President Donald Trump seethed yesterday that investigators probing alleged collusion between Russian agents and his election campaign have gone “totally nuts” and are a “disgrace”.
Even by the standards of his frequent barrages against special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump’s early morning tweet storm was blistering.
“A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!” he wrote.
The diatribe came amid claims that Trump is manoeuvring to have Mueller fired or otherwise shut down before he can close in on the president and his inner circle, including family members.
Last week, Trump sacked his attorney general Jeff Sessions, replacing him with Matthew Whitaker, who is on the record as being harshly critical of the Mueller investigation.
The switch ignited a wave of protests from Trump’s Democratic opponents but the president yesterday doubled down on his rejection of Mueller and “his gang of Democrat thugs”.
“They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want,” Trump wrote.
“They are a disgrace to our Nation and don’t care how many lives (they) ruin,” he wrote, branding the investigators “Angry People, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller.”
Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and a Vietnam War veteran, is leading one of the most explosive probes in US political history.
Trump and his campaign are alleged to have received help from Russian agents seeking to help defeat his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton or at least to undermine confidence in US democracy.
Trump has always denied any such links and rejected the idea that Moscow played a significant role in influencing the dramatic election.
But Mueller has quietly chipped away, indicting several dozen people, most of them Russians.
He has also charged four Trump associates, although on charges not directly related to the alleged Russian interference.
Now Washington is on tenterhooks while waiting for Mueller, who works in near total secrecy, to issue his final report.
As expectations of a showdown mount, Trump has become ever more defensive, his grim mood worsened by his Republican party’s battering last week in midterm congressional elections, where they retained the Senate but lost the House of Representatives.
Starting in January, Democrats say they will use House investigative committees to open further probes of Trump’s businesses and his connections to Russia.
Republicans, with few exceptions, are rallying around the president.
On Wednesday, Republican Senator Jeff Flake, a frequent critic, joined Democratic Senator Chris Coons in an attempt to introduce a measure in the upper chamber to protect Mueller.
However, it was blocked by Senate majority leader and key Trump ally Mitch McConnell.
“There’s been no indication ... that the Mueller investigation will not be allowed to finish and it should be allowed to finish,” McConnell told reporters before going to the floor. “I think it is in no danger. So I don’t think any legislation is necessary.”
Flake, a moderate Republican who is leaving the Senate after this year, vowed not to vote to confirm any presidential nominees for the judiciary until Mueller’s probe is protected.
His vote on the judiciary committee is crucial.
“The president now has this investigation in his sights, and we all know it,” Flake said, presenting a controversial view within his own party.
Whitaker’s fired predecessor Sessions, had formally stepped aside from any control over Mueller, so as to avoid any conflicts of interest.
Democrats want Sessions’s replacement, Whitaker, to do likewise, but there is no indication that he will.
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer has said that if Whitaker refuses to recuse himself, Democrats will seek to attach legislation protecting Mueller to a must-pass spending bill that will be up for consideration in the coming weeks.
Democrats have long sought to set up safeguards around Mueller.
Reports in US media, including on Fox News and CNN, said that Trump is currently working with lawyers on written answers to be given to the Mueller team.
Recent polling shows public opinion in the US is divided on how Mueller has carried out his investigation.
Trump: (The Mueller investigators) have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want.
