Sales ‘Fury’ also for history tome
Afraid, Don? Repeats denial, ducks on Mueller quiz
PRESIDENT TRUMP on Wednesday said it “seems unlikely” he would have to meet with the special counsel investigating his campaign’s alleged ties to Russian election meddling because there was “no collusion,” “no collusion,” “no collusion,” “no collusion,” “no collusion” and “no collusion.”
“When they have no collusion it seems unlikely that you’d even have an interview,” Trump said at a White House news conference.
Standing alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Trump called special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation a “Democratic hoax” and a “phony cloud” over his administration.
Answering questions about his willingness to testify under oath, he used the word “collusion” 13 times, including seven references to “no collusion” and one “nobody’s found collusion.”
Trump’s comments contrast his claim last summer that he would be “100%” willing to testify under oath if Mueller asked him to do so.
He suggested Mueller should be focusing on Democrats.
“I’ll say this, there is collusion, but it’s really with the Democrats and the Russians,” Trump said without clarifying. “So the witch hunt continues.”
Hours earlier, Trump lashed out at Sen. Dianne Feinstein for releasing testimony from an investigator who hired a former British spy to probe Trump’s ties to Russia during the presidential campaign.
“The fact that Sneaky Dianne Feinstein, who has on numerous occasions stated that collusion between Trump/Russia has not been found, would release testimony in such an underhanded and possibly illegal way, totally without authorization, is a disgrace. Must have tough Primary!” he wrote on Twitter.
The material wasn’t classified, and Feinstein said she didn’t do anything illegal.
Trump also renewed his call for a federal libel law to punish writers he says are dishonest.
“Our country’s libel laws are a sham and a disgrace, and do not reflect American values of fairness,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting Wednesday, saying the issue was on his administration’s 2018 agenda.
“What the American people want to see is fairness.”
The President made no mention of “Fire and Fury,” a new book that takes a critical look at his administration, but said people shouldn’t be able to say false things and then “smile as money pours into your bank account.”
He also took to Twitter to bemoan “how broken and unfair our Court System is” after a federal judge temporarily blocked his plan to end protections for undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally as children. “FIRE AND FURY” is burning up the bestseller lists — and not just the one about the Trump administration. A Toronto professor is reaping rewards from the success of Michael Wolff’s expose “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.” Randall Hansen, whose 2008 book “Fire and Fury” documents the Allies’ bombing of Germany during World War II, has gotten a major sales bump — apparently from people trying to buy the Wolff book. “It’s really gratifying that people are talking about the book again,” Hansen, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, told the Daily News. Not all of the reviews have been raves. “I DON’T SEE ANYTHING ABOUT PRESIDENT TRUMP!” one Amazon reviewer complained.