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Mueller team has 'gone absolutely nuts,' Trump says, resuming attacks on Russia inquiry
The barrage, launched on Twitter, ended a period of relative quiet by the president about the investigation, which has ensnared some of his former aides.
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The text of Trump’s tweets: “The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t care how many lives the ruin. These are Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for 8 years. They won’t even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side. A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!”
In recent days, Trump had been relatively quiet about the investigation. He returned Sunday from a trip to Paris to face criticism for his decision to skip a solemn visit to an American cemetery in France, part of events to mark 100 years since the end of World War I.
When he got back to Washington, Trump stepped into private sessions with his personal lawyers, people close to the legal team said. They were drafting answers to questions from the special counsel, Robert Mueller, whose team is investigating possible links between Trump associates and Russia’s election interference and whether Trump has obstructed the inquiry itself.
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But it was unclear what may have motivated Trump’s messages on Thursday morning.
Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was spotted by an ABC News crew on Monday en route to see Mueller’s team. Cohen has pleaded guilty to a string of crimes, and said under oath that his client ordered him to make hush payments to an adult-film actress claiming in 2016 that she had had an affair with Trump.
Several of Trump’s former aides have struck deals with the special counsel team in exchange for their cooperation in the investigation. This week, Jerome Corsi, a friend of Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime informal adviser to the president, announced that he expected to be charged with lying to federal investigators after two months of cooperation with the special counsel team.
The president’s legal team and aides have pleaded with him for months to avoid writing Twitter posts about Mueller. The president has long complained privately about what he believes to be Mueller’s conflicts of interest, despite the Justice Department’s review and conclusion last year that Mueller had none.
In June 2017, Trump told the White House counsel to take steps to remove Mueller because of the perceived conflicts. Trump cited a dispute with Mueller several years ago about golf fees at a Trump golf club in Virginia where Mueller was a member; Mueller’s interview with Trump the day before he was appointed special counsel to return to his old job as FBI director; and Mueller's work for a law firm that previously represented Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The White House counsel refused, and the president dropped the issue.
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Mueller has sought to ask the president about any possible coordination with Russia during the campaign and whether he intended to obstruct the investigation.
Mueller has negotiated over a possible presidential interview for nearly a year. After months of back-and-forth, Mueller’s team agreed to accept answers in writing about possible conspiracy with Russia. On obstruction matters, investigators acknowledged that issues of executive privilege could complicate the prospect of an interview, but they did not abandon pursuit of it.
The president’s lawyers are said to believe that the special counsel investigation is winding down, though Mueller’s team has given no public indication about its timeline.
The president’s lawyers have long been concerned that the president would make a false statement in an interview with Mueller’s investigators. Lying to federal investigators is a felony that could carry up to five years in prison.
As the president has renewed his offensive on Mueller and what the president sees as his conflicts of interest, critics of his administration are arguing that Trump’s recent appointment to lead the Justice Department and oversee the Russia investigation has conflicts of interest of his own.
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When Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week, he named a loyalist, Matthew G. Whitaker, to replace him in an acting capacity. Whitaker has been publicly critical of the Mueller inquiry.
The New York Times
Maggie Haberman, Michael S. Schmidt and Eileen Sullivan © 2018 The New York Times
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