ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump said Thursday that he believes Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in the Russia investigation, will treat him fairly, contradicting some members of his party who have waged a weekslong campaign to try to discredit Mr. Mueller and the continuing inquiry.
During an impromptu 30-minute interview with The New York Times at his golf club in West Palm Beach, the president did not demand an end to the Russia investigations swirling around his administration, but insisted 16 times that there has been ‘no collusion’ discovered by the inquiry…
Asked whether he would order the Justice Department to reopen the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, Mr. Trump appeared to remain focused on the Russia investigation…
Hours after he accused the Chinese of secretly shipping oil to North Korea, Mr. Trump explicitly said for the first time that he has ‘been soft’ on China on trade in the hopes that its leaders will pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.”
-Michael S. Schmidt and Michael D. Shear, “Trump Says Russia Inquiry Makes U.S. ‘Look Very Bad’,” The New York Times online, Dec. 28, 2017