President Trump on Friday lashed out over special counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report a day after declaring the report cleared him of collusion and obstruction, claiming some statements about him in the document “are total bullshit.”
In a string of tweets, Trump derided the more than 400-page document as the “Crazy Mueller Report.”
{mosads}The president took a jab at former aides who supplied notes and other information to investigators and claimed certain statements about him are “fabricated & totally untrue.”
“Watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed,” Trump tweeted. “Because I never agreed to testify, it was not necessary for me to respond to statements made in the ‘Report’ about me, some of which are total bullshit & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad).”
“This was an Illegally Started Hoax that never should have happened,” Trump continued.
Nearly nine hours later, Trump completed his thought, calling the probe a “waste of time, energy and money,” and accusing those who initiated the investigation of spying or treason.
“It is now finally time to turn the tables and bring justice to some very sick and dangerous people who have committed very serious crimes, perhaps even Spying or Treason,” Trump tweeted. “This should never happen again!”
The redacted version of the report, released Thursday morning, did not conclude there was a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, and neither implicated nor exonerated the president on obstruction of justice charges. Instead, Mueller detailed 10 “episodes” that raised questions of whether the president attempted to obstruct the investigation.
Many scenarios in the report involving Trump are based on emails, interviews with witnesses and contemporaneous notes and memos from a number of administration staffers, including former FBI Director James Comey, former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, former deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland, former White House staff secretary Rob Porter and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s chief of staff, among others.
Notes from Sessions’s then-chief of staff, Jody Hunt, recount that when Trump learned Mueller was appointed special counsel, he responded: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m f—ed.”
Notes from Porter detailed a conversation between Trump and Sessions where the president told his then-attorney general that he would “be a hero” if he un-recused himself and retook control of the Russia investigation.
The 448-page report laid out a series of events that showed Trump was frustrated by the investigation and repeatedly sought to control it, often ordering staff to take action.
Mueller’s report cites many cases that aides did not follow through on Trump’s requests, with some considering resigning rather than carrying out orders.
“The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests,” the special counsel wrote.
Trump did not sit for an in-person interview with Mueller and instead provided written answers to the special counsel’s questions.
The president wrote on more than 30 occasions that he did not recall, remember or have independent memories of key events throughout the Russia investigation, leading Mueller’s team to deem his written responses to questions “inadequate.”
This story was updated at 5:21 p.m.