Trump intensifies attacks on head of Russia probe

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump intensified his attacks Tuesday on the special counsel probing possible collusion between Russia and his 2016 electoral campaign, after prosecutors said his former campaign chairman lied to investigators.

Trump’s ongoing attacks against the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller have become more virulent this month, after the president installed a new acting attorney general who has strongly criticized Mueller’s probe and suggested cutting its purse-strings. “The Fake News Media builds Bob Mueller up as a Saint, when in actuality he is the exact opposite,” Trump said in a series of tweets. “He is doing TREMENDOUS damage to our Criminal Justice System, where he is only looking at one side and not the other. Heroes will come of this, and it won’t be Mueller and his terrible Gang of Angry Democrats.” “Wait until it comes out how horribly & viciously they are treating people, ruining lives for them refusing to lie. Mueller is a conflicted prosecutor gone rogue,” he continued. Trump has repeatedly denied he is maneuvering to shut down the Mueller probe, which has so far indicted more than 30 people, most of them Russians. But the president’s attacks on Mueller have sharply escalated since his Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives in this month’s midterm elections. Starting in January, opposition Democrats say they will use House investigative committees to open further probes of Trump’s businesses and his alleged connections to Russia. Trump’s latest outburst comes a day after prosecutors said in a court filing that Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort had lied to investigators, in violation of a plea agreement he made in September. Manafort had agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s probe after pleading guilty to financial fraud charges related to his work as an unregistered lobbyist for Ukraine — prior to his time with the Trump campaign.