President Donald Trump's attorney Jay Sekulow said he and the president's legal team are pleased with the progress that's been made during special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
However, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that other allies are becoming nervous as Mueller's probe is expanding, and are demanding that the legal team act more aggressively.
"We're pleased with the progress we've made," Sekulow told The Wall Street Journal. "We remain confident with the outcome."
Trump allies had predicted that the investigation would end by 2018, but that hasn't happened. Two of Trump's former aides, former National Security Agency Director Michael Flynn and lower-level campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopulos have pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI and have agreed to cooperate with the investigation.
Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, are under indictment for charges of money laundering and failing to register as foreign agents. Late last month, Manafort reached an $11 million bail deal to lift him from house arrest.
Sekulow has said that the White House is "committed to fully cooperating with Mr. Mueller," while Trump has continued to insist the campaign did not collude with Russia in the election.
Meanwhile, Republicans are intensifying their calls to fight back amidst disclosures that Peter Strzok, a senior FBI agent in the Mueller probe, had exchanged several anti-Trump texts with a fellow agent with whom he was romantically involved.
Mueller removed Strzok from the investigation during the summer, but the news about the decision did not surface until this fall. In addition, Republicans are pointing to Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann, who had sent former acting Attorney General Sally Yates an email cheering the Justice Department's decision against defending Trump's first White House travel ban.
Weissmann is leading the case against Manafort and Gates, adding to Republicans' claims that the claims of bias began early on, after it was discovered that many of Mueller's investigators and attorneys had donated money to Democratic campaigns.
Democrats, though, are saying the bias complaints are being made in hopes of derailing Mueller's investigation as it comes closer to Trump.
“I predict that these attacks on the FBI will grow louder and more brazen as the special counsel does his work, and the walls close in around the president, and evidence of his obstruction and other misdeeds becomes more apparent,” New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the House committee’s top Democrat, told The Wall Street Journal.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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