Trump calls raid on his personal lawyer's home and offices 'a disgrace'
President Donald Trump Monday reacted angrily to news that the FBI has raided the offices of his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen, calling it a "disgraceful situation" and "a total witch hunt."
At a meeting Monday evening with senior military leadership at the White House, Trump described the raid as a break-in.
"I just heard they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys - a good man," he said.
Trump called the raid "an attack on our country, in a true sense. It's an attack on what we all stand for."
"That is really now on a whole new level of unfairness," Trump said.
The story about the raid on Cohen's home and offices was first reported by the New York Times just hours before the meeting, where it was expected that Trump would focus any remarks on the situation in Syria.
Trump lamented to reporters that "here we are talking about Syria and I have this witch hunt constantly going on."
Following his extensive complaints about the Russia investigation, reporters in the meeting asked the president why he wouldn't just take the next step and fire special counsel Robert Mueller, a step Republicans have repeatedly warned Trump against taking.
Trump didn't rule out the idea.
"Why don't I just fire Mueller? Well, I think it's a disgrace what's going on. We'll see what happens," Trump said. "Many people have said you should fire him."
Unprompted, Trump railed against Mueller's investigative team, saying it's made up of the "most biased group of people."
"These people have the biggest conflicts of interest I've ever seen," Trump said. "Democrats all or just about all. Either Democrats or a couple Republicans that worked for President Obama. They are not looking at the other side."
When asked if he is concerned about what federal investigators might find in the raid, the president responded sharply: “No.”
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer warned Trump not to fire Mueller.
“If the president is thinking of using this raid to fire Special Counsel Mueller or otherwise interfere with the chain of command in the Russia probe, we Democrats have one simple message for him: don’t.”
