Donald Trump is considering dismissing the special counsel assigned to the Russia investigation, a confidant said on Monday. 
 
 Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy told PBS Newshour that Trump is “considering perhaps terminating” Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who was appointed to run the investigation into Russian influence on the campaign by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on May 17. 
 
 Asked later if Trump is really considering firing Mueller, Ruddy said: “Yes.” 
 
 A White House official told me that “Chris was speaking for himself and did not speak to the president.” Later on Monday night, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer issued a statement reading, “Mr. Ruddy never spoke to the president regarding this issue. With respect to this subject, only the president or his attorneys are authorized to comment.” 
 
 CNBC’s Washington correspondent tweeted that she had seen Ruddy leaving the West Wing earlier on Monday afternoon; NBC later reported that he was there for a meeting with the president that was postponed. Ruddy told NPR they spoke on Friday. 
 
 Ruddy, a member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, has often seemed to float trial balloons related to moves Trump is considering making. In February, after having a drink the night before with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Ruddy criticized White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on CNN, saying "I think Reince Priebus, good guy, well-intentioned, but he clearly doesn't know how the federal agencies work.” ||||| poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201706/439/1155968404_5474068312001_5474048070001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Trump appears to confirm that he's facing obstruction probe The president also appears to attack his deputy attorney general in a tweet. 
 
 President Donald Trump acknowledged on Friday that he is under investigation for firing FBI Director James Comey, and appeared to attack his own deputy attorney general for launching a special counsel probe that has intensified in recent days. 
 
 “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt,” Trump tweeted. 
 
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 The president did not immediately clarify the tweet, which likely refers to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, but could also refer to special counsel Robert Mueller, who is overseeing the larger investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin. 
 
 Rosenstein is overseeing the probe by Mueller, which has expanded to include whether Trump obstructed justice when he fired Comey and allegedly pressured intelligence officials to downplay or undermine the Russia investigation. 
 
 Trump’s unusual Friday post — coming at the end of a work week in which he and his top surrogates have openly questioned the integrity of Mueller’s probe and even floated the notion of firing the respected former George W. Bush-era FBI director — has prompted sharp rebukes from leading Democratic lawmakers, as well as seasoned veterans of past Washington scandals. 
 
 “I’m growing increasingly concerned that the president will attempt to fire not only Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible obstruction of justice, but also Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein who appointed Mueller,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. 
 
 Feinstein said Trump’s tweets suggest he lacks respect for the rule of law and that they amount to “a blatant violation of the president’s oath of office.” “[I]f the president thinks he can fire Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and replace him with someone who will shut down the investigation, he’s in for a rude awakening. Even his staunchest supporters will balk at such a blatant effort to subvert the law,” she said. 
 
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 Former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste said the notion Trump would oust both Mueller and Rosenstein was “outrageous” and he likened it to the Saturday Night Massacre of 1973, when President Richard Nixon fired his attorney general and deputy attorney general because both refused to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. 
 
 “We’re at a very serious inflection point in my view where we must consider whether we’ll continue to be a nation of laws,” Ben-Veniste said. “This is not a reality show. This is real. We have not been transported into a carnival game of whack-a-mole where you try to disable this or that independent person who pops up to do the job he or she has been given. It simply cannot square with our Constitution and our system of laws.” 
 
 Trump’s latest tweet Friday morning appeared to be a reference to a memo Rosenstein issued shortly after assuming his position in the DOJ. In the memo, Rosenstein published a blistering assessment of Comey’s performance as FBI director, pointing to his unusual handling of last year’s Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Rosenstein’s memo didn’t explicitly recommend Comey’s firing, and Rosenstein himself later said he wrote the memo after learning Trump already intended to fire Comey. 
 
 Trump himself told NBC News he had already planned to fire the FBI director, citing in part the pressure of the Russia investigation on his White House. 
 
 Rosenstein's memo, though, did strongly suggest that a change in FBI leadership would be beneficial. 
 
