Special counsel Robert Mueller is seeking to determine whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice, following the president’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey, who had been leading the investigation of Russian interference, The Washington Post reported this week.
Rosenstein wrote the memo that suggested that Trump fire Comey over his handling of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of State. Trump later contradicted his administration’s rationale, saying he had been thinking about the Russia investigation when he fired Comey.
In a striking testimony before Congress last week, Comey said he believed Trump had sought to persuade him to drop an investigation into then National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s ties to Russia.
Trump’s acknowledgement of the reported obstruction of justice investigation came after a series of tweets in which he renewed his assertions that he is the subject of a “witch hunt.”
The Washington Post cited unidentified officials when it reported Mueller is investigating Trump. Rosenstein issued a statement on Thursday warning Americans to “be skeptical of anonymous allegations.”
“Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous ‘officials,’ particularly when they do not identify the country — let alone the branch or agency of government — with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated,” Rosenstein said.
A senior Justice Department official told NBC News that no one pushed Rosenstein to issue the statement.
“This was 100 percent Rod. He’s tired of reading all these stories based on anonymous sources claiming to know what the Justice Department and the FBI are doing,” the official said.
President Trump on Thursday questioned why Hillary Clinton isn’t the subject of Russia-related investigations but he is.
“Why is that Hillary Clintons family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are?” Trump tweeted.
“Crooked H destroyed phones w/ hammer, ‘bleached’ emails, & had husband meet w/AG days before she was cleared- & they talk about obstruction?” he added, in reference to the investigation into Clinton’s private email server.
Why is that Hillary Clintons family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are?
Trump has previously called into question the Clinton campaign, referencing potential contacts between her campaign staff and the Kremlin.
“What about all of the contact with the Clinton campaign and the Russians? Also, is it true that the DNC would not let the FBI in to look?” Trump asked on March 20.
Later that month, Trump asked why the “fake news” did not cover “ties” between the Kremlin and Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.
“Why doesn’t Fake News talk about Podesta ties to Russia as covered by @FoxNews or money from Russia to Clinton – sale of Uranium?” Trump tweeted at the time.
The president has also accused former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who presided over the Justice Department while it conducted the investigation into Clinton’s private server use, of making “law enforcement decisions for political purposes.”
The U.S. intelligence community concluded last year that Russia interfered in the presidential election specifically to help Trump defeat Clinton, the Democratic nominee.
The Justice Department, FBI and Senate and House Intelligence committees are investigating Russian election meddling, including possible ties between Trump’s team and Russia.
In addition, a special counsel is reportedly probing whether Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey last month. Comey testified that Trump leaned on him to “let go” of the bureau’s probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Clinton did not sell a uranium mine to Russia, she was Secretary of the State Department when they and, this is important, 9 total agencies signed-off on a sale of an energy company to a Canadian-based Russian subsidiary. Again, very important, she didn’t have the power to approve or reject the deal.
Hillary Clinton destroyed her old phones “with a hammer” because destroying old devices is standard operating procedure, and state.gov emails would have been on government servers, not on her phone.
Yes Bill Clinton met with Lorretta Lynch on a tarmac, they probably didn’t just talk about their grandkids, but Lynch recused herself from the Hillary Clinton private email server investigation immediately afterwards. That’s why the investigation then fell to James Comey, who found so little wrongdoing he could not imagine a reasonable prosecutor could bring a case.
President Trump dismissed a potential obstruction of justice investigation into his conduct, calling allegations of collusion between him, his campaign or people associated with him and Russia a “phony story.”
They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice
Of course, it’s possible to obstruct justice without colluding.
Trump was responding to a Washington Post report that special counsel Robert Mueller, who is overseeing the Department of Justice Russia investigation, is looking into whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice. An hour later, Trump was back at it, calling the investigation the “single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history.” (People who followed McCarthyism closely might disagree.)
You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history – led by some very bad and conflicted people! #MAGA
News of Mueller looking into potential obstruction comes after former FBI Director James Comey testified last week. He said he didn’t know if Trump obstructed justice, but said it was for Mueller to decide.
Comey testified that he told the president he was not personally under investigation three times and confirmed that Trump was not under investigation at the time of his firing on May 9.
But, “Officials say that changed shortly after Comey’s firing,” the Post reports.
It stands to reason that the circumstances surrounding Comey’s firing would now be at the center of Mueller’s query. That’s particularly the case since other high-ranking administration officials have declined under oath in open testimony to provide more details about whether Trump asked them in any way to influence Comey or the investigation.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers and Rogers’ former deputy, Richard Ledgett, agreed to be interviewed as part of Mueller’s investigation, according to five people “briefed on the requests” who were “not authorized to discuss the matter publicly,” the paper reports.
