The two posts struck a more combative tone for President Donald Trump, who was decidedly more conciliatory in a statement released by the White House Wednesday night. | AP Photo Trump calls appointment of special prosecutor 'the single greatest witch hunt' The president's tweets are a stark contrast from his more restrained tone on Wednesday night.

President Donald Trump on Thursday blasted the appointment of Robert Mueller to be the special prosecutor overseeing the investigation into Russia’s meddling into the 2016 election, calling the probe “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.”

He also accused former President Barack Obama’s administration and the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton of committing “illegal acts,” complaining that his campaign will now face the scrutiny of a special prosecutor while neither his predecessor nor 2016 opponent ever have.


“With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special councel [sic] appointed!” the president wrote on Twitter on Thursday morning, without elaborating further on the illegal acts he accused the Clinton campaign and Obama administration of committing. (He later fixed the spelling error.)



The flurry of posts comes as Trump's White House is mired in controversy, most of it self-created, stemming from the president's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey last week, a decision he said he made based in part on the bureau's Russia investigation, whichwill now be taken over by Mueller.

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The Trump administration was also left reeling earlier this week in the wake of a Washington Post report alleging that the president divulged highly sensitive intelligence in a meeting with top Russian diplomats last week, a story that the White House has disputed without outright denying that classified information was shared.

The whiff of scandal intensified when allegations surfaced that Trump had pressured Comey to drop a probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn — a charge the White House denies.

All of it has taken the focus away from what was to have been the week's focus , Trump's first international trip as president, an eight-day, five-nation journey that will include stops in Saudi Arabia, at Israel's Western Wall and at the Vatican.

The two Thursday morning posts struck a combative tone for Trump, who was more conciliatory in a statement released by the White House on Wednesday night.

“As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know — there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity,” said the Wednesday-night statement, credited to Trump. “I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, I will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of our country.”

The Department of Justice announced Wednesday night that former FBI Director Mueller will lead an independent investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in last year’s presidential campaign as well as into the possibility of collusion between the Kremlin and Trump associates. The White House had regularly objected to the idea of a special prosecutor, characterizing such an appointment as unnecessary.

With the White House battling multiple scandals, Trump and his allies have adopted a posture of being unfairly under siege.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, appearing Thursday morning on CNBC, said “we have to just get on with it, get this over. It's a sideshow. But what the media forgets in the midst of this sideshow of media frenzy, the president is running the country.”

Trump’s aides, both current and former, have come to the president’s defense, as have family members working outside the White House.

Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s combative first campaign manager, who maintains close ties to the White House and recently left the lobbying firm he helped found shortly after last year’s election, said Wednesday on Fox News that “I can tell you firsthand because I was on the campaign for a long time: Never, ever, ever did I ever see anybody have contact with any agent of any foreign government, Russia or anybody else.”

White House social media director Dan Scavino chimed in, citing Lewandowski’s remarks in a post to Twitter, adding that he, too, “was there from the very beginning, and never, ever, ever....did I see either!” Eric Trump, the president’s son who, along with his brother, took over leadership of the family business when their father took office, tacked on his own tweet, linking back to Scavino’s and writing that “I was too! This entire thing is a witch hunt propagated by a failed political campaign.”

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who wrote Wednesday evening on Twitter that Mueller was a "great selection" with "impeccable credentials," said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America" that despite his approval of the former FBI director as a special prosecutor, he remained unconvinced that one was necessary in the first place.

Chaffetz also said that congressional inquiries into Russian meddling should continue, even though the possibility exists that the separate probes might interfere with one another. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) took a similar tack, telling MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Comey should still testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Even before Mueller’s appointment, Trump was griping about his perceived unfair treatment, telling graduates of the Coast Guard Academy at their commencement ceremony on Wednesday that “no politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly.”

He implored the new graduates to take a lesson from his fledgling presidency.

“Over the course of your life, you will find that things are not always fair. You will find that things happen to you that you do not deserve and that are not always warranted,” Trump said. “You have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight. Never ever, ever give up.”