 "Although the President has the power to remove an FBI director, the decision should not be taken lightly. I agree with the nearly unanimous opinions of former Department officials," Rosenstein wrote. "The way the Director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong. As a result, the FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a Director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them. Having refused to admit his errors, the Director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions.” 
 
 Though Rosenstein himself authorized Mueller’s investigation, he testified last week that Mueller has complete independence to pursue the matter as he sees fit. Some of Trump’s allies have encouraged the president to fire Mueller, but Rosenstein has insisted he is the only one with authority to do so, and that he believes Mueller — widely respected by both parties in Washington — is doing his job properly. 
 
 Immediately after Comey’s ouster, Feinstein called for Rosenstein, too, to recuse himself from the Russia investigation and for a career DOJ official to handle the matter instead. But Rosenstein’s appointment of Mueller appeared to calm nerves on both sides of the aisle. Democrats indicated they were comfortable with Rosenstein overseeing the probe, if only because they trusted Mueller to report any potential interference. 
 
 On Friday, though, the Democratic National Committee called for Rosenstein’s recusal and urged DOJ to bypass other Trump appointees and hand the matter to a career official. 
 
 The Justice Department said on Friday that there are no current plans for recusal. "As the Deputy Attorney General has said numerous times, if there comes a point when he needs to recuse, he will. However, nothing has changed," a spokesman said in a statement. 
 
 Several White House scandal veterans told POLITICO this week that it’s only a matter of time before Rosenstein recuses himself from being the official liaison to the Mueller probe. That move is necessary, they explained, because Rosenstein is likely going to be an integral part of the expanding investigation – the special counsel staff now includes 13 prosecutors plus Mueller, and it intends to keep hiring -- on the obstruction of justice case. 
 
 “He’s going to be an important witness in this case potentially. He’s definitely going to get interviewed,” said Peter Zeidenberg, who served on the DOJ special prosecution team during the George W. Bush-era Valerie Plame Wilson CIA leak investigation and now works as a partner at Arent Fox. 
 
 Reports emerged earlier this week suggesting Mueller’s probe had begun looking at the prospect of obstruction by Trump himself. Trump fired Comey on May 9 while Comey was overseeing the initial Russia investigation. Comey has since testified that Trump had asked him repeatedly to publicly announce he was not under investigation. Comey gave him private assurances that he was not a target of the investigation at that stage. The FBI director during his appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee said it was on Mueller to make the legal determination on whether to pursue obstruction of justice charges, and now Trump himself acknowledges he’s being investigated by the special counsel. 
 
 This week, Trump surrogates have questioned Mueller’s integrity leading the special counsel probe because of his long-standing friendship with Comey. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also criticized Mueller for adding several prosecutors to his team who have donated to Democrats. On Thursday, Trump joined the chorus, tweeting the Russia probe was being “led by some very bad and conflicted people!” 
 
 The president’s latest social media missive Friday appears to have turned his ire toward Rosenstein, who he nominated to the second-highest post in the Justice Department earlier this year. Though typically, the attorney general would have the authority to hire or dismiss a special counsel, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself in March from any decision-making authority over the Russia probe. 
 
 Trump’s Twitter attack comes a day after Rosenstein issued a cryptic statement, urging Americans not to believe news stories that cite undisclosed sources. 
 
 “Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous ‘officials,’ particularly when they do not identify the country — let alone the branch or agency of government — with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated. Americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. The Department of Justice has a long-established policy to neither confirm nor deny such allegations,” the statement read. 
 
 Politically, both Democrats and Republicans in recent days have warned Trump about the consequences if he did pull the trigger and fire the senior current and former DOJ officials who have the reins on the Russia investigation. 
 
 “I think firing Mueller could trigger an impeachment process,” Chris Ruddy, CEO of the conservative publication Newsmax said earlier this week in an interview just hours before visiting senior Trump aides at the White House. “It could be very dangerous.” 
 
