Washington
\nPresident Donald Trump renewed claims that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has \u201cconflicts of interest\u201d that should bar him from probing Russian interference into the 2016 election, saying the pair had a business relationship.<\/p>\n
In a series of tweets targeting Mueller\u2019s credibility, Trump alleged he had \u201ca very nasty & contentious business relationship\u201d with Mueller.<\/p>\n
The message marked the first time Trump publicly elaborated on prior vague claims of conflicts of interest regarding Mueller.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs 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 & Comey is his close friend,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
In January, The New York Times reported that Trump had tried to fire Mueller in June 2017 but backed down after White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to resign if the president made him follow through with the order.<\/p>\n
Trump, the Times said, cited three conflicts of interest Mueller had that disqualified him from the high-profile probe.<\/p>\n
The alleged conflicts included: a dispute over fees at Trump National Golf Club; work for a law firm that once represented the president\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and an interview for FBI director a day before being named special counsel.<\/p>\n
Trump, who has called the probe which also seeks to determine whether the ex-reality TV star\u2019s campaign team colluded with Russia and whether he obstructed justice\u2014a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d and repeatedly demanded it be ended, claimed that Mueller\u2019s team is filled with Democrats.<\/p>\n
Mueller is a Republican like Trump, as is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who hired the special counsel, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.<\/p>\n
In his tweets, Trump also said the investigation was triggered by a damning dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, and questioned why Mueller wasn\u2019t investigating Democrats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere 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!\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington President Donald Trump renewed claims that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has \u201cconflicts of interest\u201d that should bar him from probing Russian interference into the 2016 election, saying the pair had a business relationship. In a series of tweets targeting Mueller\u2019s credibility, Trump alleged he had \u201ca very nasty & contentious business relationship\u201d with Mueller. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37849,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37847\/revisions\/37849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}