Trump: No intent to dismiss Mueller
Special counsel is safe, president says, repeating denial of Russia collusion
WASHINGTON » President Donald Trump on Sunday sought to douse speculation that he may fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller amid an intensifying campaign by Trump allies to attack the wide-ranging Russia investigation as improper and politically motivated.
Returning to the White House from Camp David, Trump was asked Sunday whether he intended to fire Mueller. “No, I’m not,” he told journalists, insisting that there was “no collusion whatsoever” between his campaign and Russia.
The president’s comments came a day after a lawyer representing Trump’s transition team accused Mueller of wrongfully obtaining thousands of emails sent and received by Trump officials before the start of his administration — a legal and public relations maneuver seen as possibly laying the groundwork to oust the special counsel.
Trump criticized Mueller for gaining access to those emails, telling re-
porters the situation was “not looking good.”
“It’s quite sad to see that,” Trump said. “My people were very upset about it.”
Mueller’s spokesman denied any wrongdoing, and some legal experts questioned the claim that the emails were improperly obtained.
The outcry over Mueller’s probe into Russia’s 2016 election interference grew louder over the weekend among Trump loyalists and conservative media figures. Although Trump has publicly and privately criticized the Department of Justice and the FBI and voiced displeasure with his appointees there, the president’s advisers insisted he is not aiming his ire at Mueller.
“As the White House has repeatedly and emphatically said for months, there is no consideration about firing or replacing the special counsel with whom the White House has fully cooperated in order to permit a fully vetted yet prompt conclusion,” Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer overseeing the Russia matter, said Sunday in a statement.
Trump’s lawyers, who have been assuring the president that Mueller’s investigation is poised to wrap up by January or so, are scheduled to meet with Mueller’s team later this week for a routine status conference. They are expected to ask the special counsel if there are any other outstanding questions or materials that investigators need before concluding the probe.
As the special counsel has inched closer to Trump with a series of indictments and guilty pleas, including securing the cooperation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the president’s defenders have spotlighted examples of political bias expressed by two senior FBI officials as proof of a compromised investigation.
FBI lawyer Lisa Page and counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, who worked on the Russia investigation, were removed from Mueller’s team after text messages surfaced in which they discussed their dislike of Trump and support of Democrat Hillary Clinton. Their text messages were released by the Justice Department last week and are still under review.
Some Trump surrogates have said the texts show that Mueller’s investigation is partisan.
“It looks more and more and more like an attack on the presidency,” former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo said Sunday. “I still don’t believe Mueller is in for a silent coup, but I think people around him have shown that this thing is off the rails . ... These texts and emails were a declaration of their membership in the resistance.”
The attacks have fed speculation about Mueller’s fate. Rep. Jackie Speier, DSan Mateo, told a California television station on Friday that “the rumor” on Capitol Hill is that Trump would fire Mueller at the end of this week, as Congress disperses for a holiday break.
Liberal activist groups have readied mass protests in the event that Mueller is fired. The sprawling “Trump Is Not Above the Law” coalition now has more than 400 demonstrations ready to launch nationwide. Were Mueller to be fired in the morning, events would be held at 5 p.m. local time; if he were fired in the afternoon or evening, protests would kick off at noon the following day.
Trump’s aides said the rumors are nonsense. Asked whether the Trump transition team lawyer’s complaint was setting the stage for firing Mueller, White House legislative affairs director Marc Short replied, “No!”
“There is no conversation about that whatsoever in the White House,” Short said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
On Saturday, a lawyer representing Trump’s transition team claimed in a letter to congressional investigators that Mueller’s team improperly obtained a trove of transition emails from the federal General Services Administration. The letter from Kory Langhofer, counsel to Trump for America, alleged that career GSA employees improperly provided privileged communications to investigators working for Mueller, contending that transition documents are private property and not public records.
The special counsel’s office rejected the allegations.
“When we have obtained emails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation, we have secured either the account owner’s consent or appropriate criminal process,” said Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s team.
Some legal experts challenged Langhofer’s charge. Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who teaches a course on whitecollar crime at George Washington University Law School, said it was not surprising that Mueller’s team sought Trump transition emails.
“It’s not your personal email,” Eliason said. If it ends in .gov, you don’t have any expectation of privacy.”
On Capitol Hill, Mueller has widespread support, even among Trump’s allies.
Asked what might happen if Trump fired the special counsel, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, RTexas, said, “I think that would be a mistake.”