text: The move by the three lawmakers to seek Robert Mueller’s resignation is a sign of intensifying frustration among Trump’s allies during the same week Mueller issued his first indictments in the probe. | Alex Wong/Getty Images Conservatives introduce measure demanding Mueller’s resignation It’s the latest sign of GOP resistance to the special counsel’s Russia probe. 
   
   Three House Republicans on Friday moved to pressure special counsel Robert Mueller to resign over what they contend are “obvious conflicts of interest,” the latest instance of rising GOP resistance to his Russia probe. 
   
   Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), introduced a measure that, while nonbinding, would put the House on record describing Mueller, a former FBI director, as unfit to lead the probe because of his relationship with James Comey, his successor at the bureau. 
   
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   “[B]e it Resolved, That House of Representatives expresses its sense that Robert Mueller is compromised and should resign from his special counsel position immediately,” the resolution states. 
   
   Mueller is investigating whether any Americans aided Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election as well as whether figures in the Trump administration may have obstructed justice in part by moving to oust Comey in May, when the FBI’s Russia investigation was picking up steam. Mueller was appointed by deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein after an uproar following President Donald Trump’s decision to fire Comey. 
   
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   The move by the three lawmakers to seek Mueller’s resignation is a sign of intensifying frustration among Trump’s allies during the same week Mueller issued his first indictments in the probe: money laundering charges against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates. Mueller also secured a guilty plea from George Papadopoulos, a low-level campaign foreign policy adviser, who lied to the FBI about his attempts to arrange a meeting between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. 
   
   The anger from Republicans appears to mirror the feelings of Trump, who on Friday unloaded in a series of tweets urging his own Justice Department to investigate Democrats — not him — for transgressions he says occurred during the 2016 election. 
   
   "This is real collusion and dishonesty. Major violation of Campaign Finance Laws and Money Laundering," he said, accusing Democrats of the same charges that Manafort was hit with. "[W]here is our Justice Department?” 
   
   Most Republicans, including those in GOP leadership, are not on board with dismissing Mueller. 
   
   But the conservative push has worried some on the left, who are urging Democratic lawmakers to step up their defense of Mueller. 
   
   “While it might be ideal to wait to speak out until Mueller finishes his investigation, Trump’s defenders in Congress are not waiting to defend the President’s actions or to pass judgment on the investigation,” CAP Action Fund wrote in a memo being prepared for lawmakers and obtained by POLITICO. “The heightened risk to Trump from Mueller’s investigation also means there is a heightened risk to the Mueller investigation from Trump.” 
   
   Other conservatives, like Reps. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), have already called for Mueller’s departure. 
   
   DeSantis, too, has ramped up his efforts to hinder Mueller’s investigation. He recently pushed an amendment, which failed to gain traction, that would have curtailed Mueller’s probe within six months and limited its scope. 
   
   And in a Thursday interview with Breitbart Radio, DeSantis blamed Rosenstein for a “clumsy” decision to appoint Mueller without putting strict limits on his scope. 
   
   “Rosenstein really muffed this,” he said. 
   
   Breitbart News Editor Alex Marlow, who interviewed DeSantis, promised to give his proposal a lot of airtime and ink. 
   
   “We’re going to be pushing it heavily or at least content on it heavily,” he said. 
   
   In his interview, DeSantis also foreshadowed the end of the House Intelligence Committee’s separate investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. 
   
   “The good news on the congressional side, at least in the House, is from what I understand, they’ve really increased the frequency of the interviews of the people and I think on the House side this Russia-Trump [probe] is going to come to an end soon,” he said. 
   
   DeSantis isn’t on the intelligence panel but said talking to committee members, he’s convinced it’ll be done “certainly before the end of the year.” 
   
   He also said he’s been urging Speaker Paul Ryan to curtail the House investigation. 
   
   “I said, ‘Mr. Speaker, we’ve been spinning these wheels. There’s no evidence. If there is, produce it. I think we’d all like to see it. But if not, then we’ve got to get on with our business,’” adding, “I think that message has been received.” 
   
   While the new resolution faults Mueller for leading the probe despite his professional relationship with Comey, it also includes a broader broadside against the FBI. 
   
   The three lawmakers say the agency should be investigated for “willful blindness” over a seven-year-old sale of uranium production facilities to Russian interests, which conservatives have argued was approved in part by the Hillary Clinton-led State Department at the same time a party to the deal was making donations to the Clinton Foundation. 
   
   Mueller, they note, was presiding over the FBI at the time the agency was investigating a Russian bribery and extortion scheme connected to the uranium deal, but the agency declined to notify Congress of its investigation and prevented a confidential informant from notifying lawmakers. 
   
   “Any thorough and honest investigation into the corruption of American-uranium related business must include investigating the willful blindness of the FBI and its leaders,” according to the resolution. 
   
   CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the name of President Donald Trump's former campaign manager. ||||| Thomson Reuters Robert Mueller. 
   
   Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida is calling for Robert Mueller to resign as the special counsel investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 US election. 
   
   Gaetz cites a lack of charges relating to a 2010 uranium deal approved by US government agencies under Mueller's watch as the reason. 
   
