Trump issues ‘ demand’ for probe of FBI
Giuliani says Mueller offered timetable of investigation concluding by Sept. 1
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Sunday that he will “demand” that the Justice Department open an investigation into whether the FBI infiltrated his presidential campaign, an extraordinary order that came hours before his legal team said that the special counsel indicated its investigation into the president could be concluded by September.
Trump tweeted: “I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/ DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”
Trump’s pressure on the Justice Department — it asked its watchdog later Sunday to expand an existing probe of FBI actions — reached a new intensity with the demand, and came amid a White House strategy to combat the threat posed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. And the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said that Mueller recently shared a timetable that suggested that its probe could end by Sept. 1 if Trump were to sit for an interview in July, which is the legal team’s new working plan.
“We said to them, ‘ If we’re going to be interviewed in July, how much time until the report gets issued?’” Giuliani told The Associated Press on Sunday, referring to the report Mueller is expected to issue to Congress at the conclusion of his investigation. “They said September, which is good for everyone, because no one wants this to drag into the midterms.”
Giuliani said he did not want a repeat of what happened in 2016, when FBI Director James Comey announced in the campaign’s final days that he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, a decision Democrats believe cost Clinton the race. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, also said that Mueller’s team indicated that the entire probe could end by September, not just its investigation into potential obstruction of justice.
“This would be the culmination of the investigation into the president,” Giuliani said.
The special counsel’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
It is not certain if Trump will sit for an interview with Mueller, though the president has publicly said he would. Giuliani said a decision on that would not be made until after Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, which is slated for June 12. The former mayor said Sunday the two sides “were getting closer” to agreeing on the parameters on a potential interview but would not put the odds of it happening at better than 50/ 50.
Giuliani’s apparent attempt to publicly pressure Mueller amid interview negotiations came just hours after Trump’s demand for a new inquiry, which moved beyond his usual blustery accusations of institutional wrongdoing and into the realm of applying presidential pressure on the Justice Department, a move few of his predecessors have made.
Trump made the order amid days of public venting about the special counsel investigation, which he has deemed a “witch hunt” that has yielded no evidence of collusion between his campaign and Russia. In response, the Justice Department moved Sunday to defuse a growing confrontation with the White House by asking its inspector general to expand an existing investigation into the Russia probe by examining whether therewas any improper politically motivated surveillance.