The White House has ruled out the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the allegations of Russian interference in last year’s general elections.
“We don’t think it’s necessary. You’ve got a House committee, a Senate committee and Department of Justice all working on this,” White House Principal Deputy Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.
Ms. Sanders has said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has strong bipartisan support and is “independent enough” to carry out the investigation.
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Meanwhile, President Donald Trump on Wednesday met Acting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Andrew McCabe to discuss the situation and morale at the agency after the firing of the James Comey a day earlier.
Comey’s removal
The White House also issued a timeline claiming how Mr. Trump lost confidence in Mr. Comey over the course of the last several months. “After watching Director Comey’s testimony last Wednesday [at Capitol Hill], the President was strongly inclined to remove him.”
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“On Monday, the President met with the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General and they discussed reasons for removing the Director,” the White House said. “The next day, the Deputy Attorney General sent his written recommendation to the Attorney General and the Attorney General sent his written recommendation to the President.”
Hillary too would have done that
Dismissing criticism of Mr. Trump firing Mr. Comey, Ms. Sanders said the FBI director would have been fired on the first day if Hillary Clinton was elected as the President.
“If Hillary Clinton had won the election — which, thank God, she didn’t — but if she had, and she had been in the same position, she would have fired Comey immediately, and the very Democrats that are criticising the President today would be dancing in the streets celebrating. So it’s just the purest form of hypocrisy,” she said.