Trump fires first shots at probe on Russia meddling
WASHINGTON : President Donald Trump and his lawyer fired what may be the first shots in a showdown with Special Counsel Robert Mueller over the future of his investigation into Russian election meddling and Trump’s campaign.
The president kept the pressure on Sunday with a series of Twitter messages assailing Mueller’s investigation, former FBI Director James Comey, and Andrew McCabe, until recently the FBI’s deputy director.
The firing of McCabe prompted Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, to call on Saturday for Mueller to shut down his collusion probe. Trump unleashed a pair of tweets attacking the Federal Bureau of Investigation and James Comey, the FBI director he fired in May.
The comments were the latest sign that Trump has lost patience with the months-long investigation that’s cast a dark shadow over his presidency.
Trump’s lawyers, who’ve been negotiating terms for Mueller to interview the president, had assured their client for most of last year that the investigation would wrap up by the end of 2017, said a person familiar with the matter. Trump was talked out of firing Mueller back in June, but there are strong signals that the special counsel and his team of 17 prosecutors have at least several months more work ahead of them. “The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” Trump said on Saturday on Twitter. “It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!”
Any move to fire Mueller is expected to ignite a political firestorm in Washington. Democrats have warned of a constitutional crisis, and even most Senate Republicans have cautioned Trump against doing anything to curtail the special counsel’s investigation.
Republicans were noticeably silent, though, in the immediate aftermath of the new calls from Trump and his lawyers to end the probe. McCabe’s firing also adds fresh fuel to Mueller’s probe. Michael Bromwich, serving as one of McCabe’s lawyers, said that he was fired after the disclosure that he’s a cooperating witness against Trump.