Donald Trump’s allies pile pressure on Russia probe

Attempts to discredit the investigation into Donald Trump’s links with Russia intensified over the weekend as Republicans claimed special prosecutor Robert Mueller illegally gained access to emails sent as the US President prepared to take office.

The organisation Trump for America says thousands of emails sent and received by officials on Trump’s transition team, which operated between his election and swearing-in, were handed over unlawfully to Mueller by the General Services Administration (GSA), the government agency which oversaw the transition.

The Guardian says it is “unclear how revelatory the email accounts maintained by the GSA will be for Mueller” - but one of the officials who used transition email accounts was former national security adviser Michael Flynn. He pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI in January and is now cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.

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With the net tightening around the President’s inner circle, the accusation of wrongdoing “adds to the growing friction between his supporters and Mueller’s office as it investigates whether Russia interfered in the election and if Trump or anyone on his team colluded with Moscow”, reports Reuters.

Democrats claim there is a wide-ranging effort by the President’s allies on Capitol Hill and in some media outlets to discredit the investigation. On Friday, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, said he feared top Republicans were manoeuvring to shut down the committee’s investigations and weaken Mueller, a former FBI director who is well respected on both sides of the aisle.

Trump responded by protesting his innocence again, telling reporters: “There is absolutely no collusion. That has been proven.” However, he further added to perceptions he is trying to undermine the investigation by declining to rule out presidential pardons for anyone convicted of collusion.

His comments followed a week of attacks by the President and his supporters on Mueller and the FBI. They claim the law enforcement agency is biased against Trump and seeking to bring him down no matter what they find.

The anti-Mueller, anti-FBI fervour has been driven partly by “a campaign by Fox News and other conservative media sources”, says CNN.

The news network says the right-wing commentariat and Trump’s criticism of the FBI are part of a “vicious circle” in which TV hosts encourage Trump, then Trump supplies sound bites for their shows, which further emboldens the hosts.

For several months, conservative news sources have been heavily covering every perceived conflict of interest involving the special counsel and every alleged scandal involving the leadership of the FBI.

“The anti-Mueller rhetoric in conservative media right now is part of a feedback loop,” Nicole Hemmer told CNN Money.

“Conservative media personalities know Trump hates the investigation and wants it shut down,” she said. “They bash the investigation and Mueller, and when Trump sees that happening it reinforces his belief that the investigation is illegitimate and that he should do something to end it.”

This has led to reports that Trump is seriously considering taking the nuclear option of firing Mueller, something his critics say could lead to the sort of constitutional crisis not seen since the Watergate scandal, which led to the downfall of Richard Nixon.