Trump’s Exaggerated ‘Conflicts of Interest’ Claims

In a flurry of tweets, President Donald Trump stretched the facts when he alleged that special counsel Robert Mueller and his staff have “many” conflicts of interests:

• Trump falsely claimed that “the woman in charge of prosecuting [conservative author] Jerome Corsi” was “in charge of ‘legal’ at” the Clinton Foundation. Jeannie Rhee, a prosecutor on the Mueller team, worked as outside counsel on behalf of the Clinton Foundation on one case. She was not an employee of the foundation.
• The president claimed that Mueller’s legal team — which he referred to as “17 Angry Democrats” — made “substantial & many contributions” to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Five team members — including one who has since left the investigation — gave a total of $8,800 to Clinton’s campaign.
• Trump accused Mueller himself of “big time conflicts of interests.” But legal ethics experts we interviewed said the president’s arguments don’t hold up.

Trump made his accusations in a string of tweets on the morning of Dec. 7, the same day that Mueller was expected to file court papers in the Russia investigation regarding two of Trump’s former aides: former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort and former Trump Organization Executive Vice President Michael Cohen.

Mueller’s office later detailed how Manafort allegedly violated the terms of his plea agreement. The government of “lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Special Counsel’s Office on a variety of subject matters.”