Trump goes on attack against special counsel

What happened

President Trump and his surrogates have begun challenging the legitimacy of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russia, labeling the probe a “witch hunt” tainted by partisan politics. The Washington Post reported last week that Mueller is also looking into whether the president obstructed justice in his dealings with ousted FBI Director James Comey, prompting Trump to responded with a furious tweet storm. “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director,” Trump tweeted. “You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history—led by some very bad and conflicted people!” The president’s surrogates and lawyers say four members of Mueller’s team of 13 prosecutors and investigators have made donations to Democrats, and that Mueller himself and Comey were former Justice Department colleagues and friends. Aides told the Associated Press that Trump believes he’s the victim of a Democratic conspiracy to oust him from the White House, and yells at the TV every time Mueller’s investigation is mentioned. He believes “this is a political fight, and he’s going to fight it,” said a White House official.

Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have all hired personal lawyers for the Russia investigation. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who is facing possible criminal charges for lying to FBI agents about his Russian contacts and failing to disclose payments from Russia and Turkey, may now be cooperating with the FBI, said two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is also investigating the Russia allegations. “All the signals are suggesting that [Flynn] is already cooperating with the FBI,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. “It could be a huge deal.”

What the editorials said

Trump’s worst problems “are of his own making,” said The Washington Examiner. “Incapable of dialing down his combativeness,” Trump recklessly fired Comey—and in doing so, escalated the urgency and scope of the investigation he wished to make go away, and made himself a target of possible obstruction charges. The president’s attempts to discredit Mueller will fall flat, said The Washington Post. The special counsel, appointed FBI director by Republican President George W. Bush, is a decorated combat veteran with a spotless track record as a public servant. He was “so well-respected that his 10-year term as FBI director was extended for an extra two years on a unanimous Senate vote.”

“You don’t have to be a Trump partisan to have concerns about where all of this is headed,” said The Wall Street Journal. The FBI began its investigation under Comey last summer, but so far, there’s no evidence that Trump’s team colluded with Russia’s attempt to meddle in the 2016 election through its hacking of Democratic officials’ emails. Yet Mueller’s probe has now reportedly widened to include not just obstruction but both Trump and Kushner’s financial dealings. As Mueller’s team of aggressive prosecutors and investigators keeps growing, there is a growing sense they will keep looking under rocks until they find some reason to “nail someone.”

What the columnists said

Liberals should remember the unfairness of the Whitewater investigation, said David Brooks in The New York Times. It started out with a special prosecutor examining an Arkansas land deal involving the Clintons, and wound up six years later as an investigation into whether President Bill Clinton had had an affair with an intern. If Trump or his aides colluded with Russia, they deserve to be prosecuted for treason. But the Left keeps assuming, without evidence, that such collusion existed, hoping that “the politics of scandal” will destroy the Trump presidency. Trump’s fury over the investigation is not an indication of guilt, said Nicholas Waddy in DailyCaller.com. He believes liberals are using it to delegitimize his November victory. His increasingly exasperated behavior is “exactly the sort of reaction you would expert from an innocent man” who can’t believe “the underhandedness of his political enemies.”

“If the president is innocent, then he is insane,” said Eric Levitz in NYMag.com. Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior makes sense if it comes from “a rational fear of what Mueller’s probe may reveal”— such as “unscrupulous dealings with Russian banks,” or his circle’s many secretive conversations with Russian emissaries. But if Trump has nothing to hide, he is clearly “suffering from an obsessive disorder that renders him helplessly self-destructive.” Either way, it’s hard to see how “he is fit for high office.”

Trump’s staff and lawyers “are surely begging him to stop” tweeting out attacks on Mueller and his team, said Paul Waldman in WashingtonPost.com. “It’s utterly insane” for the president to antagonize the people investigating him. But he simply can’t bear to have someone he can’t control have such power over his fate. As Mueller digs deeper and more broadly into Team Trump’s tangled alliance with Russia, and even gets hold of Trump’s tax returns, “the higher the chances are that Trump will, in a moment of rage, order Mueller to be fired.” If you think this situation is crazy now, “just wait—it’s going to get worse.” ■