The Russia scandal as a whole continues to rage on, even though one of the lines of inquiry under the scandal — the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation — recently began to wind down.
Democrats on the committee protested against the investigation shutting down, but without the power inherent in having a majority in the House of Representatives, there’s little they can do about it.
The president is, of course, on the House Republicans’ side when it comes to this issue, having quickly rushed to post a statement to Twitter praising the fact that one of the major investigations being carried out under the Russia scandal had ended in his favor.
The president has been unsurprisingly undeterred in his praise of the outcome of the House Intel Investigation — and he has been similarly undeterred in his continued criticism of the Russia investigations that do still continue.
Special Counsel for the Russia investigation Robert Mueller has so far garnered three guilty pleas from former Trump associates for various crimes, while a fourth former Trump associate — former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort — is currently awaiting trial.
If the president were as innocent of these men’s crimes as he’s claimed, you’d think that he’d be fine to sit back and watch them face justice while the investigation as a whole runs its course.
That’s not what’s happening. In recent days, the president has renewed his attacks yet again on the Mueller probe, and Arizona’s GOP U.S. Senator and repeated Trump critic John McCain is among those taking on the president over the attacks.
On Sunday, he posted a statement to the president’s favorite medium — Twitter — reading:
‘Special Counsel Mueller has served our country with honesty and integrity. It’s critical he be allowed to complete a thorough investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election — unimpeded.’
His statement comes after the latest round of Twitter statements from the president attacking Mueller, including one issued Saturday that reads:
‘The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!’
Trump having renewed his attacks on Robert Mueller comes in the context of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent firing of Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, just days shy of his planned retirement, when he would have been eligible to collect early benefits.
Trump and his allies claim that McCabe was pushed out over having infected the Hillary Clinton email probe with corruption, while the now former Deputy FBI Director insists he did nothing wrong and his dismissal was for purely political reasons.
Trump certainly reinforced McCabe’s version of events when he ranted on Twitter about what a “great day for Democracy” the day of the former Deputy FBI Director’s firing was.
As for Mueller, McCain is not alone in effectively warning the president against firing Robert Mueller, which he’s been reported to have considered in the past, an idea that certainly doesn’t seem that far fetched.
Republican member of the U.S. Senate Lindsay Graham is among those on McCain’s side, saying that Trump firing Mueller would be the “beginning of the end of his presidency.”
Check out Twitter’s response to McCain below.
Featured Image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
