President Donald Trump capped a day of rambling tweets — about the New York Times, “consequences” for people who cross the border illegally and his bizarre and false claim that he has the “highest Poll Numbers in the history of the Republican Party” — with a string of provable falsehoods and unspecified accusations about special counsel Robert Mueller.
There is No Collusion! The Robert Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt, headed now by 17 (increased from 13, including an Obama White House lawyer) Angry Democrats, was started by a fraudulent Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC. Therefore, the Witch Hunt is an illegal Scam!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2018
Is Robert Mueller ever going to release his conflicts of interest with respect to President Trump, including the fact that we had a very nasty & contentious business relationship, I turned him down to head the FBI (one day before appointment as S.C.) & Comey is his close friend..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2018
….Also, why is Mueller only appointing Angry Dems, some of whom have worked for Crooked Hillary, others, including himself, have worked for Obama….And why isn’t Mueller looking at all of the criminal activity & real Russian Collusion on the Democrats side-Podesta, Dossier?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2018
A number of Trump’s claims are false: Mueller is a registered Republican, for one thing, and it’s not true that the 17 lawyers who the Justice Department has said are part of his office are all Democrats. Besides, as the Washington Post reported last year, “Federal regulations prohibit the Justice Department from considering the political affiliation or political contributions of career appointees, including those appointed to the Special Counsel’s Office.”
Also, as has been thoroughly reported, former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos’ own actions set off an FBI counterintelligence investigation months before the bureau sought a warrant to surveil Carter Page, the application for which partially cited the Steele dossier.
For all his color commentary on Twitter, the President has only called the Mueller probe an “illegal Scam!” on the website once before, last week. He hasn’t provided any evidence that backs up that characterization.
The White House didn’t respond to TPM’s inquiry about what, precisely, Trump meant when he referred to Mueller’s “conflicts of interest with respect to President Trump, including the fact that we had a very nasty & contentious business relationship.”
However, the New York Times reported in January that Trump had previously argued that Mueller was ineligible to oversee the Russian interference probe because for three reasons:
First, he claimed that a dispute years ago over fees at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., had prompted Mr. Mueller, the F.B.I. director at the time, to resign his membership. The president also said Mr. Mueller could not be impartial because he had most recently worked for the law firm that previously represented the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Finally, the president said, Mr. Mueller had been interviewed to return as the F.B.I. director the day before he was appointed special counsel in May.
