White House legislative director Marc Short said President Trump is warranted in his criticism of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe because the former FBI director’s investigation is straying too far from its original purpose.
Short said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Mueller’s investigation is no longer about Russian interference in the 2016 election and instead is about finding some dirt on Trump. It’s not unheard of for a special counsel to stray outside his initial purpose and Short pointed to Ken Starr’s investigation of the Whitewater scandal during the Clinton administration as proof.
“We have seen special counsels that have abused their roles, both Democrats and Republicans. Republicans fell in love with the special counsel when a Whitewater investigation turned into the investigation about a 21-year-old intern having sexual relations with the president in the Oval Office,” Short said.
“The special counsel has challenges that continue to go wide-ranging, and this presidency, this administration has cooperated, provided thousands of documents. Taxpayers spent millions on this investigation. And to date, we continue to cooperate without evidence of collusion. So yes, I think the president expresses a lot of frustration with where this investigation is.”
Short denied the president’s focus on the Russia investigation and Mueller’s work is hurting the administration.
“I just did,” Short said when asked if Trump is hurting the administration’s ability to tell positive news. “I mean, no, I don’t think it hurt our ability. We are making the case as thousand the tax plan is helping Americans and how deregulation is helping the economy and how we have a booming economy with 3 percent GDP (growth).”
