Steve Bannon, former executive chairman of Breitbart News and former chief strategist for US President Donald Trump, has called on the president to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the man charged with supervising the Mueller probe.
Rosenstein has recently faced scrutiny for his alleged withholding of sensitive information from the US Congress. Two US representatives, Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, even filed a resolution to impeach Rosenstein over alleged obstruction of justice last month, but their effort failed to garner support.
Bannon also claimed Rosenstein is "clearly obstructing justice" by not turning in the documents to Congressional committees and suggested the president fire him.
"If he doesn't do it in 72 hours, he's fired. I'd fire him," Bannon said in an interview with The Hill.
Bannon called Mueller a "good man" and "a combat-veteran Marine," but also urged him to release a preliminary report on his findings before the midterm elections, so that the people of the US can come to some conclusions on the investigation.
"Let the American people, on November 6, let them decide," Bannon said. "They are going to say that is too thin a reed to hang anything serious on."
In a July 29 tweet, Trump accused Mueller of having conflicts of interest.
"We had a very nasty & contentious business relationship, I turned him down to head the FBI (one day before appointment as S.C.) & Comey is his close friend," the president tweeted.
Bannon downplayed the president's reaction, saying, "I think the president's just expressing his frustration."
In any case, Team Trump's pushback against Mueller "is definitely not an admission of guilt," Bannon added. "I think it's an admission of frustration."
As he spoke, he insisted there was no collusion between Russia and Trump's campaign back in 2016. Moscow, too, has denied all allegations of interference in the election or coordination with Trump and his team.
Trump and Bannon parted ways after Bannon spoke critically of Trump and his family, according to Michael Wolff's book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House."