Trump urges attorney general to end ‘Rigged Witch Hunt’

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday his attorney general should end special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions “should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now,” Trump tweeted, “before it continues to stain our country any further.”

..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018

Trump long has maintained there was no collusion between his 2016 campaign and malign Russian actors who interfered in the presidential election. He also has long alleged that Mueller’s investigation is tainted by bias.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders clarified Wednesday that Trump’s tweet was “not an order” to Sessions. “It’s the president’s opinion.”

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who has been negotiating with Mueller over conditions for a possible sit-down between the special counsel and the president, also told reporters that no order to fire Mueller was issued and no order will be.

“Seriously?” asked Mark Corallo, who briefly worked as spokesman for Trump’s legal defense team. Because Sessions recused himself from the probe last year, he “can’t end this investigation,” Corallo noted.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the Mueller investigation, could fire the special counsel, Corallo said, but that could set off a series of resignations in the Department of Justice.

“If the president orders the firing of Bob Mueller and the shutting down of the investigation, it will raise questions about the evidence that we have not seen,” Corallo said. “And it will look an awful lot like the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’ of Watergate infamy,” referring to the firing of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox.

An idle threat?

“Looks like he’s panicking,” Max Bergmann of the liberal Center for American Progress said of Trump. He noted that the federal trial of Trump’s onetime campaign manager Paul Manafort on financial fraud charges began this week.

“Is this just an idle threat or is this previewing something that’s going to come?” Bergmann asked. In one morning, Bergmann offered, Trump made Beltway insiders wonder if he might try to shut down the probe before Mueller has finished his work.

The Trump Twitter rant baffled legal commentators who have been critical of Mueller. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley blogged that Trump’s tweets come “across as defensive and increasingly alarmed about the investigation. I have never understood these tweets because I have yet to see compelling evidence of a crime by Trump linked to obstruction or collusion.”

One of the darkest moments of Trump’s presidency occurred in May 2017 after he abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey. At first the White House maintained that Trump fired Comey because of the FBI director’s decision to go public twice about the bureau’s 2016 probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server — which Clinton believes helped torpedo her 2016 campaign.

Shortly thereafter, Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt that he fired Comey because “Russia is a made-up story.”

In March 2017, Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation after it came to light that he had failed to disclose two meetings with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign season. Sessions’ recusal put the probe under the authority of Rosenstein, who days after Comey’s canning, appointed Mueller, a former FBI director, to head the Russian probe.

Trump berates Sessions

In July 2017, Trump began berating and belittling Sessions publicly. Trump told The New York Times that he never would have hired Sessions, the first senator to endorse him in the GOP primaries, if he had known Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

The Times also has reported that Mueller is investigating whether Trump’s attempts to get Comey to pull back the early probe, his pressure on Sessions and his tweets constitute obstruction of justice.

As the investigation hit its second year, Rosenstein became a target of Republicans critical of the probe’s genesis. Last week, a group of 11 House conservatives introduced articles of impeachment against Rosenstein.

Trump frequently has cited an unverified dossier written by a former British intelligence official and bankrolled by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee as the document that wrongly sparked the “witch hunt.”

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer jumped on Twitter to mock Trump’s belief that the Mueller probe is a “hoax.”

“The Mueller-Rosenstein investigation is making progress at record speed; 35 indictments, 5 guilty pleas and Trump’s campaign chairman on trial,” Schumer tweeted.

Corallo said Trump should want to see the investigation completed. “If you’re a Republican who believes there’s no there there to the Russia investigation, then you want Mueller’s report out there for all to see,” he said.

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-62-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.