Officially, Mueller spokesman Peter Carr told NPR’s Carrie Johnson, “We’ll decline to comment.”
NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines told NPR’s Phil Ewing, “NSA will fully cooperate with the special counsel. We are not in a position to comment further.”
A spokesman for Trump’s personal lawyer in the Russia matter, Marc Kasowitz, said, “The FBI leak of information regarding the president is outrageous, inexcusable and illegal.”
Comey’s firing is a “central moment that’s being looked at” in the investigation, Post reporter Devlin Barrett told NPR’s Ari Shapiro on All Things Considered, “but it’s not the only thing.” Investigators are also considering the conversations Comey and the president had leading up to that point.
In his testimony on June 8, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he believed Trump had fired him over his role as lead of the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. election and Trump campaign associates’ possible ties to Russia.
The White House has been inconsistent with its public messaging about the dismissal — initially saying Trump took the recommendations of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about Comey’s management of the FBI and his handling of the Clinton email investigation. But then the president himself said he had made up his mind prior to receiving the recommendations from the two top lawyers at the Department of Justice.
Comey testified that initial explanations that he was fired because of poor leadership were “lies, plain and simple.” He also said Trump had privately urged him to pull back on the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn — a claim that the president has denied. Comey said he declined to tell agents working on the case about his conversation with Trump to shield them.
The Washington Post previously reported that Trump also asked Rogers and Coats to push back against the FBI’s investigation. The intelligence chiefs declined to discuss their private conversations with Trump during a Senate panel hearing on June 7.
Asked whether Trump’s actions rose to the level of obstruction of justice, Comey testified last week: “I don’t know. That’s Bob Mueller’s job to sort that out.” But Comey did lay out facts that a prosecutor could use to try to prove obstruction.
Trump and his supporters cast Comey’s testimony that he had told the president he was not personally under investigation as vindication. Trump disputed, though, Comey’s assertion he had asked for a pledge of loyalty. After Comey’s much-watched Senate testimony, the president said in a press conference that he would testify under oath regarding his interactions and conversations with the former FBI director.
“I think, frankly, our story shows that the president is by no means out of the woods as far as the investigation goes,” the Post’s Barrett told NPR.
Chatter surfaced earlier this week that the president was considering firing Mueller. After a day of speculation, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “While the president has the right to, he has no intention to do so.” The New York Times reported that Trump had been waved off the idea by advisers.
Trump is not the only one under scrutiny, Barrett said: Investigators are also looking into the finances of Trump associates.
“Oftentimes what happens, frankly, in counterintelligence investigations is you start looking at sort of a core intelligence question — What did the Russians do and did they do it with any Americans? — and it grows into: What did any of those Americans do in their financial matters that may also raise alarms with the FBI?” Barrett said.
Mueller’s investigative team has expanded in recent weeks. The National Law Journal reported on June 9 that Mueller has brought Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben onto the team on a part-time basis. Reporter Tony Mauro noted the addition of Dreeben may signal that “Mueller may be seeking advice on complex areas of criminal law, including what constitutes obstruction of justice.” At the end of May, the chief of the Justice Department’s Fraud Section, Andrew Weissman, also joined the team, NPR’s Carrie Johnson reported at the time.
Justice Department policy is that a sitting president cannot be indicted by a grand jury, the Post also reported Wednesday. Any findings by the department’s investigation would be referred to Congress, where lawmakers would determine whether to impeach the president.
One by one, they praised President Trump, taking turns complimenting his integrity, his message, his strength, his policies. Their leader sat smiling, nodding his approval.
“The greatest privilege of my life is to serve as vice president to the president who’s keeping his word to the American people,” Mike Pence said, starting things off.
“I am privileged to be here — deeply honored — and I want to thank you for your commitment to the American workers,” said Alexander Acosta, the secretary of labor.
Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, had just returned from Mississippi and had a message to deliver. “They love you there,” he offered, grinning across the antique table at Mr. Trump.
Reince Priebus, the chief of staff whose job insecurity has been the subject of endless speculation, outdid them all, telling the president — and the assembled news cameras — “We thank you for the opportunity and the blessing to serve your agenda.”
So it went on Monday in the Cabinet Room of the White House, as Mr. Trump transformed a routine meeting of senior members of his government into a mood-boosting, ego-stroking display of support for himself and his agenda. While the president never explicitly asked to be praised, Mr. Pence set the worshipful tone, and Mr. Trump made it clear he liked what he heard.
