In an interview with the conservative Daily Caller, President Trump expounds upon his oft-stated theory that Robert Mueller has several conflicts of interest that should prevent him from investigating Trump’s web of criminality and misconduct. For one thing, Trump asserts, Mueller interviewed with Trump for the FBI Director job, and didn’t get it, and is presumably disgruntled. For another, Mueller had a serious business conflict with the president:
Trump: There were, I mean tremendous conflicts here, you know the conflicts, you’ve heard the conflicts.”
The Daily Caller: “Speaking of one which you cited, I’d like to know, you said you interviewed Mueller for FBI director.”
Trump: “Sitting right in that chair.”
The Daily Caller: “What did you think during the interview?”
Trump: “I liked him, but I didn’t give him the job?”
The Daily Caller: “Why?”
Trump: “But I had a business dispute with Mueller before that. I had a real business dispute.”
The business dispute is that Mueller was a member of a Trump-owned golf club, and left the club in 2011, and, according to the Washington Post, “sent a letter requesting a dues refund in accordance with normal club practice and never heard back.” Neither charge holds much weight on their own, but in combination they’re utter nonsense: If Mueller had a “serious business dispute with Trump dating back to 2011, why would Trump consider offering him the FBI directorship in 2017?
Trump, remarkably, then adds yet another contradictory charge of bias in his very next sentence:
And he’s Comey’s best friend. And I could give you 100 pictures of him and Comey hugging and kissing each other. You know, he’s Comey’s best friend.
So, according to Trump Mueller is tainted by bias because he is best friends with a man Trump fired. Yet somehow, despite being filled with rage at Trump for firing his “best friend,” Mueller almost immediately turned around and applied for his best friend’s vacated job? Is that what best friends do?
Also, Trump claims to have a hundred pictures of Comey and Mueller engaged in various states of embrace. Curiously, he has not released any of these photos. In Russia, Trump kompromat you.