Trump steps up Mueller attack over Russia probe

Bloomberg

An FBI raid on his personal lawyer’s office cut close to home for Donald Trump, prompting an angry reaction from the president that revived fears he might do the unthinkable and fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
“Attorney–client privilege is dead!,” Trump said early Tuesday in a posting on Twitter. He followed up with: “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!”
In an eight-minute diatribe that ranked as one of the president’s most vivid public responses to an investigation that has embroiled top aides and allies, Trump blasted the early-morning raid targeting his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen as “disgraceful” and an “attack on our country.”
Few people outside his family are closer to Trump than Cohen.
The frustration betrayed concern by the president about an inquiry that has now reached deep into his inner circle, and threatened to return focus to the sordid story of a $130,000 payment Cohen made weeks before the 2016 election to a porn actress who said she had an affair with Trump.
His singling out — by name — of top officials throughout his Justice Department raised speculation that he may undertake an historic purge of law enforcement officials, a move that would draw bipartisan condemnation and amplify the stakes of an investigation that is broadening in ways that could imperil the Trump presidency.
“The words that the president chose tonight to describe his feelings about that raid definitely raise the stakes,”
former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in an interview with Fox News.
Trump’s rhetoric was “escalating the situation” and “I don’t think we’ve heard the last of the president’s feelings on this,” he added.
Mueller, meanwhile, appears to be making strategic moves that could help preserve his investigation even if Trump removes him, according to current and former US officials.
Trump entertained an inquiry about firing Mueller as he spoke to reporters before a meeting with military leaders to discuss the situation in Syria.
He repeated the question — “Why don’t I just fire Mueller” — and then said “many people” had advised him to do it.
He denounced the special counsel’s team as “the most biased group of people,” describing them as mostly Democrats and politically motivated, and added: “We’re going to have more to say about this.”
“I think it’s a disgrace what’s going on, we’ll see what happens,” Trump said.
The president also turned his ire on the two men who stand between him and a bid to disband the Russia investigation. Trump fumed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions made “a very terrible mistake for the country” in deciding to recuse himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into possible Russian interference in the election.
Trump said he would have “put a different attorney general in” had he known Sessions intended to remove himself from oversight of the inquiry.