 “It might be something from which he might not be able to recover from,” added Ben-Veniste. 
 
 But others aren’t so sure, especially after a presidential campaign that saw Trump survive a series of seemingly fatal missteps that in past election cycles have sunk other White House contenders. “Everyone says it would be a disaster to fire him, but is that right?” said one prominent Washington-based attorney who works with the Trump White House. “Have norms shifted so much that even a ‘massacre’ does not matter?” ||||| President Trump's friend, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy, started a media storm Monday evening when he told PBS's Judy Woodruff that Trump was "considering perhaps terminating the special counsel" Robert Mueller, who is overseeing the Russia investigation. 
 
 "I think he's weighing that option," Ruddy said. 
 
 Between the lines: Ruddy never actually spoke to Trump about firing Mueller, a source close to Ruddy tells me, but was reading between the lines of what others had said. Indeed, Ruddy referred to comments from Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's lawyers, who didn't rule out that Trump might fire Mueller in an appearance Sunday on ABC's "This Week." 
 
 Sean Spicer confirmed Trump hadn't discussed the matter with Ruddy: "Mr. Ruddy never spoke to the President regarding this issue. With respect to this subject, only the President or his attorneys are authorized to comment." ||||| President Trump Donald John TrumpHouse Republicans push Mulvaney, Trump to rescind Gateway funds Pruitt spent K flying aides to Australia to prep for later-canceled visit: report Rosenstein told Trump he is not a target of Mueller probe: report MORE is adding prominent white-collar attorney Joseph diGenova to his personal legal team, the latest sign of an increasingly aggressive stance toward special counsel Robert Mueller Robert Swan MuellerSasse: US should applaud choice of Mueller to lead Russia probe MORE’s investigation. 
 
 The White House insists that there are no plans to fire Mueller. But Trump’s own tweets and his decision to hire diGenova — a former U.S. attorney who has attacked the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) in conservative media outlets — are the latest signs that the president is moving to discredit Mueller’s probe. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 The confrontational posture comes as Mueller’s investigation has reportedly extended to Trump’s personal business empire, and as the White House and the special counsel negotiate the parameters of a potential interview. 
 
 “It shows they’re taking this very seriously and recognize that it’s not going away any time soon, and that the stakes are just climbing higher,�? said former U.S. Attorney John Wood. 
 
 DiGenova has been a fixture in the Washington, D.C., legal community for years. He is married to Victoria Toensing, who represents an informant at the center of the Uranium One investigation being conducted by Republicans in Congress. 
 
 Like Trump, diGenova has a harsh assessment of former FBI Director James Comey James Brien ComeyJustice to provide access to Comey memos to GOP lawmakers Judge questions whether DOJ gave Mueller too much power Justice Dept inspector asks US attorney to consider criminal charges for McCabe: reports MORE. DiGenova has described Comey as “the dirtiest cop in America�? and accused him of destroying the FBI’s reputation with his “bizarre personal behavior.�? 
 
 The New York Times first reported on diGenova’s hiring, and in that story highlighted his past claim that the Justice Department had framed Trump by “creating a false crime�? of collusion. One prominent legal figure described diGenova to The Hill as “a wild card.�? 
 
 DiGenova joins a team of Trump’s personal lawyers who have freely attacked the special counsel, breaking from the more reserved stance the president’s White House legal team has taken up to now. 
 
 Trump attorney Jay Sekulow is a frequent guest on Fox News’s “Hannity,�? where he has railed against alleged corruption at the FBI and DOJ and demanded a second special counsel investigate what he describes as irregularities in the separate investigations into Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonJustice to provide access to Comey memos to GOP lawmakers Justice Dept inspector asks US attorney to consider criminal charges for McCabe: reports 'Homeland' to drop Trump allegories in next season MORE and Trump. 
 
 On his Monday radio show, Sekulow detailed the chain of events he said wrongly led to the special counsel investigation of Trump and called out individuals at the DOJ and FBI by name for alleged anti-Trump bias. 
 
