WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump launched a fresh attack on Sunday on the credibility of his own FBI, responding to revelations that an FBI agent was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian election meddling because of anti-Trump text messages.

Trump, two days after his former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, again denied that he directed FBI Director James Comey to stop investigating Flynn.

The Republican president offered a running Twitter commentary on Sunday amid renewed focus on Mueller’s probe and Flynn’s decision to cooperate with the investigation as part of his plea agreement. Democrats said the developments suggested growing evidence of coordination between Trump’s circle and Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

“This president has been obsessed with this investigation, always saying there’s nothing there, but each week, another shoe drops, where we see more evidence of continuing outreach from Russians and some response from the Trump campaign and Trump individuals,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In a series of tweets, Trump questioned the direction of the federal law enforcement agency and wrote that after Comey, whom Trump fired in May, the FBI’s reputation is “in Tatters worst in History!” He vowed to “bring it back to greatness.” The president also retweeted a tweet that said new FBI Director Chris Wray “needs to clean house.” The president seized upon reports that a veteran FBI counter-intelligence agent was removed from Mueller’s team last summer after the discovery of an exchange of text messages that were viewed as potentially anti-Trump. The agent, Peter Strzok, had also worked on the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, said Mueller removed Strzok from the team “immediately upon learning of the allegations.” He would not elaborate on the nature of the accusations.

Trump tweeted on Sunday: “Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI ‘agent’s role in Clinton probe under review.’ Led Clinton Email probe.” In a separate tweet, he wrote: “Report: ‘ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE’ Now it all starts to make sense!” Strzok’s removal almost certainly reflected a desire to insulate the investigators from any claims of political bias or favouritism. Trump and many of his supporters have at times sought to discredit the integrity of the investigation, in part by claiming a close relationship between Mueller and Comey and by pointing to political contributions to Democrats made by some lawyers on the team.

Mueller has been investigating whether Trump campaign associates coordinated with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, and Strzok’s background in counter-intelligence would have been seen as particularly valuable for a secretive FBI probe examining foreign contacts.

Mueller’s investigation has so far netted charges against four people, with the most recent cri­minal case brought Friday when Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

On Saturday, Trump tweeted that he “had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!” The tweet suggested that Trump was aware when the White House dismissed Flynn on Feb 13 that he had lied to the FBI, which had interviewed him weeks earlier.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2017