As the federal investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election continues, White House Special Counsel Robert Mueller has interviewed Trump campaign officials who allegedly met with Russian officials offering information on Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Other affiliates like Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort and former foreign policy campaign adviser George Papadopoulos have been charged and convicted in federal court on an array of charges from providing false information to the FBI to engaging in conspiracy against the United States.
On Monday morning, President Donald Trump took to Twitter criticizing the special counsel’s handling of the investigation. The commander-in-chief is demanding that Mueller interview the “hundreds” of other campaign employees and associates involved in the 2016 election who had no contact with Russia.
President Trump said:
“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…..
….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!”
Throughout the nearly two-year investigation, President Trump has maintained that a “legitimate legal issue” and conflict of interest that has led Mueller to conduct the “witch hunt” of the investigation. Regardless, the highly criticized investigation has said by Democrats to be threatened by acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker following the ousting of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions three weeks ago after a post-midterm election press conference.
According to a report from Yahoo News, during his 20-month tenure running the now-infamous Russia investigation, Mueller’s Russia probe has resulted in nearly three dozen people that have been indicted on federal crimes, bank fraud, and campaign finances violations. Among the high profile cases were former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Manafort’s second in command Rick Gates, and Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
Recently, high-profile lawyer and common defender of the President, Alan Dershowitz added publicly that the results of the Mueller investigation will be “devastating” to Trump, at least politically.
Days ago, after answering questions sent to him by the special counsel, the President stated that he will refuse to cooperate with the investigation if he is subpoenaed. Trump’s top lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said the questions sent to the White House to be answered were “all very circumspect.”