President Trump quoted opinion writers from the Wall Street Journal Sunday to defend himself amid mounting pressure from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and the release of fired FBI Director James Comey’s memos detailing his conversations with the president.
“Kim Strassel of the WSJ just said, after reviewing the dumb Comey Memos, ‘you got to ask, what was the purpose of the Special Counsel? There’s no there there,'” Trump tweeted.
“Dan Henninger of the WSJ said Memos would show that this would be one of the weakest obstruction cases ever brought!” Trump continued.
Kim Strassel of the WSJ just said, after reviewing the dumb Comey Memos, “you got to ask, what was the purpose of the Special Counsel? There’s no there there.” Dan Henninger of the WSJ said Memos would show that this would be one of the weakest obstruction cases ever brought!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 22, 2018
Earlier, Strassel, who writes the “Potomac Watch” column for the editorial pages of the conservative newspaper, appeared on Fox News program, “The Journal Editorial Report.”
“You’ve got to ask here what was the basis for a special counsel, because there’s not a lot there, even in all of these long memos,” she answered when asked what she learned after Comey’s memos were made public, a less clear-cut response than the quote shared by Trump.
Henninger, the author of the paper’s “Wonder Land” column, featured on the same segment.
He said if Mueller’s obstruction case was based on Comey’s memos, it would be “one of the weakest cases” persecuted.
The Justice Department released a redacted version of Comey’s memos to Congress on Thursday following a subpoena threat from three House Republican committee chairmen.
The documents were soon after leaked to the media.
Trump’s dismissal of Comey in May 2017 was one of the events that triggered the appointment of Mueller as special counsel.
Mueller is investigating whether Trump obstructed justice by ousting Comey when the FBI was looking into whether his campaign colluded with Russia during the lead-up to the 2016 election.
