Monday on Good Morning America, ABC’s chief legal analyst Dan Abrams took President Trump to task for daring to question the motives of special counsel Robert Mueller. In a tweetstorm over the weekend, the president claimed there was a possible conflict of interest for Mueller, since his entire team he hired for the Russia investigation was filled with liberal democrats. But ABC’s Abrams dismissed this obvious problem as a moot point because Mueller was a “lifelong Republican.”
Anchor George Stephanopoulos began by reading the tweets by Trump.“‘[C]onflict of interest’ for Robert Mueller. That’s possibly the most explosive charge,” he stated, asking Abrams to weigh in.
Abrams quickly shot down Trump’s claim as absurd, focusing first on the lesser of Trump’s claims about a personal business feud with Mueller:
ABRAMS: First of all, this idea of the conflict of interest. Seems that he was saying Mueller was a member of a Trump golf club, he withdrew his membership--
STEPHANOPOULOS: He calls it a long business relationship.
ABRAMS: I don't think there is any indication there is a long business relationship. Unless you consider being a member of the golf club being a long business membership. Mueller withdrew his membership, apparently wrote a note after quitting asking for back dues and that was it. I don't know what, beyond that, he could be talking about.
Abrams finally addressed Trump’s more important point, the other two tweets which talked about the partisan team Mueller hired for his investigation into Trump’s ties with Russia, and the unsubstantiated Clinton dossier that was used by the FBI to get a warrant on Carter Page. But the ABC analyst scoffed at these observations, shooting them down as false.
There is No Collusion! The Robert Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt, headed now by 17 (increased from 13, including an Obama White House lawyer) Angry Democrats, was started by a fraudulent Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC. Therefore, the Witch Hunt is an illegal Scam!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2018
....Also, why is Mueller only appointing Angry Dems, some of whom have worked for Crooked Hillary, others, including himself, have worked for Obama....And why isn’t Mueller looking at all of the criminal activity & real Russian Collusion on the Democrats side-Podesta, Dossier?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2018
ABRAMS: You also have the claim that the entire investigation is started by the phony dossier. That’s not why the investigation was started. The investigation was started after the firing of James Comey. You have a number of factual problems.
Abrams and Stephanopoulos praised Mueller as respected by the left and right, saying that he voted for republicans so that outweighed the fact that his legal team was filled with partisan democrats. “It’s the person at the top who matters,” he gushed:
ABRAMS: But the bigger picture problem for the president is that Robert Mueller can be unassailable, to some degree. He is a lifelong Republican. He is a war hero. He is someone who has long been respected by --
STEPHANOPOULOS: From 100-0 every time.
ABRAMS: From both parties. So He's got a real challenge when it comes to trying to undercut Mueller. When you talk about the angry Democrats--think about it if it was flipped. If it was a Democrat who was leading the investigation and hired Republicans to work for him. Everyone would be saying the guy leading is a lifelong Democrat! It's the person at the top who matters.
