The Republican-led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chaired by Richard Burr (R-Va) sent Donald Trump’s eldest son a subpoena to testify again. The New York Times uncovered a decade of the president’s federal tax returns from 1985 through 1994 and splashed the news that POTUS lost $1.17 billion or $11,000+ every hour for ten years. With that shakey emotional foundation, the president held a rambling press conference — always on the attack.
Trump was trying once again to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s vicious cyber attack on the 2016 presidential election and any collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. POTUS also tried to discredit Mueller.
The commander-in-chief complained that there were multiple points where Mueller had a conflict of interest. He noted that the special counsel and the president’s former FBI director James Comey were “best friends,” although no such evidence exists. Trump also said that there were “thousands” of photos of the two men together.
Earlier, the president claimed that there were 100 photos of the two men together “hugging and kissing.” MSNBC sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FBI requesting these pictures. It could not find even one.
That the two men were friends would not be surprising given the size of the U.S. federal intelligence community, which is about the size of a very small city.
At that point, a reporter pointed out that the president’s Roy Cohnesque Attorney General William Barr and Mueller were good friends, too. Of course, after the way Barr handled the Mueller report, they may not be any longer. POTUS ignored the reporter.
Then, Trump said that Mueller had met with him at Mar-a-Lago to interview for the then-unfilled position of FBI director. The president had fired Comey at this point. The man who occasionally sits in the Oval Office said he told Mueller no thanks to the job, and the very next day Mueller became the special counsel.
Previously, the president had said several times that it was fine with him if Mueller testified before Congress. However during the briefing, the president reversed his course. He said that he would let Attorney General William Barr decide, CNN Politics reported:
‘I’m going to leave that up to our very great attorney general. He’ll make a decision on that.’
At one point, Trump said the special counsel’s report was out and “it is done.” He also called the report “the bible” when it exonerated his son, Donald Trump Jr. In nearly the same breath, the president continued to condemn Special Counsel Mueller.
Attorney General Barr released a four-page summary of the Mueller report that falsely claimed there was no evidence of collusion. After giving Trump a month to guide the “no collusion” media campaign, Barr held another misleading press conference to set the message in voters’ minds. An hour and a half later, the AG released the heavily redacted report. Congress has demanded and has had the right to receive an unredacted copy of the Mueller report along with all of the supporting evidence.
The Mueller report stated that the president was not free of guilt:
‘Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’
Check out this video of the president talking about Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
