Former Trump attorney John Dowd slammed special counsel Robert Mueller Thursday for waging a “partisan” investigation of President Trump that resulted in a “completely unnecessary” 400-page report clearing the president of collusion with Russia.
“You don’t write a 400-page report,” Mr. Dowd said in an interview. “What this report does [is] try to feed the negative narrative, which I think is wrong, I think it’s political, which a department of professionals should never do. I’m very, very disappointed with the special counsel and his people.”
Mr. Dowd, who represented the president for about a year during the probe, was reading the report with disgust Thursday. He said the exhaustive nature of the report, which didn’t recommend any charges, proves the special counsel’s probe was politically motivated.
“I now believe this was all partisan,” Mr. Dowd told The Washington Times. “They were out to get him [the president]. This document is Exhibit A, in any case, to find out whether they were political or not. This is a political document. This is not a fair document at all.”
He also said the report suggests to him that Mr. Mueller was influenced too much by former FBI Director James Comey and ex-deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
“It looks like Mueller bought Comey and McCabe hook, line and sinker,” Mr. Dowd said. “Huge mistake. Those boys are in trouble. They cooked this thing up. That’s the next round, will be finding out what happened there.”
The president and his advisers are calling for an investigation of the origins of the FBI’s counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign in 2016. Attorney General William P. Barr has said he is reviewing those actions, although there is no formal investigation yet.
Mr. Dowd said the president survived the investigation because there was no wrongdoing and he cooperated fully with the probe, turning over millions of documents to the Mueller team, and declining to assert executive privilege over any information.
“To me, all the credit goes to the president,” Mr. Dowd said. “Even not asserting executive privilege — that’s how we got the information to Mueller so quickly. We gave Bob everything.”
He said he’s also glad that the president gave written answers to the special counsel’s questions instead of giving testimony in person. Mr. Dowd said Mr. Mueller had no legal basis for questioning the president face to face.
“You can’t say the president deprived them of any information,” he said. “I’m just glad he took our advice eventually, because it was a trap. Seeking his testimony, given what the law is, was pure mischief by Bob and a way to slow-roll this for another year. It’s disgraceful.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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