Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says President Trump is lashing out against special counsel Robert Mueller because of his rapidly rising legal pressure.
“The volume and the — to me — irrationality of some of the things he’s saying and his tweets at least tell me that the walls are kind of crashing in on him,” Clapper told CNN host Matt Berman on Friday.
{mosads}Trump suffered major legal setbacks last week when two of his former confidants were found guilty or pleaded guilty to federal charges.
Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in New York to bank and tax fraud and violating campaign finance law by arranging hush-money payments for two women, saying he did so in coordination with Trump and his presidential campaign.
And Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was convicted by a federal jury in Virginia on eight counts of bank and tax fraud charges brought by Mueller’s team.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the special counsel probe as a “witch hunt,” calling for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has recused himself from the Russia investigation, to end the investigation “right now.”
Clapper said it’s not just a coincidence that Trump has ratcheted up his attacks on Mueller in recent days.
“I just think that more and more he legally feels like he’s in jeopardy,” Clapper said. “I think what he’s trying to do — to use a military expression — is prep the battlefield for taking some action later and in the meantime, maximum extent that he can, undermining credibility of the investigation.”
Clapper said in June that he hopes Mueller wraps up the Russia investigation soon so that the country knows definitively whether there was any collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
“I think the overarching point here is that this whole issue has to come to a resolution,” Clapper told Hill.TV.