Rep. Francis Rooney said Thursday he believes it could soon be time for special counselor Robert Mueller to bring an end to his Russian probe.
The Florida Republican told CNN that Mr. Mueller was tasked with investigating collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign and has come up empty.
“Unfortunately for Mr. Mueller, despite his great reputation, he hasn’t found anything that we know about yet, so if they don’t find something they need to wrap it up,” Mr. Rooney, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said on CNN.
Pressed on the fact that Mr. Mueller indicted 13 Russians for meddling in the election, has filed charges against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and received a guilty plea with former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, Mr. Rooney said that “is not nothing, but it is not what the investigation was set up to do.”
“He hasn’t found collusion or successful interference, he has just found that the Russian’s tried, and I think we need to have these sanctions that the president signed and the House and Senate passed last summer show them that there is a price to pay for that,” he said.
Mr. Rooney suggested time is running out on Mr. Mueller to present evidence of collusion.
“He has had a lot of time, we know the Russians bought digital ads and organized protests and took a lot of actions, but we haven’t seen any evidence that it did any good,” he said.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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