Trump’s lawyer calls for shutdown of Russia probe

President Donald Trump’s lawyer called on the Justice Department to immediately shut down the special counsel probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, in the wake of the firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Attorney John Dowd said in a statement that the investigation, now led by special counsel Robert Mueller, was fatally flawed early on and “corrupted” by political bias. He called on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees that probe, to shut it down.

“I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia Collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt Dossier,” Dowd said in an emailed statement.

Dowd told The Washington Post on Saturday he was speaking for himself and not on Trump’s behalf. Earlier Saturday, Dowd told the Daily Beast that he was speaking on behalf of the president and in his capacity as the president’s attorney. (After the Daily Beast published its story, Dowd emailed the publication and said he was not speaking on the president’s behalf.)

In a Saturday afternoon tweet, Trump reiterated his claim that there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Russians, and bemoaned what he described as “leaking, lying and corruption” in federal law enforcement agencies. But he stopped short of echoing Dowd’s call for an end to the Mueller probe.

Trump referred to the Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee’s announcement this past week that they were concluding their investigation of Russian interference in the election, though a separate investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee continues, as does Mueller’s probe.