Ignatius: Trump should ignore friends and leave Mueller in place

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As billowing rumors that Donald Trump was considering firing special counsel Robert Mueller engulfed Washington, temporarily overshadowing Tuesday's testimony at separate congressional hearings from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the president stood before a gaggle of reporters at the White House and refused to confirm his support for Mueller, fueling the spiraling speculation with a calculated goal.

Rosenstein told lawmakers that he had not seen good cause to fire the special counsel.

Schiff told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday that "I don't think the Congress would sit still and allow the president to pick his own investigator". Ruddy said Tuesday that he stands by his comments. Ruddy told PBS that he thinks it would be "a very significant mistake" for Trump to seek Mueller's termination. Congressman Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, said he has "confidence" in Mueller.

Trump allies in the conservative press have increasingly argued in recent days that the president should fire special counsel Robert Mueller - and on Monday night, a friend of Trump's said on television that he'd heard (through aides) that the president was considering doing just that.

The report stated that Trump was angered when he learned of the relationship and made plans to dump Mueller before being convinced it would be a disastrous move.

Mueller was appointed by the Justice Department to helm the investigation after Trump abruptly fired Comey - who was the one previously leading the Russian Federation probe - in early May. "And I'm not going to speculate on what he will or will not do", Sekulow said.

Several Trump associates and confidantes are supposedly pushing the president to remove Mueller because he has proven himself to be partisan and untrustworthy.

Korea denounces new United Nations sanctions imposed over missile launch
Calling North Korea's nuclear ambitions a "threat to us all", Mattis asked the global community to come together on the issue. The statement said the latest resolution was said to have been put together by the USA and China in the "back room".

As the Washington Post reported Wednesday, that special counsel investigation has since expanded to include whether Trump committed obstruction of justice by ousting the former FBI director.

He then suggested readers check out the Federal Election Committee records of some of Mr Mueller's staff, which reveals four of them - Dreeben, Rhee, Weissmann and Quarles - had given money to past Democratic presidential nominees. Mueller was appointed by US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US polls.

The reason he gave is that it could be "within the scope of Director Mueller's investigation" and that "we don't want people talking publicly about open investigations", he said.

"Mr. Ruddy never spoke to the president regarding this issue", Spicer said.

In 1973, amid the Watergate scandal, President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment on the issues Gingrich and others have raised.

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