Special counsel to probe U.S.-Russia ties
Trump complains: ‘No politician in history’ has been treated worse
WASHINGTON — Besieged 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 as Democrats insisted ever more loudly that someone outside Trump’s Justice Department must handle the politically charged investigation.
An increasing number of Republicans, too, have joined in calling for Congress to dig deeper, especially after Trump fired FBI director James Comey who had been leading the bureau’s probe.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump complained in a commencement address that “no politician in history” has been treated worse by his foes, even as exasperated fellow Republicans slowly joined the clamour for an significant investigation into whether he tried to quash the FBI’s probe.
Three congressional committees, all led by Republicans, confirmed they wanted to hear from Comey, whose notes about a February meeting with the president indicate Trump urged him to drop the bureau’s investigation of fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Congressional investigators are seeking Comey’s memos, as well as documents from the Justice Department related to the firing.
Many Democrats also were calling for an independent special counsel, or prosecutor.
The latest political storm, coupled with the still-potent fallout from Trump’s recent disclosure of classified information to Russian diplomats, overshadowed all else in the capital and beyond. Stocks fell sharply on Wall Street as investors worried that the latest turmoil in Washington could hinder Trump’s pro-business agenda.
Republicans largely sought to cool the heated climate with assurances they would get to the bottom of scandals. “There’s clearly a lot of politics being played,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said. “Our job is to get the facts and to be sober about doing that.”
Unimpressed, Rep. Elijah Cummings, top Democrat on a key House oversight panel, said, “Speaker Ryan has shown he has zero, zero, zero appetite for any investigation of Donald Trump. He accused the Republicans of taking great pains to “do as little as humanly possible, just to claim that they’re doing something.”
Russia’s Vladimir Putin called the charges swirling around Trump evidence of “political schizophrenia spreading in the U.S.” He offered to furnish a “record” of the Trump-diplomats meeting in the Oval Office if the White House desired it.
There was no word on what that record might entail, a question many were likely to raise in light of Trump’s recent warning to Comey that he had “better hope” there were no tapes of a discussion they’d had.
The White House disputed Comey’s account of the February conversation concerning Flynn, but did not offer specifics. Several members of Congress said that if Trump did suggest that Comey “let this go” regarding Flynn’s Russian contacts, it was probably just a joke, light banter.
White House aides mostly kept a rare low profile. Trump did not offer any commentary on Twitter and did not directly address the controversies during a commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy, though he delivered a broadside against the forces he sees as working against him.
“No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly,” he said.
“You can’t let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams. … I guess that’s why we won. Adversity makes you stronger. Don’t give in, don’t back down. … And the more righteous your fight, the more opposition that you will face.”