“Thank you, Mick,” he told Mick Mulvaney, his budget director. “Good job,” he told Scott Pruitt, his E.P.A. chief. “Very good, Daniel,” he said to Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence.
The commander in chief, who has been known for decades as a fan of flattery and who speaks of himself in superlatives, even indulged in a bit of self-congratulation. He declared himself one of the most productive presidents in American history — perhaps Franklin D. Roosevelt could come close, he conceded — and proclaimed that he had led a “record-setting pace” of accomplishment.
Never mind that Mr. Trump has yet to sign any major legislation, or that his White House has been buffeted by legal and ethical questions surrounding the investigation into his campaign’s possible links to Russia and his firing of the F.B.I. director who had been leading that inquiry.
The highly unusual spectacle before the cabinet meeting got down to business and the TV cameras were banished seemed designed to deflect attention from the president’s faltering agenda and the accusations leveled against him last week by the fired F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, which are threatening to further overshadow his agenda and haunt his presidency.
Days before, Mr. Comey had charged that Mr. Trump had lied about his firing and inappropriately sought to influence the Russia investigation. On Monday, the president said the country was “seeing amazing results” from his leadership.
“I will say that never has there been a president, with few exceptions — in the case of F.D.R. he had a major Depression to handle — who’s passed more legislation, who’s done more things than what we’ve done,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve been about as active as you can possibly be, and at a just about record-setting pace.”
The tableau in the Cabinet Room drew instant derision from critics. And within hours, Democrats had pounced.
In a video posted with the tweet, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, sat at a table with young staff members who, at his prompting, praised his performance on Sunday talk shows and the appearance of his hair. One repeated Mr. Priebus’s quotation word for word, prompting the senator and his aides to erupt into laughter.
Mr. Trump has been struggling with his legislative agenda. His effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act passed the House on a second try, but senators are toiling to put together their own version. And his administration is months away from unveiling either a major tax cut package or the sweeping infrastructure plan he has promised.
The endorsements from the administration’s highest officials may have served as a comforting counterpoint to Mr. Trump’s sinking poll numbers. Fifty-nine percent disapprove of the job he is doing as president, according to a June 11 Gallup tracking survey, with only 36 percent approving.
After his upbeat introductory remarks on Monday, the president went around the table asking for a statement from each cabinet member. One by one, they said their names and — as if working to outdo one another — paid homage to Mr. Trump, describing how honored they were to serve in his administration.
“Thank you for the opportunity to serve at S.B.A.,” said Linda McMahon, the administrator of the Small Business Administration, trumpeting “a new optimism” for small businesses.
Ben Carson, the housing secretary, called it “a great honor” to work for Mr. Trump, while Mr. Perdue offered congratulations for “the men and women you have gathered around this table.”
Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, told Mr. Trump, “It was a great honor traveling with you around the country for the last year, and an even greater honor to be here serving on your cabinet.”
A few cabinet members diverged from the apparent script. Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense — whose reputation for independence has been a comfort to Mr. Trump’s critics — refrained from personally praising the president, instead aiming his comments at American troops fighting and dying for their country.
“Mr. President, it’s an honor to represent the men and women of the Department of Defense, and we are grateful for the sacrifices our people are making in order to strengthen our military so our diplomats always negotiate from a position of strength,” Mr. Mattis said as Mr. Trump sat, stern-faced.
But the meeting still struck White House officials of past administrations as odd.
“I ran 16 Cabinet meetings during Obama’s 1st term,” Chris Lu, former President Barack Obama’s cabinet secretary, wrote on Twitter. “Our Cabinet was never told to sing Obama’s praises. He wanted candid advice not adulation.”
The show of support for the president was in keeping with an intense effort by the White House to boost Mr. Trump’s mood and change the subject from Mr. Comey’s damaging testimony last week.
In a television interview on Monday morning, the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump said her father “felt vindicated” and was eager to move on and talk about the rest of his agenda. Appearing on “Fox & Friends,” she said that “he feels incredibly optimistic.”
Reporters who witnessed the cabinet meeting’s prelude tried in vain to ask the president about his comments about Mr. Comey — specifically, whether he has tapes of their conversations, as he has hinted.
But Mr. Trump was in no mood to allow such questions to rain on his parade, and he dismissed the news media with a curt “thank you.”
“Finally held our first full @Cabinet meeting today,” he tweeted later, along with a video of the meeting-turned-pep-rally. “With this great team, we can restore American prosperity and bring real change to D.C.”
