Trump marks 9/11 terror attacks

President also lashes out at FBI, Justice Department

Chrissy Bortz of Latrobe, Pa., stands at the Wall of Names at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pa., after a service marking the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Similar services were held at ground zero in New York and at the Pentagon. In a string of morning tweets, President Donald Trump, who took part in the Pennsylvania service, interspersed messages about Sept. 11 with criticism of the FBI and the Justice Department.
Chrissy Bortz of Latrobe, Pa., stands at the Wall of Names at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pa., after a service marking the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Similar services were held at ground zero in New York and at the Pentagon. In a string of morning tweets, President Donald Trump, who took part in the Pennsylvania service, interspersed messages about Sept. 11 with criticism of the FBI and the Justice Department.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday used Twitter to mark the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and to launch a fresh round of attacks on the FBI and the Justice Department.

In a string of tweets Tuesday morning, Trump interspersed messages about Sept. 11 with his thoughts on the Justice Department, referring in particular to two former FBI officials who traded anti-Trump texts: Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

The president repeated a claim from Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., that the pair had employed a "media leak strategy" to undermine his administration. He then blamed the bureau and Justice Department for inaction on the matter.

Strzok's attorney said his client's reference to a "media leak strategy" was an effort to stem unauthorized disclosures of information. Both Strzok and Page have since left the FBI -- Strzok was fired for his anti-Trump texts.

"New Strzok-Page texts reveal 'Media Leak Strategy.' FoxNews So terrible, and NOTHING is being done at DOJ or FBI - but the world is watching, and they get it completely," Trump wrote.

Apparently quoting from a segment on Fox News, he tweeted, "We have found nothing to show collusion between President Trump & Russia, absolutely zero, but every day we get more documentation showing collusion between the FBI & DOJ, the Hillary campaign, foreign spies & Russians, incredible."

Trump's tweet about the "Media Leak Strategy" refers to a letter Meadows sent to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Monday alleging a "systemic culture of media leaking" among high-ranking Justice Department and FBI officials. The letter reveals previously undisclosed messages between Strzok and Page, who were involved in both the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and the probe of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.

Meadows alleged in the letter, first reported by journalist and Fox News contributor Sara Carter, that Strzok texted Page in April 2017: "I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go." Meadows' staff has sparred with the Justice Department for access to materials on Strzok and the Russia investigation; in recent weeks it has been reviewing messages that were not among the thousands already made public.

"The term 'media leak strategy' in Mr. Strzok's text refers to a Department-wide initiative to detect and stop leaks to the media," Aitan Goelman, Strzok's attorney, said. "The President and his enablers are once again peddling unfounded conspiracy theories to mislead the American People."

Meadows, though, seemed to interpret the text, combined with other disparate data points, as Strzok suggesting a strategy to release information "potentially harmful to Donald Trump's administration."

Separately, Former White House staff secretary Rob Porter and former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn issued statements Tuesday criticizing Bob Woodward's new book Fear. Both were first reported by the news site Axios.

"Having now read Bob Woodward's Fear, I am struck by the selective and often misleading portrait it paints of the President and his administration," Porter said.

In one anecdote reported by Woodward, Trump ordered Porter to draft a letter on withdrawing the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement in the spring of 2017. Fearing that such a move would lead to economic and diplomatic calamity, Porter reportedly spoke with Cohn, who told him he would "just take the paper off his desk," referring to Trump.

In his statement, Porter did not address any specific episodes reported in the book but said the suggestion that materials were "stolen" from Trump's desk "misunderstands how the White House document review process works."

Cohn similarly did not dispute any specific details reported by Woodward, issuing a statement that took aim at the book as a whole.

"This book does not accurately portray my experience at the White House. I am proud of my service in the Trump Administration, and I continue to support the President and his economic agenda," Cohn said.

Also Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged in an interview that his father can trust fewer people around him than he would like in the wake of an anonymous commentary published last week in The New York Times claiming there is a "resistance" within the Trump administration.

"I think there are people in there that he can trust, it's just -- it's a much smaller group than I would like it to be," the president's eldest son said in an interview on ABC's Good Morning America.

Asked who he trusts, Trump Jr. declined to answer but suggested family members working in the White House remain in the fold. President Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are both White House advisers.

The commentary was written by a senior official in the Trump administration, according to the Times. It depicts a "two-track presidency" in which Trump acts according to his own whims while many of his top aides, in the author's words, work to thwart his "more misguided impulses until he is out of office."

Information for this article was contributed by Matt Zapotosky, Felicia Sonmez and John Wagner of The Washington Post; and by Paul J. Weber of The Associated Press.

A Section on 09/12/2018

Upcoming Events