WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday responded to the Justice Division’s resolution to drop prison prices in opposition to his former nationwide
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday responded to the Justice Division’s resolution to drop prison prices in opposition to his former nationwide safety adviser, Michael T. Flynn, by delivering his most intensive and aggrieved remarks on the Russia investigation because the coronavirus paralyzed the nation.
Chatting with Fox Information, Mr. Trump praised Lawyer Normal William P. Barr for the dramatic action announced Thursday, which nullified a major case prosecuted by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
Mr. Trump said Mr. Barr had acted wisely in assigning a U.S. attorney to look into the case, in which Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. in 2017 about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to Washington during the 2016 presidential transition. Mr. Trump and his allies had long called Mr. Flynn’s prosecution unjust and said it should be dropped.
“So he came back and he said, ‘This is an innocent man,’” Mr. Trump said of the federal prosecutor, Jeff Jensen of the Eastern District of Missouri.
Mr. Trump said the outcome reflected well on Mr. Barr, who has expressed skepticism of the Mueller inquiry. “He’s the opposite of Robert Mueller, because you look at Mueller — that was purely corrupt,” Mr. Trump said.
He also laced into Mr. Barr’s predecessor, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Mr. Trump has never forgiven for recusing himself from the Russia investigation over his own 2016 contacts with the Russian ambassador, a move which led to Mr. Mueller’s appointment.
“Jeff Sessions was a disaster,” Mr. Trump said, “He was a very average guy.”
The president’s commentary was a kind of flashback to a pre-coronavirus reality — when the Russia investigation and the president’s impeachment dominated the national political discourse. It was the latest sign that Mr. Trump is turning his thinking away from the national effort to contain the virus — which is still spreading, with cases and deaths growing by the day — to other matters, including his re-election campaign.
Mr. Trump made the remarks in a nearly hourlong appearance on one of his favorite Fox News Channel programs, “Fox and Friends.” The pandemic did not come up until nearly 20 minutes into the interview.
Mr. Trump lamented that the virus had interrupted a period of economic growth, saying that advisers had come to him and said, “Sir, you’ve got to turn it off. We have to close the country.”
“As president, we had the strongest economy in the history of the world, the strongest economy, we’ve ever had,” he said. “We’ll be back, and they’ll be back very soon. And next year we’re going to have a phenomenal year, people are ready to go.”
Mr. Trump said, after prompting, that he would send a rapid-result Abbott Laboratories test kit from the White House’s inventory to the home of his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joseph Biden Jr., if Mr. Biden asked him. Mr. Trump said that would allow his Democratic opponent to “get out of the basement so he can speak,” adding, “every time he talks, it’s, like, a good thing.”
Mr. Trump also added more detail to the story of the White House valet who tested positive for coronavirus. He said that the aide, who is a U.S. Navy service member, had not worked for several days before Tuesday, when he was “in the room” with the president for an unspecified amount of time before discovering that he was carrying the virus. “I don’t think any contact,” Mr. Trump added of his interactions with the aide.
The valet was among staff members who serve the president meals. Mr. Trump said that those staff members have begun wearing masks, although many other White House officials and staff — including the president himself — do not.