WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump’s frustration at the investigations into his campaign’s ties with Russia boiled over Sunday, as he sought to shift the focus to a litany of accusations against his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, as the special counsel inquiry was reportedly poised to produce its first indictment in the case.

In a series of midmorning Twitter posts, Trump said Republicans were now pushing back against the Russia allegations by looking into Clinton. But the president, who has often expressed anger that his allies were not doing more to protect him from the Russia inquiries, made it clear he believed that Clinton should be pursued more forcefully, writing, “DO SOMETHING!”

@realDonaldTrump Twitter Response

He did not specify who should take such action, though critics have accused him of trying to improperly sway the inquiries.

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“Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?), the Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more,” Trump wrote. “Instead they look at phoney Trump/Russia ‘collusion,’ which doesn’t exist.”

Trump was apparently referring in his tweets to revelations last week that Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee had paid for research that was included in a salacious dossier made public in January by BuzzFeed. The dossier contained claims about connections between Trump, his associates and Russia.

The president was also reviving unproved allegations that Clinton was part of a quid pro quo in which the Clinton Foundation received donations in exchange for her support as secretary of state for a business deal that gave Russia control over a large share of uranium production in the United States.

And he was returning to questions about Clinton’s use of a private email server and how former FBI director James Comey handled an investigation into the matter, which was closed with no charges being filed. Trump initially cited the email case as a reason for firing Comey before conceding that it was because of the Russia inquiry.

The president’s Twitter fusillade came as he and his advisers braced for the first public action by Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor named after Comey’s ouster to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election. As part of his inquiry, Mueller is believed to be examining whether there was collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow, and whether the president obstructed justice when he fired Comey.

CNN reported Friday that a federal grand jury in Washington had approved the first charges in Mueller’s investigation and that plans had been made for anyone charged to be arrested as early as Monday. CNN said the target of the charges was unclear. The New York Times has not confirmed that charges have been approved.

Multiple congressional committees have undertaken their own investigations into Russian meddling in the elections, following up on the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Moscow sought to sway the contest in favour of Trump — an idea that he has frequently dismissed as a hoax.

“The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics, but the R’s are now fighting back like never before,” Trump wrote Sunday on Twitter. “There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!”

Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said the president had been “too defensive” about Mueller’s inquiry. “We ought to instead focus on the outrage that the Russians meddled in our elections,” said Portman, who serves on the Senate foreign relations committee.

Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer handling the response to the Russia investigation, said the president’s tweets were “unrelated to the activities of the special counsel, with whom he continues to co-operate.”

The tweets came days after House Republicans announced that they were opening new investigations into two of Trump’s most frequently cited grievances: the Obama Justice Department’s investigation of Clinton’s emails and the uranium deal.

Trump is working to fuel those inquiries. The White House acknowledged Friday that the president had urged the Justice Department to lift a gag order on an informant in a federal investigation into Russia’s attempts to gain a foothold in the U.S. uranium industry during the Obama administration.

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Critics called the move improper presidential interference in a federal criminal inquiry, but Trump’s advisers said he was merely encouraging transparency.

In recent days, Trump has suggested that he believes that the questions he has been raising about Clinton’s conduct should put to rest any allegations about his own actions and end the scrutiny of Russia’s meddling in the election.

“This was the Democrats coming up with an excuse for losing an election,” Trump told reporters last week. “They lost it by a lot. They didn’t know what to say, so they made up the whole Russia hoax. Now it’s turning out that the hoax has turned around, and you look at what’s happened with Russia, and you look at the uranium deal, and you look at the fake dossier. So, that’s all turned around.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who serves on the intelligence committee, said on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday that while she had seen “lots of evidence that the Russians were very active in trying to influence the elections,” she had yet to encounter “any definitive evidence of collusion.”

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