Trump lashes out at FBI in tweets
President questions direction of federal law enforcement agency, says it needs to ‘clean house’
WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee says the panel is starting to see “the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice” against President Donald Trump.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” California Democrat Dianne Feinstein said the evidence is coming partly from “the continual tweets” from the White House. Trump is focusing renewed attacks on the FBI, and on the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, two days after ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn agreed to co-operate with the probe as part of a plea agreement.
Feinstein said she believes Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey came “directly because he did not agree to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation.” She added, “That’s obstruction of justice.”
Trump launched a fresh attack Sunday on the credibility of his own FBI, responding to revelations that an FBI agent was removed from Mueller’s team investigating Russian election meddling because of antiTrump text messages.
Trump again denied that he directed FBI director James Comey to stop investigating Flynn.
The Republican president offered a running Twitter commentary Sunday amid renewed focus on Mueller’s probe and Flynn’s decision to co-operate with the investigation. Democrats said the developments suggested growing evidence of co-ordination between Trump’s circle and Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
In a series of tweets, Trump questioned the direction of the federal law enforcement agency and wrote that after Comey, whom Trump fired in May, the FBI’s reputation is “in Tatters — worst in History!” He vowed to “bring it back to greatness.” The president also retweeted a post saying new FBI director Chris Wray “needs to clean house.”
The president seized on reports that a veteran FBI counter-intelligence agent was removed from Mueller’s team last summer after the discovery of an exchange of text messages that were viewed as potentially anti-Trump. The agent, Peter Strzok, had also worked on the investigation of Democrat Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Peter Carr, a spokesperson for Mueller, said Mueller removed Strzok from the team “immediately upon learning of the allegations.” He would not elaborate on the nature of the accusations.
Trump tweeted Sunday: “Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI ‘agent’s role in Clinton probe under review.’ Led Clinton Email probe.” In a separate tweet, he wrote: “Report: ‘ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE’ Now it all starts to make sense!”
Strzok’s removal almost certainly reflected a desire to insulate the investigators from any claims of political bias or favouritism. Trump and many of his supporters have at times sought to discredit the integrity of the investigation, in part by claiming a close relationship between Mueller and Comey and by pointing to political contributions to Democrats made by some lawyers on the team.
Following the tweets, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., warned the president to tread cautiously.
“You tweet and comment regarding ongoing criminal investigations at your own peril. I’d be careful if I were you, Mr. President. I’d watch this,” Graham said.