The personal lawyer for President Donald Trump has called for the FBI probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election to end, one day after Trump fired the deputy director of the FBI.
Lawyer John Dowd said Saturday morning that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should shut down special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, The Daily Beast reports.
The lawyer also cited a Saturday morning tweet by Trump that applauded his Friday decision to fire Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI. McCabe, a lifelong Republican, served with the FBI for 21 years. He was less than two days from his retirement, which would have guaranteed him a government pension.
“I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia Collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt Dossier,” Dowd told the The Daily Beast in an email.
Dowd’s new statement “basically confirms McCabe’s statement from last night: that McCabe’s 11th hour termination from the FBI was directly tied to the Russia investigation, for which McCabe is a crucial witness,” Jens Ohlin, a vice dean at Cornell Law School and an expert on criminal law, told Business Insider.
The email Dowd sent to The Daily Beast also included a line from the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
“What’s that smell in this room[Bureau}?” Dowd wrote. “Didn’t you notice it, Brick [Jim]? Didn’t you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room[Bureau}?... There ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the odor of mendacity[corruption]... You can smell it. It smells like death.”
Dowd first told The Daily Beast he was speaking on behalf of Trump’s counsel, but later walked it back, saying in an email that he was only speaking for himself.
The New York Times also reported Saturday that Dowd made his remarks around the same time Mueller sent Trump’s legal team a list of questions as part of negotiations for an interview with the president.
Mueller intends to ask follow-up questions during an interview, but offered the initial questions as a step towards talks with Trump, sources told the Times.
Should Mueller be fired, activist groups have planned large-scale protests that would take place across the country.
Later Saturday, Trump lashed out on Twitter about the probe, saying “there was no collusion and there was no crime.”
In a statement after his firing, McCabe didn’t hold back:
“Here is the reality: I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey,” McCabe said.
Following the firing of McCabe, former CIA chief John Brennan said Trump would be remembered in history as a “disgraced demagogue.”
“You may scapegoat Andy McCabe,” Brennan added. “But you will not destroy America… America will triumph over you.”