“I will say that never has there been a president — with few exceptions; in the case of FDR, he had a major Depression to handle — who’s passed more legislation, who’s done more things than what we’ve done, between the executive orders and the job-killing regulations that have been terminated. Many bills; I guess over 34 bills that Congress signed. A Supreme Court justice who’s going to be a great one … We’ve achieved tremendous success.”
Yet Trump has sign no major pieces of legislation, only a pile of Executive Orders and a few bills naming government buildings.
President Trump ended his Twitter silence early Friday, claiming ex-FBI Director James Comey vindicated him and accusing Comey of improperly leaking details of their discussions.
“Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication…and WOW, Comey is a leaker!” Trump tweeted.
Comey told a Senate committee Thursday that he believes Trump fired him over the Russia probe, and he accused the White House of lying about the details of the dismissal. He also admitted that he had leaked to the press memos describing his talks with Trump, saying he hoped the stories would spur the appointment of a special counsel to take over the investigation of the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia.
The former FBI director also appeared to confirm Trump’s statements that, on three occasions, Comey told the president he was not personally under investigation with regard to Russia.
While Trump’s attorney issued a statement defending Trump and attacking Comey for the leak, and Trump’s son Don Jr. tweeted throughout the hearing, the president himself remained silent on the subject and did not tweet all day.
That changed early Friday.
One source of the Trump-Comey dispute: Comey’s memos.
The former FBI director said he he kept notes on his meetings with the president because he was concerned Trump might lie about the nature of their conversations.
After his dismissal, Comey testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee, he told a friend about his memos and asked him to leak the information about them to reporters.
Trump and aides pounced on that revelation, accusing Comey of improperly leaking privileged conversations. They also disputed Comey’s assertion that Trump asked the FBI director for a pledge of personal loyalty to the president.
The president and his aides backed other parts of Comey’s testimony, however, including portions where the then-FBI director told the president he was not personally under investigation over Russia.
The FBI is investigating links between associates of Trump during last year’s campaign and Russians who sought to influence the election by hacking Democrats. Comey said that Trump asked him specifically whether he could drop the investigation with respect to former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who Trump fired for withholding information about his contacts with foreign governments.
The president’s critics said Comey’s claims that Trump asked him about dropping the Russia investigation could amount to obstruction of justice.
Reality
Comey was fired by Trump on May 9th. All of his unclassified memos were sent to the press on May 16th, after his dismissal and after Donald Trump talked about them.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that President Trump is “not a liar” hours after ousted FBI Director James Comey said the president had lied about the FBI.
“I can definitively say the president is not a liar,” Sanders told reporters during an off-camera briefing at the White House. “I think it is frankly insulting that question would be asked.”
Sanders also would not say whether the White House has a taping system that might have recorded Trump’s talks with Comey.
“I have no idea,” she said.
Comey began his highly anticipated testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee by telling the panel that the president had defamed him by saying that the FBI was in disarray under his leadership.
“The administration chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly run,” Comey told a rapt hearing room.
“Those were lies, plain and simple,” he said.
Comey also said that he kept notes of his conversations with Trump because he did not trust the president to tell the truth about their meetings.
“The nature of the person,” Comey said when asked why he kept detailed notes. “I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document.”
Comey said he did not feel the need to do the same thing with former President George W. Bush or former President Barack Obama.
“I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happens, not only to defend myself but to defend the FBI and our integrity as an institution and the independent investigative function,” Comey said.
Comey repeatedly said he’d been happy for the president to release any recordings of their conversations, if they exist.
“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey said.
Trump suggested there might be tapes three days after firing Comey in an apparent effort to keep him silent.
“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” the president tweeted.
“Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his ‘no reason to be alarmed’ statement,” Trump tweeted. “MSM is working hard to sell it!”
Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his "no reason to be alarmed" statement. MSM is working hard to sell it!
Trump, who also hit Khan for “alarmed” comment on Sunday, did take it out of context — the mayor was referring to the increased police presence in the city in the wake of the Saturday night attack, not to the attack itself.
Kahn’s statement in full:
My message to Londoners and visitors to our great city is to be calm and vigilant today. You will see an increased police presence today, including armed officers and uniformed officers. There is no reason to be alarmed by this. We are the safest global city in the world. You saw last night as a consequence of our planning, our preparation, the rehearsals that take place, the swift response from the emergency services tackling the terrorists and also helping the injured.
The mayor has not responded to the president, but a spokesman told British media that Khan has “more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks.”
During Monday’s press briefing, Trump spokesperson Sarah Sanders said that she did not see Trump’s comments as “picking a fight with the mayor of London at all.” Rather, he was trying to make a point about national security.
