Trump tweet critical of Robert’s Mueller’s appointment

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, who has long criticized the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election, took to Twitter on Wednesday to share statements made by Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz opposing the Department of Justice-led probe.

Dershowitz, a one-time Hillary Clinton supporter, told Fox Business anchor Lou Dobbs in a Tuesday night interview that special counsel Robert Mueller never should have been appointed to lead the investigation. Dershowitz said “a special investigative commission, nonpartisan, appointed by Congress” should have been tasked with investigating purported ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

In a pair of morning tweets that misspelled special counsel, Trump quoted Dershowitz’s interview.

“ ‘Special Council is told to find crimes, whether a crime exists or not. I was opposed to the selection of Mueller to be Special Council, I still am opposed to it. I think President Trump was right when he said there never should have been a Special Council appointed because there was no probable cause for believing that there was any crime, collusion or otherwise, or obstruction of justice!’ So stated by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz,” Trump tweeted.

Trump in the past few weeks has ramped up his criticism of Mueller and his team. Last weekend, Trump took aim at Mueller by name for the first time on Twitter since the former FBI director was tapped by the Department of Justice to lead the Russia probe last year. The president cast Mueller’s team as partisan and unfair.

“Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added . . . does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!” Trump tweeted Sunday morning, omitting that Mueller is a Republican.

The president has also added a fierce critic of the investigation to his personal legal team recently, in a move seen as Trump’s attempt to push back more aggressively against Mueller.

Trump has hired Washington attorney Joseph diGenova, who previously appeared on Fox News, stating without evidence that “there was a brazen plot” by a secret group of FBI agents looking to “exonerate Hillary Clinton, and if she didn’t win the election, to then frame Donald Trump with a falsely created crime.”

Asked about diGenova’s statements on Tuesday, and whether the White House believed diGenova’s remarks, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she “couldn’t speak to those” comments.