As he slammed the special counsel, Trump echoed the attacks against the investigation recently launched by right-wing conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, who claimed a day earlier that he has rejected a plea deal offered by Mueller.
Hours after former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was accused of lying to federal investigators in violation of his plea deal, President Donald Trump fumed against special counsel Robert Mueller, claiming his probe is “ruining lives” and suggesting that he had inside information about the investigation.
As he pilloried the special counsel, Trump echoed the salvos against the investigation recently launched by right-wing conspiracy monger Jerome Corsi, who claimed Monday that he rejected a plea deal offered by Mueller. Corsi had said that he would “rather sit in prison and rot” than say he lied to Mueller.
“Wait until it comes out how horribly & viciously they are treating people, ruining lives for them refusing to lie,” Trump tweeted Tuesday. “The Fake News Media builds Bob Mueller up as a Saint, when in actuality he is the exact opposite. He is doing TREMENDOUS damage to our Criminal Justice System, where he is only looking at one side and not the other.”
The president’s attacks also highlight lingering questions about the possibility of Trump granting presidential pardons to some of the people targeted by the special counsel – a notion that Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani appeared to entertain Tuesday. The former New York City mayor suggested that Mueller’s probe may be going too far when NBC News asked him whether the president plans to offer Manafort a pardon.
“Is it conceivable that [Manafort] and Jerome Corsi, who is saying Mueller’s people are pressuring him to lie, are telling the truth and the special counsel in their zeal to get the president may be going too far?” Giuliani told NBC.
