Trump Is Officially Under Investigation

Image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore

The witch hunt is back on—according to Trump’s tweets, anyway. On Wednesday, the The Washington Post broke the story that the same special counsel investigating Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election is also investigating Trump’s potential obstruction of justice. And on Thursday, Trump tweeted, “They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice.”

He then proceeded to call the investigation the “single greatest witch hunt in American political history.”

The Department of Justice’s Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller, an American lawyer and former FBI director, as special counsel to the Russia investigation in May. According to anonymous sources who informed both The Washington Post and Reuters, last week’s testimony from former FBI director James Comey meant it was only a matter of time before the Department of Justice took on this matter. As the Reuters’ source explained, detectives will likely question Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Rosenstein, and Trump to get to the bottom of the alleged obstruction of justice Comey referenced during his testimony.

Though it wasn’t Comey’s testimony alone that prompted investigators to take on this case. According to the Post, Trump’s firing of Comey on May 9 launched an investigation weeks before the former FBI director took the stand. And it probably didn’t help that the Trump administration offered conflicting explanations for Comey’s dismissal. As CNN Politics reporter Chris Cillizza noted, it will be much harder for Trump and his colleagues to dismiss the FBI’s probe into Russia’s involvement as unnecessary meddling. It’s also worth acknowledging this news comes less than six months into Trump’s presidency, and judging by the way the investigation has enlarged so far, it’s not about to blow over any time soon.