White House stresses Trump has ‘no intention’ of firing Mueller

The White House on Monday stressed that President Trump does not plan to fire special counsel Robert Mueller after the president said the Russia investigation was “based on an illegal act.”

“As we’ve said many times before, we have no intention of firing the special counsel,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.

“We’ve been beyond cooperative with them, we’re continuing to cooperate with them,” she added.

Sanders was responding to Trump’s provocative tweet from last Friday about the probe into whether his campaign colluded with Russia in that country’s election-interference efforts in 2016.

“James Comey illegally leaked classified documents to the press in order to generate a Special Council? Therefore, the Special Council was established based on an illegal act? Really, does everybody know what that means?” he wrote.

The tweet came in response to reports that the Justice Department is investigating Comey, the former FBI director, for providing memos to a friend that the government later determined contained classified information.

Sanders said on Monday that Trump was simply reiterating his belief that the Russia probe is a “total witch hunt” and not previewing any personnel moves.

“It was a false premise that this entire thing started on,” she said.