While the White House has long insisted that firing Robert Mueller is not under consideration, President Donald Trump left open the door in an exchange with reporters earlier this week. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Trump says he has 'full confidence' in White House lawyer Ty Cobb

President Donald Trump issued a vote of confidence for his legal team Thursday, writing on Twitter that he agrees with the approach to the ongoing Russia investigation advocated by White House lawyer Ty Cobb.

Trump's public support for Cobb — which included a parenthetical shot at former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — comes days after the president suggested he could be open to firing Robert Mueller, the special counsel overseeing the Justice Department's Russia investigation, and publicly seethed with anger over an FBI raid of his longtime personal attorney.


"I have agreed with the historically cooperative, disciplined approach that we have engaged in with Robert Mueller (Unlike the Clintons!)," Trump wrote online. "I have full confidence in Ty Cobb, my Special Counsel, and have been fully advised throughout each phase of this process."

The president’s tweet posted moments before Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was spotted by a reporter leaving the White House. The No. 2 Justice Department official with primary oversight of Mueller’s probe because Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal has recently been on the public receiving end of Trump’s wrath, leaving his own job status in question.

White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters confirmed Rosenstein was at the White House for a planned meeting with the president “regarding routine Department business.” A DOJ official said the FBI also participated in the meeting.

Earlier Thursday, Trump dismissed a report that he considered firing Mueller late last year, writing online that he would have fired Mueller had he wanted him gone.

“If I wanted to fire Robert Mueller in December, as reported by the Failing New York Times, I would have fired him. Just more Fake News from a biased newspaper!” Trump wrote on Twitter just after 6 a.m. Thursday.

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The Times reported Tuesday that Trump, incensed by a wave of subpoenas, told advisers in early December that he wanted to shut down Mueller’s probe into allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. Trump backed down, according to the Times, after his aides learned from Mueller’s team that reporting about the subpoenas had not been accurate.

While the White House has long insisted that firing Mueller is not under consideration, Trump left open the door to such a possibility in an exchange with reporters earlier this week, saying “we’ll see what happens” and “many people have said you should fire him” when asked about the prospect of dismissing the special counsel.

Trump’s more aggressive stance surrounding the Russia investigation has recently put him in conflict with Cobb, who joined the White House last summer and has been an outspoken public advocate for the president’s cooperation with the Mueller probe. Cobb has repeatedly been quoted saying Trump has no plans to fire the special counsel. He’s also been the White House point man both for the production of internal documents for Mueller’s investigators and in lining up interviews with more than two dozen current and former White House witnesses.

But the president’s recent Mueller criticism has raised questions about whether Cobb would remain on the job. His former law partner, Robert Bennett, told POLITICO last month that he thought Cobb should resign. “He’s not helping himself or his reputation,” said Bennett, who previously represented President Clinton in a personal capacity during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Cobb has also faced criticism from the right over his insistence that working with Mueller would lead to the swift end of the Russia investigation. Trump allies and many conservatives argue the case has bogged down the Republican’s presidency. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon, for one, has been calling privately for months for Cobb’s ouster. On Wednesday, Bannon doubled down in a Washington Post interview where he said Cobb “should be fired immediately.”

Trump’s support for Cobb comes as the rest of his legal team remains in flux. The president has yet to hire a replacement for John Dowd, who served as his lead personal attorney before resigning last month. For now, the bulk of the work has been handled by Jay Sekulow, a conservative lawyer known more for his appearances on Fox News and hosting a daily talk radio show than for his experience on criminal matters.

For his part, Trump hasn’t shied from sharing his opinion of the ongoing investigation into his 2016 campaign, regularly labeling it a “witch hunt” invented by embarrassed Democrats as an excuse for Hillary Clinton’s election loss. The president seemed especially incensed this week in the wake of FBI raids on the home and office of his longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, that was overseen by the U.S. attorney’s office in New York based on information referred to it from Mueller’s team.

“It's an attack on our country, in a true sense,” Trump said of the raids. “It's an attack on what we all stand for.”

Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.

