Trump: I’m not considering firing special counsel Mueller

WASHINGTON » President Donald Trump said Sunday that he is not considering firing special counsel Robert Mueller even as his administration was again forced to grapple with the growing Russia probe that has shadowed the White House for much of his initial year in office.

Trump returned to the White House from Camp David and was asked if he was considering triggering the process to dismiss Mueller, who is investigating whether the president’s Republican campaign coordinated with Russian officials during last year’s election.

The president answered: “No, I’m not.”

But he did add to the growing conservative criticism of Mueller’s move to gain access to thousands of emails sent and received by Trump officials before the start of his administration, yielding attacks from transition lawyers and renewing chatter that Trump may act to end the investigation.

“It’s not looking good. It’s quite sad to see that. My people were very upset about it,” Trump said. “I can’t imagine there’s anything on them, frankly. Because, as we said, there’s no collusion. There’s no collusion whatsoever.”

On Saturday, the general counsel for the transition group sent a letter to two congressional committees arguing Mueller’s investigators had improperly obtained thousands of transition records.

The investigators did not directly request the records from Trump’s still-existing transition group, Trump for America, and instead obtained them from the General Services Administration, a separate federal agency that stored the material, according to the group’s general counsel.

A spokesman for Mueller said the records were obtained appropriately.

“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,” Peter Carr said.