The following article by Jordan Fabian was posted on the Hill website August 20, 2018:
President Trumpon Monday said Justice Department official Bruce Ohr should be fired for his involvement in the Russia investigation.
In a tweet calling for Ohr’s firing, Trump also took a swipe at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, suggesting he does not have the resolve to ax Ohr. Sessions has recused himself from the Russia probe.
“Will Bruce Ohr, whose family received big money for helping to create the phony, dirty and discredited Dossier, ever be fired from the Jeff Sessions ‘Justice’ Department? A total joke!” Trump tweeted.
The following article by Maggie Haberman and Mcihael S. Schmidt was posted on the New York Times website August 19, 2018:
After Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, was initially interviewed by the special counsel’s office in November, President Trump’s lawyers never asked for a complete description of what Mr. McGahn had said. Credit: Doug Mills, The New York Times
President Trump’s lawyers do not know just how much the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, told the special counsel’s investigators during months of interviews, a lapse that has contributed to a growing recognition that an early strategy of full cooperation with the inquiry was a potentially damaging mistake.
The president’s lawyers said on Sunday that they were confident that Mr. McGahn had said nothing injurious to the president during the 30 hours of interviews. But Mr. McGahn’s lawyer has offered only a limited accounting of what Mr. McGahn told the investigators, according to two people close to the president.
That has prompted concern among Mr. Trump’s advisers that Mr. McGahn’s statements could help serve as a key component for a damning report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, which the Justice Department could send to Congress, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website August 16, 2018:
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders read a statement from President Trump revoking ex-CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance on Aug. 15. (Reuters)
President Trump says that although he has never obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, he does “fight back.”
And, as of Wednesday, he had “fought back” against a majority of top officials involved in leading, overseeing or making administration decisions about that probe. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, of the more than a dozen officials with what could be construed as leadership roles in the investigation, more than half have been fired and/or threatened with official recourse.
The most recent examples were the White House’s revocation of former CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance Wednesday and the threats to do the same for nine other current and former officials who have run afoul of Trump. In one fell swoop, the White House effectively more than doubled its enemies list — and served notice that ex-officials who were involved in the probe will not be permitted to criticize Trump willy-nilly.
The following article by Spencer S. Hsu and Bevlin Barrett was posted on the Washington Post website August 10, 2018:
Roger Stone and Andrew Miller Credit: Facebook
A federal judge has found a witness in contempt for refusing to testify before the grand jury hearing evidence in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
U.S. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell made the ruling Friday after a sealed hearing to discuss Andrew Miller’s refusal to appear before the grand jury. Miller is a former aide to longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone.
Miller’s lawyer Paul Kamenar said after the hearing that Miller was “held in contempt, which we asked him to be in order for us to appeal the judge’s decision to the court of appeals.”
The following article by JM Rieger was posted on the Washington Post website August 5, 2018:
President Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani often employs exaggerated expressions and reactions during his television interviews. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
Over the past three months, President Trump has sent his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani on a public-relations campaign to undermine the investigations surrounding Trump before they even conclude.
Part of Giuliani’s rhetorical tactics — which you can watch in the video above — include dramatic facial expressions, laughs, sighs and over-the-top reactions, which he employs liberally and are meant to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the questions or topics in interviews to which he has agreed.
In July, Giuliani made a number of bewildered facial expressions during a CNN interview while complaining about the supposed bias in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation (Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein has testified otherwise).
The following article by Morgan Chalfant was posted on the Hill website August 4, 2018:
President Trump may have given special counsel Robert Mueller a new gift this week: tweets that could help build an obstruction of justice case against him.
Trump’s tweet lashing out at Attorney General Jeff Sessions and saying that he should quash Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference would seem to feed an obstruction of justice case — following reports that Mueller is looking at the president’s messages on Twitter closely.
Legal analysts say that a single message would not form the basis for an obstruction charge.
The following article by Zachary Basu was posted on the Axios website August 1, 2018:
President Trump called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to put a stop to the Mueller investigation in a tweet Wednesday morning.
‘This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!”
Between the lines, from Axios’ Jonathan Swan: This isn’t a directive to Sessions, based on my last conversation with Rudy Giuliani. If Trump wanted to end the Mueller investigation, he could. He knows Congress would rise up against him.
The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website July 27, 2018:
President Trump’s lawyers now say he dictated Donald Trump Jr.’s response to the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, contradicting months of previous assertions. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
The natural first reaction is: Of course.
Of course Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who attended the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and others at Trump Tower in June 2016 had closer ties with Russian officials than she let on.
And of course there would now be allegations — secondhand, but credible — that President Trump himself knew that the meeting was scheduled and what it was about before it took place.
The following article by Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman was posted on the New York Times website July 26, 2018:
Investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, have told President Trump’s lawyers that they want to question him about his tweets. Credit: Doug Mills, The New York Times
WASHINGTON — For years, President Trump has used Twitter as his go-to public relations weapon, mounting a barrage of attacks on celebrities and then political rivals even after advisers warned he could be creating legal problems for himself.
Those concerns now turn out to be well founded. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is scrutinizing tweets and negative statements from the president about Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to three people briefed on the matter.
Several of the remarks came as Mr. Trump was also privately pressuring the men — both key witnesses in the inquiry — about the investigation, and Mr. Mueller is examining whether the actions add up to attempts to obstruct the investigation by both intimidating witnesses and pressuring senior law enforcement officials to tamp down the inquiry.
The following article by Olivia Beavers was posted on the Hill website July 25, 2018:
A group of conservative House lawmakers on Wednesday introduced articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the top Department of Justice (DOJ) official overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
The introduction of the resolution is the latest sign of escalating efforts among conservatives to oust the DOJ’s No. 2 official.
Conservative members led by Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), along with nine co-sponsors, introduced the five articles shortly after a meeting with DOJ officials concerning document production.
