The Latest: Pelosi says Trump needs thicker skin
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times local):
1:35 p.m.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is mocking President Donald Trump's complaints about unfair treatment by the news media.
Pelosi herself has long been a target of Republican criticism. She scoffed at Trump's claim that he's been treated "more unfairly" than any politician in history, saying Thursday, "Get some thick skin, OK?"
Pelosi also ridiculed Trump's complaint about a "witch hunt" following the naming of a special counsel to investigate possible Trump campaign ties to Russia.
She asked, "How did he spell witch hunt?" a reference to Trump's frequent misspellings on Twitter. He misspelled the word "counsel" on Thursday.
Pelosi calls the White House unruly and undisciplined and says it "needs adult supervision."
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1:10 p.m.
The chairman of the Senate intelligence committee says his panel has not received a response from Michael Flynn's lawyer — correcting his earlier statement that Flynn would not comply with a subpoena.
Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina says ousted National Security Adviser Flynn's attorneys "have not yet indicated their intentions regarding the Senate Intelligence Committee's subpoena" as part of the panel's probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Burr says he would welcome Flynn's willingness to cooperate. Hours earlier, Burr said Flynn's lawyer said he wouldn't comply, "and that is not a surprise to the committee. We'll figure out on General Flynn what the next step, if any, is."
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10:31 a.m.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is mocking U.S. news reports suggesting President Donald Trump shared sensitive intelligence with him about terror threats involving laptops on airplanes.
Lavrov didn't directly confirm details of their conversation. But he told reporters Thursday in Cyprus that he doesn't understand what the "secret" was, since the U.S. introduced a ban on laptops on airlines from some Middle Eastern countries two months ago.
He joked that some U.S. media were acting like communist newspapers during the Soviet Union and not offering real news.
Lavrov says media reported that Trump told him "terrorists are capable of stuffing laptops, all kinds of electronic devices, with untraceable explosive materials," information he says the administration revealed with the laptop ban.
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11:45 a.m.
The House intelligence committee is asking for more government documents — this time about the ouster of FBI Director Jim Comey and conversations he had with President Donald Trump about investigations into Russian meddling in the election.
The committee said Thursday it sent a letter requesting material from the FBI and Justice Department related to its ongoing counterintelligence investigation.
Texas Republican Mike Conaway and California Democrat Adam Schiff say they will continue to work with the FBI as the investigation moves forward.
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11:25 a.m.
A lawyer for fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has informed the Senate Intelligence Committee he will not honor its subpoena for private documents. That's according to the panel's chairman, Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina.
Burr told reporters Thursday about the response from Flynn's lawyer. Burr says the panel's members are not surprised and says, "We'll figure out on Gen. Flynn what the next step, if any, is."
The committee is one of several on Capitol Hill investigating possible collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.
Flynn was ousted earlier this year from his senior administration job.
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7:55 a.m.
President Donald Trump is assailing the naming of a special counsel as "the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!"
Trump is responding to the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to lead a probe of allegations that Trump's campaign collaborated with Russia to sway the election.
In another tweet Thursday morning, he claims, "With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special councel (sic) appointed!" Trump later deleted and retweeted that statement to correct the spelling of "counsel."
He did not provide examples or evidence of any alleged "illegal acts."
Trump fired FBI Director James Comey last week, prompting some to call for an independent prosecutor to lead the investigation.
The White House says an investigation will prove there was no collusion.
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3:26 a.m.
The Justice Department has appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller (MUHL'-ur) as a special counsel to lead a federal investigation into allegations that Donald Trump's campaign collaborated with Russia to sway the 2016 election that put him in the White House.
Mueller will have sweeping powers and the authority to prosecute any crimes he uncovers.
The surprise announcement to hand the probe over to Mueller, a lawman with deep bipartisan respect, was a striking shift for Trump's Justice Department, which had resisted increasingly loud calls from Democrats for an outside prosecutor.
It immediately escalated the legal stakes — and the potential political damage — for a president who has tried to dismiss the matter as partisan witch hunt and a "hoax."