Could this scandal turn into Trump’s Watergate?
Says he’ll ‘fight, fight, fight’ after calls for impeachment
DEFIANT Donald Trump vowed to ‘fight, fight, fight’ yesterday as he faced claims he interfered with an FBI investigation into his team’s links with Russia.
As the White House was plunged into its most serious crisis yet, there were calls from Democrats to impeach the President – and even a Republican conceded it could happen.
It followed allegations Mr Trump asked former FBI director James Comey to stop investigating his disgraced national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The uncertainty over the President’s future yesterday gave Wall Street its worst trading day since September.
The dollar also fell to its lowest value for nearly eight months, valued at only 0.77 of a pound.
Republican senator John McCain said the growing scandal was now ‘reaching Watergate size and scale’.
Giving a speech in Connecticut, Mr Trump remained defiant and said that ‘no politician in history’ has been ‘treated worse or more unfairly’ than he has.
Giving advice to coastguard recruits, he said: ‘Over the course of your life you will find that things are not always fair. You will find that things happen to you that you do not deserve, and that are not always warranted, but you have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight! Never, ever, ever give up. Things will work out just fine.’
He continued: ‘Look at the way I’ve been treated lately – especially by the media. You can’t let them get you down. You can’t let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams.’
According to the New York Times, the President asked Mr Comey to stop investigating Mr Flynn at an Oval Office meeting in February.
It quoted him saying: ‘I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy.’ The move came a day after Mr Flynn was forced out of his job for lying about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the US.
Mr Comey was reportedly stunned by the request, which is said to have been made in private after Mr Trump ushered other officials out of the room.
The FBI chief, who was himself sacked by the President last week, is said to have meticulously documented the conversation in a memo. The White House denies claims that Mr Trump asked Mr Comey to stop the investigation and questioned why he had only mentioned it after he had been sacked. The President insists accounts of his meeting with the FBI chief were ‘not an accurate representation’.
If the reports are proved to be true, legal experts say his attempt to impede a federal investigation would constitute obstruction of justice and provide grounds for Mr Trump’s impeachment and removal from power.
The Senate intelligence committee has asked Mr Comey to address the matter. Members – including Republicans – also asked the FBI to hand over any relevant papers, including the socalled memo. Democrat congressman Al Green called for Mr Trump’s impeachment on the House of Representatives floor. ‘No one is above the law and that includes the president,’ he said.
Mr Green claimed the President’s decision to sack Mr Comey while he was under an FBI investigation provided sufficient grounds. Democrats redoubled their demands for an independent investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election and Trump camp links with the Kremlin.
Vladimir Putin yesterday came to Mr Trump’s aid amid a row over classified material.
The US leader is alleged to have used an Oval Office meeting to brief Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov about an IS plot to bring down aircraft. But Mr Putin has now offered to provide a transcript of the conversation between the pair. He said America was developing ‘political schizophrenia’.
Mr Putin also described US politicians whipping up ‘anti-Russian sentiment’ as either ‘stupid’ or ‘dangerous’.
UK bookmakers are now predicting there is a 55 per cent chance Mr Trump will leave office early. With the Republicans controlling the House, it is unlikely to vote for impeachment unless rankand-file supporters make clear they have lost confidence.
But there were signs of cracks in the party when Republican congressman Justin Amash, who has a history of attacking the President, said that if the allegations were true, they constituted grounds for impeachment.
Mr Trump would be the first president since Bill Clinton to face impeachment. The Democrat was later cleared by the Senate.