 “You have to look at the totality of circumstances here and ask yourself, what is happening?�? Sekulow said. 
 
 Sekulow’s remarks came one day after another of Trump’s personal attorneys, John Dowd, sent Washington into a frenzy by calling for an end to the special counsel. 
 
 Dowd publicly pressured Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Rod Jay RosensteinRosenstein told Trump he is not a target of Mueller probe: report Justice to provide access to Comey memos to GOP lawmakers Judge questions whether DOJ gave Mueller too much power MORE, who is overseeing the special counsel because Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsAppeals court rules against Trump effort to hit 'sanctuary cities' Justice Dept inspector asks US attorney to consider criminal charges for McCabe: reports Poll: Almost two-thirds of Texas voters support legal recreational marijuana MORE recused himself, to “bring an end to alleged Russia Collusion investigation�? that he said had been “manufactured�? by Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe Andrew George McCabeJustice Dept inspector asks US attorney to consider criminal charges for McCabe: reports James Comey and Andrew McCabe: You read, you decide GOP lawmakers demand Sessions investigate Clinton, Comey MORE, whom Sessions fired on Friday night. 
 
 Dowd said the entire special counsel investigation was “based upon a fraudulent and corrupt dossier�? compiled by British spy Christopher Steele and paid for in part by Democrats, including the Clinton campaign. 
 
 That statement preceded a round of blistering tweets from the president, in which Trump vented his frustration with Mueller and singled him out for criticism by name for the first time. 
 
 Trump accused Mueller of stocking his team with Democrats and said the special counsel was a “witch hunt�? that was rife with “massive conflicts of interest.�? 
 
 The White House quickly sought to throw cold water on the notion that Mueller’s firing was immanent. 
 
 “There are no conversations or discussions about removing Mr. Mueller,�? deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said Monday. 
 
 Ty Cobb, who leads the president’s White House legal team, issued a similar statement. 
 
 “The President is not considering or discussing the firing of the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller,�? Cobb said in a statement. 
 
 The White House position has long been that it is cooperating with Mueller in the hopes that he would conduct a swift investigation that clears the president of wrongdoing. 
 
 Cobb had been hopeful that the special counsel would wrap by the end of 2017 or in early 2018. 
 
 The White House legal team believes it has finished providing the thousands of internal documents the special counsel requested. Cobb’s team has been in a holding pattern, even as media reports indicate that Mueller’s probe has expanded to include everything from the Trump Organization to Jared Kushner Jared Corey KushnerTillerson believes Kushner was responsible for rumors of ouster: report The danger in firing Rod Rosenstein Relations with Latin America sour under Trump MORE’s business dealings to a private meeting with a Russian official at an exclusive island resort in the Indian Ocean. 
 
 Still, Robert Ray, the former independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation during the Clinton administration, says that as long as Cobb is in charge of the White House legal team, any notion that there has been a change in legal strategy is overblown. 
 
 “Ty Cobb has been the constant fixture here,�? Ray said. “There’s no indication anything has changed until he’s no longer in the loop. There is still a sense that they’re operating under the principle that the White House will cooperate and hand over the relevant witnesses and documents to try to bring this to a close. There will always be a political atmospherics and outside lawyers joining or leaving, but there haven’t been any fundamental changes.�? 
 
 Mueller still has the confidence of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, with several Republicans warning Trump against firing him on Monday. 
 
 Mueller, a Republican, was confirmed in a 98-0 vote to lead the FBI in 2001 under George W. Bush and by a 100-0 vote when Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaJudge rules against Trump administration in teen pregnancy prevention case Parkland student rips Obama for essay on shooting survivors Obama pens Time 100 entry for Parkland survivors MORE asked him to continue in the role in 2011. 
 