Among the purported accomplishments of Donald Trump’s first presidential trip abroad—the one in which he insulted NATO allies, lost a handshake battle with French president Emmanuel Macron,and labeled Germans “bad, very bad”—the White House was eager to publicize the “tremendous” $110 billion arms and investments deal he struck with Saudi Arabia. According to The New York Times, the agreement was spearheaded by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who personally intervened to close the deal. “Let’s get this done today,” he reportedly told a delegation of Saudis in Washington ahead of the president’s high-profile flight to Riyadh.
“The deal was finalized in part thanks to the direct involvement of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser,” CNN reported at the time. “He shocked a high-level Saudi delegation earlier this month when he personally called Lockheed Martin C.E.O. Marillyn Hewson and asked if she would cut the price of a sophisticated missile detection system, according to a source with knowledge of the call.” Soon after, the president signed the deal in a ceremony with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
There’s just one small problem: according to Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow and director at the Brookings Intelligence Project, the so-called deal is more of a wish list than a matter of fact. Or, to use Trump’s favorite phrase, it’s “fake news.”
Riedel, who worked for the C.I.A. for 30 years, writes that all of his sources in the defense business and on Capitol Hill say “there is no $110 billion deal” but rather “a bunch of letters of interest or intent but not contracts. Many are offers that the defense industry thinks the Saudis will be interested in someday,” but “so far, nothing has been notified to the Senate for review.” The arms sales division of the Pentagon, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Riedel writes, has labeled them “intended sales.” And here’s the kicker: “none of the deals identified so far are new; all began in the Obama administration.” (The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Riedel’s claims.)
Some of Reidel’s reporting isn’t new—as the Timesnoted in its story at the time (“$110 Billion Weapons Sale to Saudis Has Jared Kushner’s Personal Touch”), several of the weapons in the proposed package had already been approved under Obama. But leave it to Donald Trump, a brand licensing tycoon who has always been more style than substance, to play up a rough draft of a potential agreement as a groundbreaking diplomatic success. His son-in-law, it seems, has a flair for selling a good story, too.
President Trump proclaimed Thursday that he has created “more than 1 million private sector jobs.”
That’s not true.
Official government data from the Labor Department show only 601,000 private sector jobs have been added since January, when Trump took office. Trump is trying to take credit for far more.
Trump was talking up his jobs record as he withdrew from the Paris climate agreement — a deal he described as a jobs-killer. Here’s the president’s exact quote on jobs:
“Before we discuss the Paris Accord, I’d like to begin with an update on our tremendous, absolutely tremendous economic progress since Election Day on November 8th. The economy has started to come back and very, very rapidly. We’ve added $3.3 trillion in stock market value to our economy and more than a million private sector jobs.”
Notice that Trump specifically said “private sector jobs,” a term that excludes government jobs at the local, state or federal level.
CNNMoney’s Trump Jobs Tracker gives the president credit for 594,000 jobs so far. That’s because we’re counting both private and public jobs, and there have been a lot of state government job losses since the start of the year.
So where in the world does Trump get his 1 million figure?
Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, says the statistic comes from the ADP employment report. In other words, the the White House is ignoring its own government report.
“I’m standing by that if you add up the ADP numbers, you would get to the number the president put in his speech today,” Cohn told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
The latest ADP report came out Thursday — the day of Trump’s speech — and it only measures private sector jobs. It shows 1.2 million private sector jobs added since the start of the year. But there are two big catches.
First, the only way to get to Trump’s figure is to include jobs added in January. Trump was only president for 11 days in January. It’s unusual to give a new president credit for that month.
Second, ADP is just an estimate. It’s not the real data.
ADP is a company that prints (or direct deposits) paychecks for about 24 million Americans. A few days before the official Labor Department jobs data comes out, ADP puts out an estimate of how many jobs were added or lost based on what ADP is seeing in the hiring and firing patterns of companies that it works with.
For years economists and Wall Street investors have kept an eye on the ADP data, but they don’t consider it the official jobs data. The ADP report is often widely different from the government data. That’s because there are over 153 million Americans working today and ADP only gets a good look at the paychecks and employment of 24 million of them.
The latest government report on American jobs came out Friday morning. It shows that U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 4.3%, the lowest level since 2001. That’s good news, but the bad news for Trump is that job growth is slowing.
After Donald Trump isolated America from the rest of the world by pulling us out of the historic Paris Accord, there was a race to the bottom from his surrogates to see who could spit out the dumbest excuse to deny settled science.
