Trump urged to criticize Mueller
Loyalists push for fight as probe gets closer to Oval Office.
WASHINGTON — Even as Pres- ident Donald Trump’s advisers encourage him to accept the realities of special coun- sel Robert Mueller’s probe, longtime friends and allies are pushing Trump to fight back, citing concerns that his lawyers are naive to the existential threat facing the president.
Trump supporters and associates inside and outside the White House see the conciliatory path as risky to the maverick president’s tenure. Instead, they want the street-fighting tweeter to crit- icize Mueller with abandon.
T he st r uggle between supporters of t he legal team’s steady, cooperative approach, and the band of Trump loyalists who yearn for a fight, comes as the Muel- ler probe begins lapping at the door of the Oval Office. Mueller, who is investigating the firing of former FBI director James Comey and other key actions of the Trump administration, has signaled that his team intends to interview multiple current and former White House officials in the coming weeks and has requested large batches of documents from the exec- utive branch.
In private, Trump remains relatively calm for now, but that doesn’t mean he thinks the Russia probe is legiti- mate, and he could return to fighting Mueller at any moment, according to a group of about 15 Trump allies, advisers and former campaign aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about private conversations with the White House.
The president still periodically flashes his anger, blasting the Senate intelli- gence committee’s investiga- tion in a tweet last Thursday and urging them to investigate journalists instead of his campaign and family. And in a private dinner with social conservatives last month, Trump expressed frustration over Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal, which helped pave the road to Muel- ler’s appointment.
“The president respects what Bob Mueller is doing and has fully cooperated and asked everyone around him to fully cooperate with Bob,” said Trump’s attorney, John Dowd. “And as a result,” he added, there has been for months “a very productive, professional relationship.”
Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer responsible for responding to Mueller’s information requests, said it’s important to Trump “and the country to get this behind us.”
“The White House is work- ing diligently in full cooperation with the special counsel to complete the responses to all pending requests, and the president’s frustration does not extend to the special counsel personally in any way,” he added.
Lawyers have been gathering documents requested by Mueller’s investigators — which include records about the brief tenure of ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn — and work- ing to schedule interviews with aides. In recent weeks, they’ve also discussed a legal defense fund that could cover the cost of lower-level White House officials who may get wrapped up in the probe, and about the possibility of a single “pool counsel” to represent some aides. But the question of cooperation is far from settled for Trump’s allies, many of whom are pressing him to fight Mueller more aggressively.
That tension was appar- ent at a private dinner of close to a dozen conserva- tive leaders with Trump and his top aides on Sept. 25, though accounts of the gath- ering vary.
In one version, one guest peppered Trump with ques- tions about what he was going to do about the special counsel’s investigation. While Trump was dismissive, the president said he was keeping his head low and such questions should be posed to Sessions himself, according to two peo- ple who were present and spoke on condition of ano- nymity to discuss the private dinner.
But a third person in the room said that Trump was visibly angry with Sessions and made a flippant remark about the attorney general’s decision to recuse himself from overseeing the federal Russia probe.