President Donald Trump's tweet comes on the heels of the FBI’s release of documents related to the wiretapping of Carter Page. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Trump makes new call to end the Mueller probe

President Donald Trump renewed his complaints Monday about the Russia investigation overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller, and came even closer to instructing law enforcement officials to shut it down.

Trump began his venting by writing online that the probe was triggered by a now-infamous dossier of salacious but unverified information detailing ties between Russia and the president’s campaign.


“So we now find out that it was indeed the unverified and Fake Dirty Dossier, that was paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC, that was knowingly & falsely submitted to FISA and which was responsible for starting the totally conflicted and discredited Mueller Witch Hunt!” Trump tweeted on Monday morning.

The president’s tweet comes on the heels of the FBI’s release of documents related to the wiretapping of Carter Page, a former aide to the Trump campaign who plays a central role in the allegations of collusion between the Russian government and the president’s 2016 election team.

Contrary to Trump’s Monday morning tweet, the newly declassified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court wiretap application shows that investigators did not base their request solely on the infamous dossier, compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and funded in part by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee, but also on other sources of information.

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The documents also show that investigators did inform FISA court judges of the sources of their information, countering a claim made by many supporters of the president.

Asked during Monday's White House press briefing if the president would meet the requests of House Republicans, who have urged him to declassify portions of the FISA court documents related to Page's surveillance, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that Trump "has purposefully remained uninvolved in this process."

"He’s said repeatedly that he wants the Department of Justice to be fully transparent with these requests from Congress. And he's going to continue at this point to remain uninvolved," she said. "However, he sees more and more every single day that this is proving further and further to be a total witch hunt. Particularly because it was based on a false and unverified and discredited dossier."

The president has long complained about Mueller’s probe, repeatedly referring to it as a “witch hunt” and insisting that it amounts to little more than an excuse for Democrats embarrassed by Clinton’s 2016 presidential election loss.

He has threatened to potentially intervene with the Justice Department, and on Monday, Trump came closer to making good on that threat by writing in a later tweet that law enforcement officials "should drop the discredited Mueller Witch Hunt now!"

The statement came as part of a series of tweets in which Trump quoted comments by Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, on "Fox & Friends."

Trump wrote: “'It was classified to cover up misconduct by the FBI and the Justice Department in misleading the Court by using this Dossier in a dishonest way to gain a warrant to target the Trump Team. This is a Clinton Campaign document. It was a fraud and a hoax designed to target Trump and the DOJ, FBI and Obama Gang need to be held to account. Source #1 was the major source. Avoided talking about it being the Clinton campaign behind it. Misled the Court to provide a pretext to SPY on the Trump Team. Not about Carter Page was all about getting Trump. Carter Page wasn’t a spy, wasn’t an agent of the Russians - he would have cooperated with the FBI. It was a fraud and a hoax designed to target Trump.' Tom Fitton @JudicialWatch A disgrace to America. They should drop the discredited Mueller Witch Hunt now!"