Ex-FBI director Mueller to lead Trump/Russia probe
Surge in calls to impeach embattled U.S. president
• Under attack from all sides, the Trump administration appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller Wednesday evening as a special counsel to oversee the federal investigation into allegations Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign collaborated to influence the 2016 presidential election.
The appointment came amid a growing Democratic outcry for someone outside the Justice Department to handle the politically charged investigation.
It followed the revelation Tuesday that fired FBI director James Comey had written in a memo that Trump, in a February meeting in the Oval Office, had asked him to end an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The White House has denied that account.
Mueller was appointed FBI director in 2001 and led the FBI through the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. He retired in 2013.
The Justice Department said Mueller has resigned from his job at a private law firm to take the job of special counsel.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump lashed out at his critics, vowing to “fight, fight, fight” amid a growing furor over allegations that he tried to shut down the FBI investigation.
Democrats called for Trump’s impeachment, accusing him of obstructing justice, and compared his actions to the Watergate scandal, but the Republican leadership in Congress stood by him and expressed “full confidence” in the president.
Al Green, a Democrat congressman from Texas, became the first person to call for Trump’s impeachment on the floor of the House. Republicans accused him of grandstanding, but Justin Amash of Michigan became the first Republican to float the idea of impeachment. He said: “If the allegations are true, yes. But everybody in this country gets a fair trial, including the president. It’s pretty clear I have confidence in Director Comey.”
John McCain was the most high-profile Republican senator to criticize Trump. He said: “We’ve seen this movie before. I think it’s reached a point where it’s of Watergate size and scale.”
In a surprising twist, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to exonerate Trump over the intelligence claims, saying no secrets had been shared.
Trump gave a passionate address to U.S. Coast Guard cadets in Connecticut, saying he had been “treated worse than any politician in history” by the media.