I suppose there are two schools of thought regarding President Trump’s recent Twitter outbursts following the termination of Andrew McCabe. One is Trump is nervous about what Robert Mueller has in the works and whether or not he has anything on Trump himself. The other is Trump believes the pressure he put on Jeff Sessions worked to fire McCabe and now he’s going to try and get Mueller fired and James Comey, prosecuted. Both of these scenarios could be true — he’s nervous and wants to fire Mueller.
Trump actually started his diatribe last night, not long after McCabe’s firing, covering the usual ground he’s been yelling about since forever. But his latest tweet takes direct aim at Robert Mueller. In fact, it’s the first time Trump mentioned Mueller by name. I suspect it will not be the last. His tweet:
The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018
That was followed up by more this morning: First, he returned to McCabe:
Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me. I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018
This just shows that Trump is simply ignorant, as usual about how things work. FBI guys are not stenographers who make notes during a meeting. They do so immediately after the fact, using their recollection to form the basis for what they write down, not “at a later date” like Trump suggests. All in all, he’s attempting to smear McCabe, a potential witness in any trial against Trump.
Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added…does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018
The president is ignoring one important fact: Robert S. Mueller III, who heads the team, is a longtime registered Republican. He was appointed by another Republican, Rod J. Rosenstein, whom Trump nominated as deputy attorney general. But publicly available voter registration information shows that 13 of the 17 members of Mueller’s team have previously registered as Democrats, while four had no affiliation or their affiliation could not be found.
Nine of the 17 made political donations to Democrats, their contributions totaling more than $57,000. The majority came from one person, who also contributed to Republicans. Six donated to Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 race
Because some of his team has people who donated Hillary Clinton, they apparently cannot do their jobs efficiently and fairly. The “Hillary donors” smear doesn’t take into account the people on Mueller’s team are there because they’re pros, not because of a political agenda. Mueller is, after all, a Republican, appointed to his position as FBI director by a Republican (GWB). The smear is the same smear used to taint FBI agents, the Page FISA warrant…. etc.
Whatever good Trump thinks he’s doing by engaging in his buffoonery, the people cringing are his attorneys and most other Republicans. Hopefully, some will take principled stands.
If Trump is testing the waters of a Mueller firing, he’s seeing some resistence:
Together, the comments raised the question once again about whether the president might be seeking to lay the groundwork to try to fire Mr. Mueller, a scenario that would almost surely set off a bipartisan storm of protest. Some Republicans expressed alarm on Sunday at the possibility that Mr. Trump would try to fire the special counsel.
“If he tried to do that, that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency, because we’re a rule-of-law nation,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has been an ally of the president, said on “State of the Union” on CNN.
“When it comes to Mr. Mueller, he is following the evidence where it takes him, and I think it’s very important he be allowed to do his job without interference, and there are many Republicans who share my view.” Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, said if the president was innocent, he should “act like it” and leave Mr. Mueller alone. Mr. Gowdy warned of dire repercussions if the president tried to fire the special counsel, which might require him to first fire his attorney general or deputy attorney general.“The president’s going to have a really difficult time nominating and having approved another attorney general,” Mr. Gowdy said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I would just counsel the president — it’s going to be a very, very long, bad 2018, and it’s going to be distracting from other things that he wants to do and he was elected do. Let it play out its course. If you’ve done nothing wrong, you should want the investigation to be as fulsome and thorough as possible.”
The shift in tone comes just days after The New York Times reported that Mr. Mueller has subpoenaed records from the Trump Organization. Mr. Trump’s lawyers met with Mr. Mueller’s team last week and received more details about how the special counsel is approaching the investigation, including the scope of his interest in the Trump Organization specifically…Mr. Trump evidently has grown tired of the strategy of being respectful and deferential to the special counsel.
And meanwhile, Jeff could be facing troubles of his own:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ testimony that he opposed a proposal for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign team to meet with Russians has been contradicted by three people who told Reuters they have spoken about the matter to investigators with Special Counsel Robert Mueller or congressional committees.