A trio of House Republicans lobbing attacks on Mueller have been in touch with the White House

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Jim Jordan

• Republican lawmakers' sustained attacks on the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller in recent weeks have raised questions about whether the effort has been coordinated and influenced by the White House.
• A trio of House Republicans most opposed to Mueller's investigation have indicated that they have spoken to the White House, and Trump directly, about the probe.
• Many of Trump's allies in Congress and the media have called on Mueller and FBI Director Chris Wray to fire agents who appear politically biased.

A House Republican who has repeatedly characterized special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, and the FBI more broadly, as biased and politically motivated indicated on Wednesday that he has spoken with the White House about Mueller's probe.

"Have you had conversations, or has your office had conversations, with the White House about the Mueller investigation?" CNN host John Berman asked the congressman, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.

"We just had Mr. Sessions, Mr. Rosenstein, and Mr. Wray in front of us," Jordan said, referring to the House Judiciary Committee's recent oversight hearings with the attorney general, deputy attorney general, and FBI director. "I did not talk to the White House about what kind of questions I was going to ask."

"Have you had conversations with the White House not about the questions you asked, but about the Mueller investigation in general?" Berman asked.

"I talk with the White House about all kinds of things," Jordan said. "We've had talks with the White House about tax policy, we've had talks about Obamacare, of course we've had talks with the White House. But my questions in those committees was driven by the evidence we've received in the last several weeks" about FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, he said.

A spokeswoman for Jordan did not return a request for comment. But the congressman has become among the loudest in a growing chorus of Republican lawmakers calling for Mueller and the FBI director, Chris Wray, to fire agents who appear politically biased.

Those calls intensified after news broke that Strzok and Page, both of whom worked on Mueller's team until this summer, had exchanged texts during the election that mocked President Donald Trump and other political leaders.

Jordan is not the only congressman seeking to undermine Mueller who has been in touch with the White House in recent weeks.

Jim Jordan isn't the only one

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, the first lawmaker to openly demand that Mueller be fired, discussed the special counsel probe with Trump aboard Air Force One earlier this month ahead of a rally in Florida.

Gaetz, who is friends with longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone and has alleged that Mueller is plotting a "coup d'etat," told Trump he was "concerned that this investigation was infected with bias," according to Politico.

Trump replied, "That's why you guys have got to do your job,'" Gaetz said.

Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis, another House Judiciary Committee member who put forward a provision in August that would have severely limited the scope and funding of Mueller's probe, was also on the flight with Gaetz and Trump.

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, meanwhile, has been meeting secretly with a group of House Intelligence Committee Republicans for weeks to build a case that senior leaders of the DOJ and FBI mishandled the contents of the Trump-Russia dossier - a raw intelligence document compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele outlining alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

Nunes, the intelligence committee's chairman, stepped aside from the Russia investigation in early April following his decision to brief Trump and the press on classified intelligence - without telling his fellow committee members.

It is unclear whether Nunes has remained in contact with Trump. A spokesman for Nunes did not return a request for comment.

The California congressman has been conducting his own investigations into "unmaskings" by the Obama administration and the credibility of the dossier - two issues heavily promoted by Trump earlier this year - which has heightened speculation that he coordinated with the White House at least initially to create a diversion from the FBI's Russia investigation.

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell told Business Insider earlier this year that Nunes' shadow investigations risked compromising the House panel's probe.

"If Speaker [Paul] Ryan wants a credible investigation to come out of the House Intelligence Committee," he said, "he'll do everything he can to make sure Devin Nunes' fingerprints are not on our report."