President Trump’s personal lawyer John Dowd has expressed hopes that Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will stop the investigation into alleged collusion with Russia.
“I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the F.B.I. 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,” he told The Daily Beast.
READ MORE: Trump: Mueller's Probe of 'Russia Collusion' Based on Fraud
Dowd’s comments came shortly after Sessions fired former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who was actively involved in the so-called Russiagate affair, and had reportedly been caught lying about the bureau’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation. McCabe, for his part, has accused the White House of attempting to ruin his reputation and seeking to deter Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into the alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 US election.
Meanwhile, Dowd’s remarks have reflected Trump’s stance on the investigation; earlier in the day the president himself called the Mueller probe a “witch hunt” on his Twitter feed, having also emphasized the fact that former FBI Director James Comey was aware of the “lying and corruption at the highest levels of the FBI”:
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election in the United States, as well as purported collusion with the Trump campaign.
Last month, Republican in the US House of Representatives released a much-anticipated memo regarding alleged abuses committed by the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) within the Mueller probe. The memo accused FBI and DOJ officials of being politically biased towards Trump in their investigation, and alleged that the two agencies had misused the so-called FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allowing warrantless spying, in the Trump campaign probe.
Both Trump and the Kremlin officials have repeatedly denied any collusion, with Moscow dismissing the allegations of election meddling as “absurd.”