2016 ELECTION/GOP/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT:“President Trump on Sunday [3-18-18] abandoned a strategy of showing deference to the special counsel examining Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, lashing out at what he characterized as a partisan investigation and alarming Republicans who feared he might seek to shut it down.
Mr. Trump has long suggested that allegations that he or his campaign conspired with Russia to influence the election were a ‘hoax’ and part of a ‘witch hunt,’ but until this weekend he had largely heeded the advice of lawyers who counseled him not to directly attack Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, for fear of antagonizing prosecutors…The attack on Mr. Mueller, a longtime Republican and former F.B.I. director appointed by a Republican president, George W. Bush, drew immediate rebukes from some members of the party who expressed concern that it might presage an effort to fire the special counsel. Such a move, they warned, would give the appearance of a corrupt attempt to short-circuit the investigation and set off a bipartisan backlash.”
-Peter Baker, “Trump Assails Mueller, Drawing Rebukes From Republicans,” The New York Times online, Mar.19, 2018