President Trump said Thursday how he found it humorous to see Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., “groveling.”
“So funny to watch Schumer groveling,” Trump tweeted. “He called for the firing of bad cop James Comey many times – UNTIL I FIRED HIM!”
So funny to watch Schumer groveling. He called for the firing of bad cop James Comey many times – UNTIL I FIRED HIM!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2019
While it’s not clear what Trump meant by “groveling” and what prompted the tweet now, his tweet comes amid a government shutdown standoff and a day after Schumer expressed concerns about Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William Barr, after two days of confirmation hearings. Schumer lamented to reporters Wednesday how Barr declined to completely rule out interfering in the federal Russia investigation and didn’t confirm that he would release special counsel Robert Mueller’s report during a private meeting.
“So despite the fact that there were some nice words at the hearing, we do not have the kind of strong, clear commitments to the report being issued and there being no interference in the investigation that are needed, particularly now with President Trump treating the Justice Department as he has,” Schumer said.
“He said he’s for transparency,” Schumer said. “That’s not good enough, especially with someone like Donald Trump who has treated the Justice Department almost as if it’s his personal fiefdom.”
As Trump noted in the latter part of his tweet, Schumer had been critical of former FBI Director James Comey before Trump fired him in the spring of 2017. In the days leading up to the 2016 election, Schumer rebuked Comey for his unprecedented announcement weeks before the 2016 election that the FBI was reopening the investigation into the unauthorized email server of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was the Democratic presidential nominee at the time.
“I do not have confidence in him any longer,” Schumer said. He also characterized the decision, which came after a new batch of of emails were unearthed on a laptop belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s husband Anthony Weiner, as “appalling.”
Comey was fired by Trump in May 2017. Originally, Trump claimed Comey was fired at the suggestion of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, but he admitted days later the “Russia thing” was a factor.
Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin, was appointed to lead the probe shortly after Comey’s ouster in May 2017 by Rosenstein.
The New York Times reported last week that the FBI opened a counterintelligence operation looking into whether Trump was a Russian asset right after he fired Comey and that this inquiry was later wrapped into Mueller’s investigation.
Trump has long derided Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt.”
