clinton lawyer is questioning witnesses regarding possible links to the Trump campaign that defeated Clinton in the 2016 election.
Chuck Ross at the Daily Caller reports an associate of onetime Trump adviser Roger Stone called out prosecutor Jeannie Rhee for her recent connections to the twice-failed Democratic presidential hopeful.
“The prosecutor, Jeannie Rhee, has questioned witnesses about Roger Stone, the Trump confidant who is one of the targets of the investigation, numerous sources tell The Daily Caller News Foundation. Rhee questioned Tyler Nixon, an attorney for Stone, just before his grand jury appearance on Nov. 2,” the report said.
“[Rhee’s involvement] was not disclosed to me prior to my testimony, and I find this to be deeply troubling and certainly Ms. Rhee should be recused or removed from the investigation,” Nixon told the Daily Caller.
The report explained the context.
“Recusals related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe became an issue after the appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general on Nov. 7. Among the reasons that Democrats have called for Whitaker’s recusal are his comments criticizing the Trump-Russia probe as well as his work in 2014 on a political campaign for Sam Clovis, a former Trump campaign official who testified before the Mueller grand jury as a witness in 2017.”
In fact, it’s a big issue for Democrats who have been depending on Mueller’s ability to find some misdeed committed by Trump after all their other efforts to oust him from office so far have failed.
Mueller, who was assigned to investigate claims of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, has produced no evidence of collusion after 18 months.
“Seven top congressional Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and California Rep. Adam Schiff, cited Whitaker’s work with Clovis in a letter Sunday to the Justice Department’s top ethics official. The Democrats asked DOJ whether Whitaker has been advised on whether he should recuse himself from the probe,” the report said.
But Nixon said Rhee’s presence is a much larger conflict of interest.
“I find it astonishing that there are cries for the recusal for Mr. Whitaker when I know that I was personally interviewed on behalf of the special counsel by an attorney, Jeannie Rhee, who was Hillary Clinton’s and the Clinton Foundation’s personal attorney not one or two years prior to her joining the special counsel,” Nixon said in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
She defended the foundation against a claim of racketeering. And she defended Hillary Clinton when she was under FBI investigation for transmitting classified information through an unsecure, private email server while she was secretary of state.
Rhee’s presence also has been noted by Stone, the report said.
“It seems somewhat incredible that Democrats are calling for Acting Attorney General Whitaker to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation based on his prior political activities, but they think it’s perfectly all right for Hillary Clinton’s personal attorney and campaign donor to lead a potential prosecution of Roger Stone,” Stone told the foundation.
The special counsel’s office, which has been criticized for being staffed largely by Democrats who donated to Clinton, claimed Justice Department ethics experts had approved of Rhee’s appointment.