After raid on office of Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, White House says president ‘believes he has the power’ to fire special counsel

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

With fellow Republicans urging restraint, Donald Trump remained on a collision course with his own justice department on Tuesday, a day after federal agents raided the office of his personal lawyer and longtime lieutenant, Michael Cohen.

Trump decries 'attack on our country' after FBI raids his lawyer's office Read more

The raid, which Trump appeared to take as an unprecedented threat against his inner circle, stoked concerns anew that the president would move to dismiss Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian election interference and alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

“He certainly believes he has the power to do so,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, told reporters at the White House on Tuesday, adding: “The president has been clear that it’s gone too far.”

Mueller’s team provided information to prosecutors in New York that in part prompted them to move against Cohen, a lawyer for Cohen said.

Trump woke up on Tuesday with a full-throated condemnation of the Cohen raid, tweeting: “Attorney–client privilege is dead!” and complaining of “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!”

But a growing chorus of concern that Trump would dismiss Mueller, which would probably require the dismantling of an entire tier of justice department leadership and thereby unleash a crisis of unknown proportions, was noticeably joined on Tuesday by top elected Republicans.

Quick guide What are the dangers for Trump from the Russia investigations? Show Hide The 2020 election The most likely price Trump would pay, if he were perceived guilty of wrongdoing, would be a 2020 re-election loss. He can't afford to lose many supporters and expect to remain in office. Any disillusionment stemming from the Russian affair could make the difference. His average approval rating has hung in the mid-to-upper 30s. Every president to win re-election since the second world war did so with an approval rating in the 49%-50% range or better. Congress As long as Republicans are in charge, Trump is not likely to face impeachment proceedings or to be removed from office. A two-thirds majority in the Senate is required to remove a president from office through impeachment. Public opinion If public opinion swings precipitously against the president, however, his grip on power could slip. At some point, Republicans in Congress may, if their constituents will it, turn on Trump. Criminal charges Apart from impeachment, Trump could, perhaps, face criminal charges, which would (theoretically) play out in the court system as opposed to Congress. But it’s a matter of debate among scholars and prosecutors whether Trump, as a sitting president, may be prosecuted in this way. Other Robert Mueller is believed to have Trump’s tax returns, and to be looking at the Trump Organization as well as Jared Kushner’s real estate company. It’s possible that wrongdoing unrelated to the election could be uncovered and make trouble for Trump. The president, and Kushner, deny wrongdoing.



“It’s still my view that Mueller should be allowed to finish his job,” Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told the Guardian, on Capitol Hill. “I think that’s the view of most people in Congress. And it remains my view that I don’t think he’s going to be removed from this office. He shouldn’t be removed from the office. He should be allowed to finish his job.”

The Iowa senator Charles Grassley told Fox Business Network: “It would be suicide for the president to want to talk about firing Mueller. The less the president said on this whole thing, the better off he would be.”

It would be suicide for the president to want to talk about firing Mueller Senator Charles Grassley

With fallout from the Cohen raid gaining pace, multiple crises blossomed. Trump canceled a trip to Peru and the Summit of the Americas, ostensibly in deference to escalating tensions over the Syria chemical weapons attack. Then his respected homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, followed the national security council spokesman Michael Anton in resigning, after a reported clash with the controversial new national security adviser, John Bolton.

The fired FBI director James Comey, meanwhile, is preparing to publish a book next week, potentially publicizing some of the most sensitive moments of the Trump-Russia investigation and eviscerating the president’s character.

In an Oval Office appearance with the emir of Qatar, Trump ignored shouted questions about Mueller and the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who reportedly approved the raid on Cohen’s office.

But the raid seemed to touch Trump more personally than any other pressure bearing down on the White House. His tweet about “attorney–client privilege” was in response to reports FBI agents seized documents including his correspondence with Cohen. Federal prosecutors overseeing the raid would have been careful to act in accordance with directions in the US attorneys’ manual for seizing documents from legal offices, former prosecutors said.

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For more than a decade, Cohen has worked as a fixer, dealmaker and lawyer for Trump, handling matters ranging from prospective real estate deals in Russia to a $130,000 payment shortly before the 2016 election to the pornographic film actor Stormy Daniels. Daniels was preparing at the time to go public with the story of a relationship with Trump, which the president and Cohen have sought to discredit.

Documents relating to the Daniels payment were among the materials seized from Cohen’s office, according to multiple reports. Investigators may be examining whether payments to Daniels and another woman who claims to have had a sexual relationship with Trump, the former Playboy model Karen McDougal, violated campaign finance laws.

Cohen has said he personally “facilitated” the payment to Daniels and denied the payment was related to the 2016 presidential campaign.

At the White House briefing, Sanders was asked if Cohen still worked for Trump. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I’d refer you to Michael Cohen on that.”

Play Video 1:41 Trump calls FBI raid on personal attorney's office a 'witch-hunt' – video

FBI agents in July 2017 raided the home of the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Investigators have also questioned Donald Trump Jr and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

In a conspiratorial diatribe delivered on Monday night at the White House, Trump declared the Cohen raid “an attack on our country in a true sense” and replied to a question about firing Mueller.

“Many people have said, ‘You should fire him’,” said the president, who has long entertained the idea and reportedly only backed down from carrying it out last summer when the White House counsel threatened to resign. “Again, they found nothing.

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“One of the things they said: ‘I fired Comey.’ Well, I turned out to do the right thing, because if you look at all of the things that he’s done and the lies, and you look at what’s gone on at the FBI with the insurance policy and all of the things that happened – turned out I did the right thing.”

Mueller’s investigation has produced indictments of or pleas from 19 individuals, as well as three companies based in Russia. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and Manafort deputy Rick Gates have entered guilty pleas. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to financial charges.

The Cohen raid would have required the assent of top officials in the southern district of New York, according to analysts, as well as the assessment of a federal judge that sufficient evidence had been collected to justify a home invasion.

The former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Sarah Sanders’ father, nevertheless branded the raid a “coup d’état”.

Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina who has co-authored legislation to protect Mueller, echoed Grassley’s warning against firing the special counsel. He suggested to CNN, however, that Trump’s outburst was business as usual.

“Thematically,” Tillis said, “he has said similar things before.”