TRUMP CLAIMS MEMO VINDICATES HIM

But a Republican lawmaker says president is off the mark

UNITED States President Donald Trump claimed vindication on Saturday in the probe into Russian interference with the 2016 White House election, following the release of a controversial memo implying partisanship at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The declassified Republican document released on Friday claimed that Democratic-funded research prompted the FBI to spy on a former Trump campaign aide.

“This memo totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe,” the president tweeted, referring to himself.

“But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on,” he said, continuing with a misspelling: “Their was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!”

Later, Trump tweeted: “Great jobs numbers and finally, after many years, rising wages — and nobody even talks about them. Only Russia, Russia, Russia, despite the fact that, after a year of looking, there is No Collusion!”

Democrats and some Republicans said the memo was a thinlyveiled effort to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties with Russia.

Trey Gowdy, a Republican lawmaker who this week said he would not seek reelection, told CBS’ Face the Nation the president was off the mark.

Gowdy noted that he himself helped draft the memo, but said that, even without the Democratic-funded dossier, there would still be an investigation of other alleged links to Russia.