Trump on FBI’s tail

President demands investigation into campaign infiltration

US President Donald Trump said yesterday that he would “demand” the Justice Department open an investigation into whether the FBI infiltrated his presidential campaign, an extraordinary order that came hours before his legal team said that the special counsel indicated its investigation into the President could be concluded by September.

Mr Trump tweeted: “I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/ DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”

Mr Trump’s pressure on the Justice Department reached a new intensity with the demand, and came amid a White House strategy to combat the threat posed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

And the President’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said that Mr Mueller recently shared a timetable that suggested that its probe could end by September 1 if Mr Trump were to sit for an interview in July, which is the legal team’s new plan.

“We said to them: ‘If we’re going to be interviewed in July, how much time until the report gets issued?’ ” Mr Giuliani said yesterday, referring to the report Mr Mueller is expected to issue to Congress at the conclusion of his investigation. “They said September.”

Mr Giuliani said he did not want a repeat of what happened in 2016, when FBI Director James Comey announced in the campaign’s final days that he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, a decision Democrats believe cost Mrs Clinton the race.

Mr Giuliani also said Mr Mueller’s team indicated that the entire probe could end by September.