President Trump pressured special counsel Robert Mueller to release information regarding alleged conflicts of interest.

"Is Robert Mueller ever going to release his conflicts of interest with respect to President Trump, including the fact that we had a very nasty & contentious business relationship, I turned him down to head the FBI (one day before appointment as S.C.) & Comey is his close friend," Trump wrote in a series of tweets Sunday, referring to himself in the third person.



Is Robert Mueller ever going to release his conflicts of interest with respect to President Trump, including the fact that we had a very nasty & contentious business relationship, I turned him down to head the FBI (one day before appointment as S.C.) & Comey is his close friend.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2018



In May 2017, Mueller was named special counsel, charged with spearheading the federal Russia investigation, by Trump-appointed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the probe. In the wake of Trump's dramatic firing of former FBI Director James Comey, Mueller did interview to return as FBI director, having previously served in that position from 2001 to 2013, but was overlooked in favor of Christopher Wray.

The tweet appeared to confirm two of the three conflicts of interest mentioned in a New York Times report from January, which focused on how Trump has ordered the firing of Mueller, but ultimately backed off. That report said Trump was concerned about a controversy concerning fees at Trump’s National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., that led to Mueller ending his membership there and Mueller's interview to be FBI director the day before he was appointed special counsel.

Trump on Sunday also continued to slam Mueller for hiring "Angry Dems" to join his "Rigged Witch Hunt," based on reports using publicly available voter registration data to identify the past political leanings of prosecutors with the special counsel's team. Mueller himself, however, is a longtime Republican.

....Also, why is Mueller only appointing Angry Dems, some of whom have worked for Crooked Hillary, others, including himself, have worked for Obama....And why isn’t Mueller looking at all of the criminal activity & real Russian Collusion on the Democrats side-Podesta, Dossier? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2018





There is No Collusion! The Robert Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt, headed now by 17 (increased from 13, including an Obama White House lawyer) Angry Democrats, was started by a fraudulent Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC. Therefore, the Witch Hunt is an illegal Scam! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2018



Trump's comments follow escalating tensions between the president and his former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen in the face of mounting legal pressure placed on the pair.

Lanny Davis, the attorney defending Cohen amid a federal investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York, releasing one of several audio tapes to CNN last week in which Trump and Cohen can allegedly be heard discussing how to buy the rights to Playboy model Karen McDougal's story. McDougal claims to have had an extramarital affair with Trump more than a decade ago.

CNN also reported that Cohen was preparing to make statements to Mueller that Trump knew in advance that his son Donald Trump Jr. and officials from his 2016 campaign were planning to meet with Russians in the hope of obtaining political dirt about Hillary Clinton. Trump has denied having any knowledge of the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.