Trump under investigation for obstruction of justice
The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 election is interviewing three senior intelligence officials to determine whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice. But on Friday, Trump said he is being investigation for firing Comey.
Trump's comments came as lawyers for his presidential transition ordered former staffers to preserve all physical and electronic documents in order to comply with ongoing Russian Federation investigations.
The morning missive appeared to refer to Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general.
The BBC reports that Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, wrote a memo the White House used to justify the firing of the ex-FBI chief.
He said he believed Trump had directed him to drop a related agency investigation into the president's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
Even though Mueller is technically leading the investigation, the DOJ controls the funding for the investigation and can fire Mueller if the department decides it's warranted.
Significantly, Preet Bharara, the India-born former top U.S. federal prosecutor, earlier this week had said that there was enough evidence to begin an obstruction of justice case against Trump over his alleged interference in the Russian Federation probe.
About 60 percent of Americans think Trump attempted to obstruct or impede the investigation, the Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found. He's increasingly focused his anger at both Rosenstein and Mueller, according to advisers and confidants, viewing the two as part of a biased effort to undermine his presidency.
Trump was strongly critical of some of Comey's testimony but said Comey had vindicated him by saying while he was at the agency, Trump was not the subject of the FBI's Russian Federation probe.
Complicating matters further, ABC News reported on Friday that Rosenstein was considering recusing himself from involvement in Mueller's investigation, handing responsibility for resources, personnel and possible prosecutions to associate attorney general Rachel Brand.
Trump's tweet came after Rosenstein issued a statement Thursday evening pushing back on reports the president was under investigation.
The transition official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss post-election decisions publicly.
Brand, on May 22, was sworn in as the first woman to serve as associate attorney general.
With news reports that the Special Counsel investigating election interference in 2016 by Russian Federation is looking at possible obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump, Mr. Trump expressed frustration Thursday at the prospect of that review, again taking to Twitter to denounce the probe as a "witch hunt", and complaining that Hillary Clinton should be the subject of a Russia-related investigation, not him. Cohen has worked for Trump since the mid-2000s and was active in the campaign.
Trump had expressed the same outrage when Mueller, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation director from 2001 to 2013, was appointed last month by the US Department of Justice to probe Russian meddling.
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