President Trump applauded former independent counsel Kenneth Starr – the man most responsible for President Clinton’s impeachment – for comments he made Sunday in an interview with Fox News.
‘Thank you to KenStarr, former Independent Counsel, Whitewater, for your insight and powerful words on FISA abuse, Russian meddling etc. Really great interview with @MariaBartiromo,’ Trump tweeted mid-day Sunday from his Mar-a-Lago estate, as he spent the day at the resort watching television and not on the golf course.
Curiously, Starr didn’t have much to say that would be of use to Trump – and he came on Bartiromo’s Sunday Morning Futures program shortly after Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who the president stayed mum about.
President Trump gave a thumbs up to an interview between Maria Bartiromo and Ken Starr Sunday, which aired on Fox News
The president thanked Starr for his ‘powerful words’ on FISA abuse. During the interview Starr said he didn’t believe Special Counsel Robert Mueller would look into the alleged abuse of surveillance because Mueller’s probe centers around Russian collusion
Former Clinton investigator Kenneth Starr also said during the course of the interview that he didn’t believe a second special counsel should be appointed and that proper oversight of the Justice Department should come from the in-house inspector general
When Fox News Maria Bartiromo (left) asked Kenneth Starr (right) if President Trump had been vindicated, Starr answered no
First, when host Maria Bartiromo asked if Trump had been vindicated, Starr said, ‘The answer is no.’
Trump has tried to suggest that he’s off the hook for Russian collusion because Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said ‘there is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity’ when handing down 13 indictments to Russian nationals on Friday.
Starr’s point was seemingly similar to that of Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who appeared on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday.
Schiff had explained that so far as the new Mueller indictments of Russian nationals go, they are limited to the Russians’ disinformation campaign using social media, and not other aspects of the Kremlin’s plot, including the actual hacking of Democratic institutions.
‘There’s not a word in the indictment that suggests collusion, in fact there’s a word that suggests non-collusion and that’s the word unwittingly that appears early on in the indictment and that was in connection with Florida, that was not in connection with folks at Trump Tower,’ Starr explained, leaving the door open for more to come out.
The longtime lawyer also argued against the appointment of a second special counsel, something President Trump’s lawyers have argued for.
‘I totally disagree with that,’ Starr said. ‘Let Mueller do his job.’
Starr also reminded Bartiromo that the inspector general’s office within the Department of Justice was created by Congress – currently ruled by Republicans – and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan – also a member of the GOP.
‘And that office is an aggressive office,’ Starr pointed out.
The Whitewater investigator also suggested on the show that Mueller’s team wouldn’t look into alleged FISA abuses, something Republicans have been calling for.
‘I don’t think so, but again, we’re behind the veil of ignorance,’ Starr said. ‘His mandate is to look at the issue of collusion. And I’m not sure how that fits into that.’
The main point that Starr made during the interview is that the Americans should be upset with the Russians, not each other, over what happened in 2016.
‘I think we should stop pointing fingers at one another in this country and realize who the real enemy is, and I say enemy, these were spies, they came into our country, they spent millions of dollars, they didn’t need to collude with anyone, they had a massive operation based in St. Peterburg – Russia, not Florida,’ Starr said.
‘And we now know that the people who were financing this, according to the indictment, were extremely close to Vladimir Putin,’ he added.
President Trump has long characterized the Russian investigation as a ‘witchhunt’ and a ‘hoax,’ though tried backtracking on that today, by pointing out that he said back during the presidential debates that the Russian could be responsible.
‘I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said “it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer,”‘ Trump tweeted Sunday. ‘The Russian “hoax” was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia – it never did!’