Hours after news broke Tuesday that Robert Mueller’s team had interviewed its first Cabinet member, Donald Trump moved to undermine the investigation with some late-night Twitter paranoia directed at the FBI.
Parroting TV host and Trump flatterer Sean Hannity, who minutes earlier had used his show to attack the probe over anti-Trump text messages sent by FBI agents in 2016, the president posted: “Where are the 50,000 important text messages between FBI lovers Lisa Page and Peter Strzok? Blaming Samsung!”
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He earlier posted: “In one of the biggest stories in a long time, the FBI now says it is missing five months worth of lovers Strzok-Page texts, perhaps 50,000, and all in prime time. Wow!”
The texts sent by FBI employees Strzok and Page are among a trove of messages that were lost by the FBI because of a software glitch on Samsung smartphones, according to the Bureau.
Strzok and Page reportedly exchanged messages during the presidential election campaign while both were involved in the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. They also briefly worked on Mueller’s investigation.
Strzok was removed from the team last summer after the messages came to light. Republicans have used the missives in recent months to cast doubt on the credibility of special counsel as it nears a likely interview with Trump himself.
Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin Tuesday compared Trump’s impending testimony to Bill Clinton’s testimony to Ken Starr during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, calling it “a defining moment of the Trump presidency.”
Earlier it was reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has already been quizzed by Mueller over the firing of former FBI Director James Comey and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Cover image: President Donald Trump listens during a town hall meeting with executives on the America business climate in the South Court Auditorium of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, April 4, 2017. (Olivier Douliery/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
