US President Donald Trump yesterday dismissed as "fake news" bombshell reports that he had ordered the firing of Russia investigation special prosecutor Robert Mueller last year, only backing off in the face of a threatened resignation.
"Fake news. Fake news. Typical New York Times. Fake stories," Trump told reporters as he arrived for meetings at the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland.
The New York Times and other US media reported Thursday that Trump had ordered the firing of Mueller in June 2017 but that the president climbed down when the top White House lawyer threatened to resign.
Mueller is leading the probe into allegations of collusion between the US president's campaign team and Russia in the 2016 election.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the probe which he says is an attack on the legitimacy of his presidency.
The New York Times said White House counsel Don McGahn opposed the firing decision, telling senior officials it would have a "catastrophic effect" on Trump's presidency.
After McGahn threatened to quit, Trump changed his mind, the Times reported, citing four anonymous sources.
The Washington Post, also citing anonymous sources, confirmed that Trump sought to fire Mueller but reconsidered after the White House counsel's threat.
Trump attorney Ty Cobb told AFP: "We decline to comment out of respect for the Office of the Special Counsel and its process."
But Trump had no such scruples about commenting as he arrived at a conference center in the snowbound Swiss mountain resort yesterday.
The president had told journalists in August that he had not considered firing Mueller, some two months after he reportedly had moved to do just that.
"I haven't given it any thought. I mean, I've been reading about it from you people, you say, 'Oh, I'm gonna dismiss him.' No, I'm not dismissing anybody," Trump said.
According to the Times, Trump had accused Mueller of three conflicts of interest that he argued disqualified him from running the Russia collusion investigation.
They were as follows: Mueller had terminated his membership at a Trump golf course over a dispute about fees, had worked for the law firm that previously represented the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and had been interviewed to return as FBI director before he was appointed special counsel.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Thursday that firing Mueller would be a "red line."
The day before, Trump for the first time directly said that he would cooperate with Mueller under oath, whose investigation he had previously dismissed as a "witch hunt."
In a separate development, Facebook Inc said Russian agents created 129 events on the social media network during the 2016 US election campaign, according to testimony to Congress, shedding more light on Russia's purported disinformation drive aimed at voters.
Facebook, in a written statement to US lawmakers released on Thursday and dated Jan 8, said that 338,300 different Facebook accounts viewed the events and that 62,500 marked that they would attend. The company said it did not have data about which of the events took place.
Facebook, the world's largest social media network, said in September only that Russians had created "several promoted events."
Copies of the event pages that have surfaced since then show that at least some of them were political rallies centered on divisive subjects, such as immigration.
Facebook delivered the details to Congress this month in response to written questions from the US Senate Intelligence Committee.
Facebook said that it had found "overlap" between the online marketing done in 2016 by Russian agents and by President Donald Trump's campaign and called it "insignificant."
Meanwhile, Dutch media yesterday reported that Dutch intelligence services have provided "crucial evidence" to US counterparts about Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.
After penetrating the network of Russian hackers known as Cozy Bear, the Dutch agents alerted US spy chiefs as they watched the Russians transfer "thousands" of Democratic Party emails ahead of the presidential vote.
The Dutch national intelligence service (AIVD) had been watching the notorious group since 2014, according to the respected Volkskrant daily, and a Dutch TV news programme Nieuwsuur.
They have provided "crucial evidence of the Russian involvement" as well as "technical" proof in the hacking of the US Democratic Party, the reports said, citing anonymous US and Dutch sources.
