28 June, 2017
President Donald Trump complained in a furious Friday morning tweet that he was being investigated for firing former FBI Director James Comey and seemed to accuse the deputy attorney general of overseeing a "witch hunt" against him.
Trump is an avid user of Twitter, with over 32 million followers on his personal account and more than 18 million people on the official presidential account.
The obstruction of justice investigation into Trump began days after Comey was sacked on May 9, according to people familiar with the matter, the Washington Post said.
Trump's tweets come after the top lawyer for his transition team warned the organization's officials to preserve all records and other materials related to the Russian Federation probe.
The latest White House crisis struck on the evening of Trump's 71st birthday, after a day in which he had won plaudits for his handling of the shooting of Republican Congressman Steve Scalise.
A few hours later, Trump again tweeted, this time attempting to divert attention toward his former rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, first saying: "Why is that Hillary Clinton's family and Democrats dealings with Russian Federation are not looked at, but my non-dealings are?" It was not known whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the source of the information.
"Mueller is setting up a dragnet of obstruction, financial questions and every aspect of Trump's life and his associates lives", Gingrich wrote on Twitter, adding "very unsafe".
Mueller was named by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein eight days after Comey's dismissal to lead the Russian Federation investigation as a special counsel, a position created to conduct investigations when a normal Justice Department probe would present a conflict of interest or in other extraordinary circumstances. Still, the snowballing investigation has deeply angered Trump, who denies he has any nefarious ties to Russian Federation.
The former speaker said Trump called him Monday night and that the two discussed Gingrich's concerns. Grassley said Comey's dismissal and Comey's testimony on Lynch should be looked at together, noting that Comey "took the opportunity in his testimony to clear his own name by denouncing as false the administration's claims that the FBI rank-and-file had lost confidence in Mr. Comey's leadership in the wake of the Clinton email investigation".
His comments follow revelations that special counsel Robert Mueller is examining whether Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey.
"I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the President was an effort to obstruct", Comey said.
According to the paper, Daniel Coats, the current director of national intelligence, Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, and Rogers's recently departed deputy, Richard Ledgett, agreed to be interviewed by Mueller's investigators as early as this week.
Trump wrote in his letter firing Comey that the ousted FBI director had informed him on three separate occasions he was not under investigation. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private.
