This
New York Times article from the end of November is a reminder of some of the attempts Trump has made in the past to stop the Mueller investigation.
President Trump over the summer repeatedly urged senior Senate Republicans, including the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to end the panel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, according to a half dozen lawmakers and aides.
[...]
Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, the intelligence committee chairman, said in an interview this week that Mr. Trump told him that he was eager to see an investigation that has overshadowed much of the first year of his presidency come to an end.
NYT
Just stating an opinion. Nothing else.
“It was something along the lines of, ‘I hope you can conclude this as quickly as possible,’” Mr. Burr said.
Oh.
[Burr] said he replied to Mr. Trump that “when we have exhausted everybody we need to talk to, we will finish.”
Oh.
In addition, according to lawmakers and aides, Mr. Trump told Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri and a member of the intelligence committee, to end the investigation swiftly.
[...]
Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, said on Thursday that the president had not acted improperly. Mr. Trump, he said, “at no point has attempted to apply undue influence on committee members’’ and believes “there is no evidence of collusion and these investigations must come to a fair and appropriate completion.’’
I'm not sure you're allowed to tell an investigative panel that there's nothing to investigate. That would be handy, though, wouldn't it?
Mr. Trump’s requests of lawmakers to end the Senate investigation came during a period in the summer when the president was particularly consumed with Russia and openly raging at his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from any inquiries into Russian meddling in the election. Mr. Trump often vented to his own aides and even declared his innocence to virtual strangers he came across on his New Jersey golf course.
In this same period, the president complained frequently to Mr. McConnell about not doing enough to bring the investigation to an end.
[...]
Republicans played down Mr. Trump’s appeals, describing them as the actions of a political newcomer unfamiliar with what is appropriate presidential conduct.
So, now that he's been around the block a few times, what is his excuse for trying to stymie the investigation?
Mr. Burr and Mr. Blunt have both taken steps to limit their interaction with Mr. Trump this year, not wanting to create the perception of coziness as they conduct a highly sensitive investigation into contacts between the president’s campaign and Moscow last year.
We don't hear much about the two Senate investigations. Other than that moment when Dianne Feinstein released the Fusion GPS chief's testimony. I wonder where they are and how they're getting on.
Mr. Trump also called other lawmakers over the summer with requests that they push Mr. Burr to finish the inquiry, according to a Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss his contact with the president.
This senator, who was alarmed upon hearing word of the president’s pleas, said Mr. Trump’s request to the other senators was clear: They should urge Mr. Burr to bring the Russia investigation to a close. The senator declined to reveal which colleagues Mr. Trump had contacted with the request.
Jesus, he was all over Congress, wasn't he? I'm assuming all these people he called were either in top GOP positions or directly on the investigating committees, but who knows?
During this time, Mr. Trump made several calls to senators without senior staff present, according to one West Wing official. According to senators and other Republicans familiar with the conversations, Mr. Trump would begin the talks on a different topic but eventually drift toward the Russia investigation.
Like they wouldn't think that's why he called. I wonder if he called anyone pretending to be a lawyer. Attorney John Baron, perhaps.
In conversations with Mr. McConnell and Senator Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Trump voiced sharp anger that congressional Republicans were not helping lift the cloud of suspicion over Russia, the senators told political allies.
Hysterical. He called directly, and then when he wasn't getting any satisfaction, he called the big dogs to sic on them.
The Times reported in August that the president had complained to Mr. McConnell that he was failing to shield Mr. Trump from an ongoing Senate inquiry.
Oh, wow. Has Mueller called Old Turtlehead in for an interview?
The earlier call with Mr. Burr, however, was perhaps the most invasive, given Mr. Burr’s role directly supervising the Senate’s investigation of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Burr told other senators that Mr. Trump had stressed that it was time to “move on” from the Russia issue, using that language repeatedly, according to people who spoke with Mr. Burr over the summer. One Republican close to Mr. Burr, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Trump had been “very forceful.”
Go to the head of the investigating committee and try to obstruct the investigation? That might not have been the wises move to make.
Asked why Mr. Trump is so irritated with the investigation, Mr. Burr said: “In his world it hampers his ability to project the strength he needs to convey on foreign policy.”
Or so he says.
Mr. Burr said Mr. Trump was not fully aware of the impropriety of his request because the president still has the mind-set of a businessman rather than a politician. “Businessmen are paid to skip things that they think they can skip and get away with,” he said.
Again, what's his excuse now?
[McConnell] told associates that Mr. Trump did not seem to recognize that the Republican Party traditionally took a suspicious view of Russia, or that lawmakers could favor punishing Russia without questioning Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016.
Well, of course he didn't. All he knew was that his Trump Moscow building plans were going down the tube and that pee tape was in the hands of people who didn't want to be punished.
The president had reluctantly signed a bill imposing sanctions on Moscow on Aug. 2, using an extraordinary written statement to lash out against what he viewed as a usurping of executive authority from a Congress that “could not even negotiate a health care bill after seven years of talking.”
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