Trump Suggests Mueller Is Trying to Hurt Republicans in Midterms

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump raged anew Sunday about the special counsel investigation, charging that it had turned up no evidence of collusion with Russia and was now casting a worldwide net so that it could stay active until the midterm elections and harm Republicans’ chances.

In a series of morning tweets that has become a weekend ritual for the president, Trump pointed to a New York Times report that detailed how Robert Mueller, the special counsel, is examining whether Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates offered help to the Trump campaign, and whether they coordinated with Russia in doing so.

“Things are really getting ridiculous,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “The Failing and Crooked (but not as Crooked as Hillary Clinton) @nytimes has done a long & boring story indicating that the World’s most expensive Witch Hunt has found nothing on Russia & me so now they are looking at the rest of the World!”

The president did not challenge the accuracy of The Times’ account, which was the first indication that countries other than Russia may have offered assistance to his campaign in the months before the presidential election. But he suggested that the breadth of the inquiry was proof that Mueller’s investigation, which he has repeatedly called a baseless “witch hunt,” was a partisan exercise geared toward harming Republican congressional candidates.

“Now that the Witch Hunt has given up on Russia and is looking at the rest of the World, they should easily be able to take it into the Mid-Term Elections where they can put some hurt on the Republican Party,” Trump said. “Don’t worry about Dems FISA Abuse, missing Emails or Fraudulent Dossier!”

Trump was alluding to his contention that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant that was granted to look at Carter Page, one of his campaign associates, was improperly obtained and based on false information provided by his political opponents, including a dossier that included salacious information about him.

Under pressure from Trump and his Republican allies in Congress, the Justice Department said in March that it would begin an investigation into the surveillance of Page. Law enforcement officials had long had concerns that Page, a former investment banker based in Moscow, was acting as a Russian agent.

But the president has continued to make the allegation that the court-ordered surveillance of Page was unjustified. Trump has also continued to claim that the special counsel should be looking not at his campaign, but instead at his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton.

“At what point does this soon to be $20,000,000 Witch Hunt, composed of 13 Angry and Heavily Conflicted Democrats and two people who have worked for Obama for 8 years, STOP!” Trump wrote in a pair of tweets. “They have found no Collussion with Russia, No Obstruction, but they aren’t looking at the corruption in the Hillary Clinton Campaign where she deleted 33,000 Emails, got $145,000,000 while Secretary of State, paid McCabes wife $700,000 (and got off the FBI hook along with Terry M) and so much more.”

It was not clear where Trump’s estimate of the cost of Mueller’s inquiry came from. The Justice Department reported at the end of last year that the special counsel’s investigation had incurred at least $6.7 million in expenses in its first four and a half months, and Trump’s own budget allocated $10 million for his office for 2019.

The president has often charged that Mueller is leading a team of Democratic activists who are out to get him, citing reports that some of his investigators are Democrats who supported Clinton. He has also sought to discredit Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy FBI director, by noting that his wife ran as a Democrat for political office in Virginia with support and campaign donations from Terry McAuliffe, a close Clinton ally.

But Mueller himself is a Republican, as are several members of his staff, and the investigation is being overseen by Rod J. Rosenstein, another Republican, who was Trump’s own choice to be deputy attorney general.

That did not stop the president from suggesting that the investigation was politically driven and should end.

“Republicans and real Americans should start getting tough on this Scam,” he tweeted Sunday.