WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump bluntly declared on Wednesday his attorney general should terminate “right now” the federal probe into the campaign that took him to the White House, a newly fervent attack on the special counsel investigation that could imperil his presidency. Trump also assailed the trial, just underway, of his former campaign chairman by the special counsel’s team
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders scrambled to explain that Trump’s tweet was “not an order” and the president was not directing his attorney general to do anything.
“It’s the president’s opinion,” she said.
But Trump’s early-morning tweetstorm again raised the specter that he could try to more directly bring special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia-Trump election-collusion probe to a premature end. And it revived the idea that the president’s tweets themselves might be used as evidence that he is attempting to obstruct justice.
Meanwhile, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said negotiations are continuing to have Trump sit down for questions from Mueller, though the lawyer said, “I’m not going to give you a lot of hope that it’s going to happen.”
He said both sides had exchanged proposals for conditions for such an interview, “and yesterday we got a letter back from them and now we’re in the process of responding.”
