WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's legal team wants a briefing on the classified information passed on to lawmakers about the origins of the FBI's Russia investigation and may take it to the Justice Department as part of an effort to scuttle the probe, an attorney for the president said Friday.
Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's attorneys, said in an interview that the White House hopes to get a readout of the information next week, particularly about the use of a longtime government informant who approached members of Trump's campaign in a possible bid to glean intelligence on Russian efforts to sway the election. Trump has made unproven claims of FBI misconduct and political bias and has denounced the asset as "a spy."
"If the spying was inappropriate, that means we may have an entirely illegitimate investigation," Giuliani said of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe. He then invoked the material compiled by former FBI Director James Comey before he was fired by the president.
"Coupled with Comey's illegally leaked memos, this means the whole thing was a mistake and should never have happened," Giuliani said. "We'd urge the Justice Department to re-evaluate, to acknowledge they made a mistake. It's a waste of $20 million of the taxpayers' money."
Trump on Friday issued a string of accusatory Twitter messages asserting that the use of the informant was part of a political plot against him.
"Can anyone even imagine having Spies placed in a competing campaign, by the people and party in absolute power, for the sole purpose of political advantage and gain?" he wrote. "And to think that the party in question, even with the expenditure of far more money, LOST!"
The two meetings held Thursday were sought by Trump's GOP allies in Congress and arranged by the White House, as the president has tried to sow suspicions about the legitimacy of the FBI investigation. Trump and his allies have focused on the use of the informant.
So far, 19 people, including Trump's former campaign chairman and former national security adviser, have been charged in Mueller's probe. Three former Trump aides have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the probe.
Democrats emerged from the meetings saying they saw no evidence to support Republican allegations that the FBI acted inappropriately. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was not in the meetings but, in a radio interview Friday, broke with the president to say a "confidential informant is not a spy," though he cautioned about investigations into campaigns.
Later Friday, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, met at Trump Tower in New York days before the 2017 inauguration with a Russian billionaire who was sanctioned this year by the U.S. government.
The meeting between Cohen and Viktor Vekselberg, who made his fortune in the energy industry, was an impromptu session arranged by Vekselberg's cousin, Andrew Intrater, a New York investment manager who was also in attendance, according to video footage and at least one person with knowledge of the encounter.
Among the topics the three men discussed was Vekselberg's desire for better relations between the United States and Russia, the person said, who added that Vekselberg did not encounter Trump or any of his other advisers.
Information for this article was contributed by Jonathan Lemire, Eric Tucker and Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press and by Rosalind S. Helderman of The Washington Post.
A Section on 05/26/2018