Donald Trump said that Justice Department officials who worked in the team of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller to investigate his "ties" with Russia should be held responsible for removing classified data.

“Now it turns out that all the members of the Mueller team, in violation of the law, erased all data from their phones right before an investigation was to begin against them.

And they all explained it with the same idiotic reason - "accident" - wrote the American leader on his Twitter. 

Later, speaking to supporters at a campaign event in Nevada, Trump said the Justice Department officials who removed the classified information were "criminals and there should be consequences for them."

We will remind, earlier, the US Department of Justice published a response to the Senate's request under the Freedom of Information Act, according to which the closest assistants and leading members of the Special Attorney Muller's team erased data from at least 15 phones, citing forgotten passwords, damage or loss of devices.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson sent a request to the department's inspector general, demanding an audit on this matter.

“These messages raise alarm and concern about data retention rules and transparency principles.

In this regard, I respectfully ask your department to initiate an investigation of this issue in order to establish what information, how and why was deleted, whether there was an offense and who owns these devices, ”the senator said.

Political investigation

Recall that the investigation of Donald Trump's "ties" with Russia, led by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, was opened in 2017 shortly after Trump's inauguration and ended in March 2019.

As a result, a conclusion was sent to the Congress, which stated that the investigation did not find evidence or signs of "ties" between the campaign headquarters of the current president and Russia.

In addition, the head of the Justice Department, William Barr, stressed that no additional charges will be brought forward within the framework of this investigation.

In the course of the investigation, various charges were brought against a number of officials from Trump's campaign headquarters, but all of them related to crimes of a personal nature, mainly violations of tax laws and perjury.

At the end of 2018, the Mueller investigation released warrants issued by the US Department of Justice regarding Trump's campaign under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and related FBI materials.

From the released FISA documents, it followed that the FBI relied on the so-called Steele dossier in its investigation - materials transferred to the Department of Justice by ex-MI6 officer Christopher Steele, who worked for Fusion GPS, associated with Hillary Clinton.

This dossier contained a lot of unconfirmed accusations against Trump, for example, it said that the Kremlin allegedly possesses incriminating videos of a sexual nature with the participation of Trump, with the help of which he was blackmailed by the Russian special services.

Last March, Republican Senator Rand Paul accused former CIA chief John Brennan, former National Intelligence Director James Klepper, and retired FBI chief James Comey of using this false dossier to oust Trump from his post.

“The heads of the Obama administration's special services (Brennan, Klepper, Comey) were angry that they had this Russian dossier, but no one believed that it was real ... They could not do anything with it.

So they decided to attach it to the intelligence report and officially handed it over to Barack Obama, ”Paul told Fox News.

Reputation under investigation

On August 18, the Senate Intelligence Committee published the fifth volume of its report on "Russian interference" in the 2016 presidential election.

In it, American senators came to the same conclusions as the Mueller Commission: there was no evidence that Donald Trump's campaign headquarters before the 2016 presidential election was "in cahoots" with Russia to influence the outcome of the vote.

Also in its final communique, the intelligence committee harshly criticized the FBI for not establishing the credibility of Steele's dossier, but did not fail to use these documents to obtain a FISA court order to observe Trump campaign staff.

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The committee members also stressed that the FBI did not take the necessary steps to verify Steele's findings, even though one of the informants later expressed doubts about their reliability.

Trump himself, commenting on the removal of classified data by Mueller's commission staff, once again called the investigation of his "ties" with Russia politically motivated and complained that without this consequence, his tenure as host of the White House might look different.

“It was established that the Mueller scam should not have happened at all, since there was no reason for it.

This is all a criminal witch hunt, and someone has to pay a heavy price for it.

My life would be completely different if someone hadn't tried to fool the whole of America !!! "

- wrote the President of the United States.

From the point of view of political analysts, as the election approaches, Trump will use all possible media means to disavow everything that has been attributed to him in connection with the activities of the Mueller Commission and the alleged ties of his campaign headquarters with Russia in 2016.

“The Muller Commission was created by the decision of the Deputy Minister of Justice and found nothing.

The report that was presented - it gave nothing.

Given the peculiarities of Trump's character, now, using administrative resources, he is trying to initiate a retaliatory investigation to accuse the Mueller Commission of a biased attitude.

That is, in the fact that Mueller initially acted not objectively, but with an accusatory bias, "Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained in an interview with RT.

In his opinion, Trump is now using all means to gain an advantage over Joe Biden.

“The gap between Biden and Trump remains at 5-7% of the vote.

Political strategists state that time passes, but the situation does not change.

Of course, debates will play a big role, but it is also very important for Trump to do something meaningful in order to change this ratio, ”Vasiliev explained.

According to political scientist Alexander Asafov, raising the topic of Mueller's investigation, the US President adheres to the popular opinion in the country, according to which this process is viewed as a conspiracy against Trump and an element of his confrontation with the elites.

“The synchronicity and massiveness of such deletions, since we are talking about 15 phones, suggests that there could well be some resonant data.

Business computers and phones are often rebooted and cleaned just in order not to store service information there, so that it is available only in regulated places.

Therefore, perhaps this is a common procedure.

However, the likelihood that they wanted to irrevocably delete some information is also there, ”the expert explained.

At the same time, Alexander Asafov agrees that, being at the finish line before the elections, Trump will try to find evidence for accusations against his competitors or those who, in his opinion, are conducting fake investigations against him.

“The head of the White House is addressing his nuclear electorate, among which there are many supporters of the conspiracy theory that the“ deep state ”is fighting against Trump.

These people believe that all forces should be thrown to protect the president as a symbol of America, against which the transnational elite is fighting, "the political scientist concluded.