Source Wikipedia
Dismissal of FBI director[edit]
On May 9, 2017, Trump
dismissed James Comey, the
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, stating that he had accepted the recommendations of U.S. attorney general
Jeff Sessions and deputy attorney general
Rod Rosenstein to dismiss Comey. In their respective letters, neither Trump, Sessions nor Rosenstein mentioned the issue of an FBI investigation into
links between Trump associates and Russian officials, with Rosenstein writing that Comey should be dismissed for his handling of the conclusion of the FBI investigation into the
Hillary Clinton email controversy, while Sessions cited Rosenstein's reasons.
[110][111][112] On May 11, Trump said in a videoed interview: "... regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey ... in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story."
[113][114][115] On May 31, Trump wrote on
Twitter: "I never fired James Comey because of Russia!"
[108]
Personal lawyer[edit]
In 2017 and in the first half of 2018, Trump repeatedly praised his personal attorney
Michael Cohen as a "a great lawyer", "a loyal, wonderful person", "a good man", and someone Trump "always liked" and "respected". In the second half of 2018, with Cohen testifying to federal investigations, Trump attacked Cohen as a "rat", "a weak person, and not a very smart person", and described Cohen as "a
PR person who did small legal work, very small legal work ... He represented me very little."
[113][116][117]
Spygate[edit]
In May 2018, Trump developed and promoted the false
[118][119] Spygate conspiracy theory
[118][58] alleging that the
Barack Obama administration planted a spy inside
Trump's 2016 presidential campaign to assist
Hillary Clinton in winning the
2016 US presidential election.
[120][121]
Special Counsel Investigation[edit]
In March 2019, Trump asserted that the special counsel investigation is "illegal"; previously in June 2018, Trump argued that "the appointment of the Special Counsel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!" However, in August 2018,
Dabney Friedrich, a Trump-appointed judge on the
DC District Court ruled the appointment was constitutional, as did a unanimous three-judge panel of the
Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in February 2019.
[122][123]
The
Mueller Report asserted Trump's family members, campaign staff, Republican backers, administration officials, and his associates lied or made false assertions, with the plurality of lies from Trump himself (mostly while he was president), whether unintentional, or not to the public, Congress, or authorities, per a CNN analysis.
[124]
Also in March 2019, following the release of Attorney General
William Barr's summary of the
findings of the completed special counsel investigation, Trump tweeted: "No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION." However, Barr had quoted special counsel Mueller as writing that "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him" on whether he had committed obstruction of justice. Barr declined to bring an obstruction of justice charge against the President. In testimony to Congress in May 2019, Barr said that he "didn't exonerate" Trump on obstruction as that was not the role of the Justice Department.
[125][126][127]