   
   
   WASHINGTON - A group of conservative Republican lawmakers introduced a resolution on Friday calling for Robert Mueller to recuse himself as the special counsel investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 US election and whether President Donald Trump's campaign team colluded with Moscow. 
   
   Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Louie Gohmert of Texas say Mueller should step down because he was the FBI director in 2010 when US government agencies approved the sale of Uranium One, a Canadian energy company, to a Russian nuclear-energy firm. The deal required approval because Uranium One had mining operations in the US. 
   
   Gaetz says the issue is that Mueller's FBI had found evidence of criminal activity that may have been relevant to the deal but did not bring any charges, and that Mueller therefore should recuse himself from the current investigation. 
   
   "These deeply troubling events took place when Mr. Mueller was the Director of the FBI. As such, his impartiality is hopelessly compromised," Gaetz said in a statement. "He must step down immediately." 
   
   Many of Gaetz's Republican colleagues, however, have previously expressed support for Mueller and his investigation. Senate Republicans have even introduced bills to create a barrier between Trump and Mueller in the event the president attempts to fire him. 
   
   Some conservatives have latched on to the Uranium One deal recently, pointing to a report tangentially tying the deal to the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, who was the secretary of state at the time, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton. ||||| Three GOP congressmen introduced a resolution Friday calling for special counsel Robert Mueller to resign from the Russia collusion probe, citing his ties to the FBI and its role in controversies involving Russia. 
   
   Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a member of the House Judiciary Committee, along with co-sponsors, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, introduced the resolution on Friday. 
   
   “Evidence has emerged that the FBI withheld information from Congress and from the American people about Russian corruption of American uranium companies,” Gaetz said in a statement Friday. “A confidential U.S. witness, working in the Russian nuclear industry, revealed that Russia had deeply compromised an American uranium trucking firm through bribery and financial kickbacks.” 
   
   Gaetz was referring to Mueller’s supervision of a bribery probe involving a subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom, which eventually got approval from the U.S. to buy a Canadian mining company, Uranium One, that controlled a swath of American uranium reserves. At the time of the probe, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller as special counsel, was a U.S. attorney and Mueller was FBI director. Republicans want to know how that deal was approved despite the evidence gathered in the bribery probe. 
   
   MUELLER FACING NEW REPUBLICAN PRESSURE TO RESIGN IN RUSSIA PROBE 
   
   Gaetz also pointed to the FBI informant, whose gag order was lifted by the Justice Department last week, and is now able to provide information to Congress, free of the FBI’s nondisclosure agreement he signed when Mueller served as director. 
   
   “Although federal agents possessed this information in 2010, the Department of Justice continued investigating this “matter” for over four years. The FBI, led at the time by Robert Mueller, required the confidential witness to sign a non-disclosure agreement. When the witness attempted to contact Congress and federal courts about the bribery and corruption he saw, he was threatened with legal action,” Gaetz said in a statement. “By silencing him, Obama’s Justice Department and Mueller’s FBI knowingly kept Congress in the dark about Russia’s significant and illegal involvement with American uranium companies.” 
   
   Gaetz said that due to these “deeply troubling” events, Mueller’s “impartiality is hopelessly compromised.” 
   
   
   
   “He must step down immediately,” Gaetz said Friday. 
   
   Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., has also called for Mueller’s resignation. 
   
   Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has called for an independent special counsel to investigate the Obama-era Uranium One deal. 
   
   There are currently two pieces of legislation in the Senate, with bipartisan sponsorship, that would ensure a judicial check on the executive branch’s ability to remove a special counsel. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., are behind the bills, along with Democratic senators. 
   
   The proposed resolution comes just days after Mueller’s team announced the first charges in their investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign officials in the 2016 presidential election. 
   
   Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates were indicted on 12 counts by a federal grand jury as part of the probe. Both pleaded not guilty. And Former Trump foreign policy campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos entered a guilty plea on Monday after admittedly making false statements to the FBI.
target: – In a sign of just how frustrated some in the GOP are with special counsel Robert Mueller after "indictment week," three House Republicans introduced a measure Friday that would pressure Mueller to step down. The nonbinding measure, introduced by Reps. Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, and Louie Gohmert, would put the House on record as believing Mueller should resign because he's unfit to lead the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Politico reports. Why? Due to "obvious conflicts of interest," including his relationship with James Comey, who succeeded him at the FBI and was later ousted from his post by President Trump; among other things, Mueller is investigating whether anyone in the Trump administration obstructed justice during that ouster. Per Fox News, the measure also makes note of Mueller's supervision of a bribery probe when he was FBI director that involved a Russian nuclear-energy company that got approval from US government agencies to buy a Canadian energy company that had mining operations in the US. "Evidence has emerged that the FBI withheld information from Congress and from the American people about Russian corruption of American uranium companies," Gaetz said in a statement wondering how the deal got US approval despite the bribery probe. The representatives say that's another reason Mueller should recuse himself as special counsel, as his "impartiality is hopelessly compromised." But, as multiple outlets including Business Insider note, most Republicans so far support keeping Mueller in place, including those in leadership positions.