Mueller's Russia investigation picks up steam, and so do Trump's tweets
Key developments in the special counsel’s investigation of possible collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government were very much on the president’s mind this week.
While past presidents often strove to keep their emotions hidden from the public, Trump’s rising irritation was chronicled in his Twitter feed. Posting more than a dozen times on the subject of Robert Mueller’s methodical inquiry since Monday, Trump made his outrage plain.
Monday
The week began with the news that Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, had breached his plea agreement with Mueller. According to the special counsel, Manafort repeatedly lied to Mueller’s team after entering into an agreement in September to cooperate, in exchange for a lighter sentence for his convictions on financial fraud and related charges.
Trump, however, started his day responding to a comment made over the weekend by law professor Alan Dershowitz, who told ABC News’ “This Week” that Mueller’s final report “is going to be devastating to the president.” The president did his best to reframe the coming report, questioning why Mueller’s team had not interviewed staffers who were not implicated in contacts with Russia.
When Mueller does his final report, will he be covering all of his conflicts of interest in a preamble, will he be recommending action on all of the crimes of many kinds from those “on the other side”(whatever happened to Podesta?), and will he be putting in statements from…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2018
….hundreds of people closely involved with my campaign who never met, saw or spoke to a Russian during this period? So many campaign workers, people inside from the beginning, ask me why they have not been called (they want to be). There was NO Collusion & Mueller knows it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2018
Tuesday
Manafort was not the only Trump confidant caught up in negotiating a plea deal this week. Conspiracy theorist and author Jerome Corsi released a draft of an agreement from Mueller’s office that he said he had rejected. It would have required him to admit that he intentionally lied about alerting Trump confidant Roger Stone that WikiLeaks was preparing to release documents stolen by Russia that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The sequence of events around the WikiLeaks disclosures appears to be a central focus of Mueller’s probe.
The document further illuminated how Mueller was establishing a case of Russian collusion. Amid that backdrop, Trump returned to Twitter to vent.
The Phony Witch Hunt continues, but Mueller and his gang of Angry Dems are only looking at one side, not the other. Wait until it comes out how horribly & viciously they are treating people, ruining lives for them refusing to lie. Mueller is a conflicted prosecutor gone rogue….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2018
….The Fake News Media builds Bob Mueller up as a Saint, when in actuality he is the exact opposite. He is doing TREMENDOUS damage to our Criminal Justice System, where he is only looking at one side and not the other. Heroes will come of this, and it won’t be Mueller and his…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2018
….terrible Gang of Angry Democrats. Look at their past, and look where they come from. The now $30,000,000 Witch Hunt continues and they’ve got nothing but ruined lives. Where is the Server? Let these terrible people go back to the Clinton Foundation and “Justice” Department!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2018
The Mueller Witch Hunt is a total disgrace. They are looking at supposedly stolen Crooked Hillary Clinton Emails (even though they don’t want to look at the DNC Server), but have no interest in the Emails that Hillary DELETED & acid washed AFTER getting a Congressional Subpoena!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 28, 2018
Wednesday
One possible reason for Trump’s renewed Twitter attention to the Russia investigation is that the president and his lawyers delivered written answers to Mueller’s team on Nov. 20. The gist of two of his answers were reported Wednesday by CNN. According to the network’s reporting, Trump denied being told by Stone about the WikiLeaks dump of stolen emails, or knowing about the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting between his campaign’s senior staffers and a Russian lawyer supposedly offering dirt on Clinton. In his daily tweets on the investigation, Trump sought to portray those close to those transactions as innocent.
While the disgusting Fake News is doing everything within their power not to report it that way, at least 3 major players are intimating that the Angry Mueller Gang of Dems is viciously telling witnesses to lie about facts & they will get relief. This is our Joseph McCarthy Era!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 28, 2018
Trump then retweeted a photo montage of prominent Democrats, political rivals and others associated with the investigation of his campaign behind bars, suggesting they should be tried for treason.
— The Trump Train 🚂🇺🇸 (@The_Trump_Train) November 28, 2018
Thursday
Thursday’s bombshell in the Russia investigation came courtesy of the president’s former lawyer Michael D. Cohen, who pleaded guilty in a Manhattan courtroom to lying to Congress about Trump’s pursuit of a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen’s plea implied the deal was still being actively sought as late as June 2016, by which time Trump had locked up the Republican nomination. This both contradicts Cohen’s own earlier testimony and Trump’s frequent denials of any existing or pending deals with Russia. Cohen said he lied to Congress to protect the president.
Trump wasted little time accusing Cohen of lying, telling a press gaggle before he departed for the G-20 summit in Argentina that his long-time lawyer and “fixer” was “a weak person.” With the prospective dominoes of a collusion case continuing to fall, Trump again took to Twitter to try to discredit the investigation itself.
Did you ever see an investigation more in search of a crime? At the same time Mueller and the Angry Democrats aren’t even looking at the atrocious, and perhaps subversive, crimes that were committed by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. A total disgrace!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2018
When will this illegal Joseph McCarthy style Witch Hunt, one that has shattered so many innocent lives, ever end-or will it just go on forever? After wasting more than $40,000,000 (is that possible?), it has proven only one thing-there was NO Collusion with Russia. So Ridiculous!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2018
“This demonstrates the Robert Mueller and his partisans have no evidence, not a whiff of collusion, between Trump and the Russians. Russian project legal. Trump Tower meeting (son Don), perfectly legal. He wasn’t involved with hacking.” Gregg Jarrett. A total Witch Hunt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2018
Alan Dershowitz: “These are not crimes. He (Mueller) has no authority to be a roving Commissioner. I don’t see any evidence of crimes.” This is an illegal Hoax that should be ended immediately. Mueller refuses to look at the real crimes on the other side. Where is the IG REPORT?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2018
The day ended with Yahoo News’ Hunter Walker reporting that Mueller’s team is looking into the role Trump’s children Ivanka and Don Jr. played in trying to develop projects in Moscow.
Friday
As the president’s day began in Buenos Aires, his thoughts drifted back home, where more than a few op-eds declared that the week’s developments illustrated how the president had handed Vladimir Putin leverage over his administration.
And while his anger about Mueller’s investigation continued apace, Trump ever so slightly adjusted the goalposts once again as to what might count as collusion or the lack thereof.
Oh, I get it! I am a very good developer, happily living my life, when I see our Country going in the wrong direction (to put it mildly). Against all odds, I decide to run for President & continue to run my business-very legal & very cool, talked about it on the campaign trail…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2018
….Lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia. Put up zero money, zero guarantees and didn’t do the project. Witch Hunt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2018
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