President Trump on Friday said he “learned a lot from Richard Nixon” as he reflected on his handling of the Russia investigation.
“I learned a lot from Richard Nixon. Don’t fire people,” Trump said during a phone interview with “Fox & Friends.
“I learned a lot. I study history,” he continued. “And the firing of everybody — I should’ve in one way, but I’m glad I didn’t, because look at the way it turned out. They’re all a bunch of crooks and they got caught.”
“Of course there was one difference, one big difference,” Trump went on. “Number one, he may have been guilty. And number two, he had tapes all over the place. I wasn’t guilty. I did nothing wrong, and there are no tapes. But I wish there were tapes in my case.”
Trump has fired numerous officials in his administration, including multiple people associated with the Russia investigation.
He ousted former FBI Director James Comey, which led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, and pushed out former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November 2018. Sessions fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whom the president frequently criticized, in March 2018.
The special counsel concluded his investigation in March 2019.
The president on Friday said he “did a very good thing” by firing Comey.
Nixon was not impeached but eventually resigned over the Watergate scandal. Trump was impeached by the House earlier this year over allegations he tied aid for Ukraine to the country investigating a political opponent, but he was acquitted by the Senate.
Trump has continuously railed against the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The special counsel’s investigation did not establish that there was coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller laid out 10 examples where the president attempted to obstruct the probe but did not make a determination whether Trump had committed a crime.
The president’s ire about the investigation was rekindled on Thursday. The Department of Justice dropped its case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was the first to be charged in the special counsel’s probe after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released long-delayed transcripts related to the GOP-led investigation by the panel into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The committee released 57 transcript interviews from 2017-18 that reveal what was said behind closed doors as lawmakers sought to determine whether members of the Trump campaign and Russia coordinated to tip the scales of the election.
Updated at 9:43 a.m.