There hasn't been any evidence of cooperation or collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia, and that shows special counsel Robert Mueller's probe should come to an end, Rep. Pete King said Wednesday.
"To me, it shows also the special counsel should never been appointed in the first place," the New York Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "The intelligence committee looked at this and had over 70 witnesses and there hasn't been one bit of evidence showing any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia."
The investigation, he said, is a "fiasco" and an "abuse of time and power" that has divided the United States and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the news that Mueller had told Trump's legal team that the president is a subject of his investigation and not a target just means that anything can still come out from the investigation, said King.
Trump also had every right to fire former FBI Director James Comey, as he had been talking about an investigation into "alleged Russian collusion when there was nothing there."
"The fact that he was broadcasting this, the fact that he was telling the president privately that he was not a target, that he was not involved in the investigation, but refused to say that publicly," also all led to Trump's decision, said King.
"It was tying the president's hands in dealing with foreign leaders," he added. "I think the president had every right to fire Jim Comey and also the president at the time he fired Comey said the Russia investigation would continue. To me there is no evidence of any collusion there whatsoever or obstruction of justice."
It is still not known if Trump will speak with Mueller and other investigators, but if he does, it could become a "perjury trap" for the president, said King.
"If he is going to go in there it should be a narrowly defined area, not about every business dealer check ever written over the last 20 years, every bank he has dealt with," he told show co-host Bill Hemmer. "That's a perjury trap. If they can narrow it down to specific questions and time and place then it may be a gamble he should take. It has to be narrowly defined."
Any time one is in front of a skilled interrogator, though, 'they can get you to make a misstatement and say it's a lie," said King. "If it's a setup he shouldn't do it. Narrowly defined, he should consider it."
Trump and his attorneys should ignore the leaks that have come out about the investigation, and do what has to be done.
"The fact is, so far after 18 months, almost two years, there is nothing there," said King. "He should ignore the leaks. Don't give in to any pressure at all. Do what his lawyers think is the best thing to do and forget the pressure."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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