 “I think there would be a number of unintended consequences [if Trump were to fire Mueller] and I’m not going to speculate what those are,�? said Sen. John Cornyn John CornynSenate confirms Trump’s pick to lead NASA DOJ denies reports judicial nominee once called illegal immigrants 'maggots' Overnight Energy: Trump NASA pick advances after drama | White House office to investigate Pruitt's soundproof booth | 170 lawmakers call for Pruitt to resign MORE (R-Texas). 
 
 Even Fox News host Sean Hannity, who is friends with Trump and pillories Mueller every night on his top-rated cable show, sought to dampen speculation that the special counsel would be fired. 
 
 Hannity made a rare appearance on the morning show “Fox & Friends,�? a program that the president is known to watch, and offered a word of caution about Mueller. 
 
 “If I was advising the president, I’d say, let this investigation go forward. We’re probably coming to the end of it, if I had to render a guess, and it would be in his best interest 
 
 probably not to comment,�? Hannity said. 
 
 “All the president was saying was, this [special counsel investigation] should never have been. This never should have happened,�? Hannity continued. “I would argue we’re 
 
 getting to the end of the process. There’s not going to be any firing of Mueller.�? 
 
 The president saw the segment and tweeted out praise for Hannity shortly after it was over. ||||| poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201706/2583/1155968404_5472619561001_5472596186001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Trump, facing deepening probes, revives attacks on Clinton The president also calls reports he's under investigation for obstruction of justice 'phony.' 
 
 President Donald Trump revived his campaign rhetoric against Hillary Clinton on Thursday, questioning why “Crooked H” and the Democrats aren’t being investigated for their alleged “dealings with Russia” as Trump faces deepening FBI and congressional probes. 
 
 “Why is [it] that Hillary Clintons family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are?” Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon. 
 
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 “Crooked H destroyed phones w/ hammer, ‘bleached’ emails, & had husband meet w/AG days before she was cleared- & they talk about obstruction?” he said in a follow-up post. 
 
 A staffer destroyed Clinton’s phones with a hammer, according to FBI documents, and an employee managing her private email server deleted tens of thousands of emails after her staff was subpoenaed for Benghazi-related emails, though the FBI couldn’t conclude whether the act was deliberate. 
 
 Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, did meet privately with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on an airport tarmac days before the FBI director recommended no charges against the former secretary of state, but the Democratic nominee had no clear role in the impromptu meeting, as Trump's tweet suggests. 
 
 The rare pair of afternoon tweets — Trump has shown a propensity to tweet in the morning hours as he watches cable news — resumed what the president began earlier Thursday. 
 
 Trump on Thursday morning lashed out after reports that special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating him for obstruction of justice, suggesting that such allegations have been cooked up to replace accusations that his campaign colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 election. 
 
 “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,” Trump tweeted. 
 
 In a subsequent post, Trump attacked those investigating him, calling them "very bad and conflicted people," although he did not specify whether he was referring to the congressional probes into his 2016 campaign or the special counsel's investigation. 
 
 "You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people! #MAGA," Trump wrote. 
 
 The posts marked a dramatic shift in tone from the president, who spent Wednesday in a unifying mode following shootings at a GOP congressional baseball practice in Virginia. The gunman, who was killed in an exchange of fire with U.S. Capitol Police, left five people injured, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). 
 
 In televised remarks delivered from the White House Diplomatic Room, Trump said that "we do well in times like these to remember everyone who serves in our nation’s capital is here because, above all, they love our country." Hours later, The Washington Post reported that Mueller, tasked with leading an independent Russia investigation, had expanded that investigation to examine whether the president committed obstruction of justice. 
 
 Mueller's probe reportedly includes not only Trump’s conversations with former FBI Director James Comey, in which the president allegedly asked Comey to drop the bureau’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, but also Trump's interactions with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, CIA Director Mike Pompeo and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers. 
 
 According to the Post, the investigation into whether Trump sought to obstruct justice began shortly after he fired Comey, in line with private assurances that the former FBI director offered to the president that he was not under investigation at the time. 
 
 Trump has loudly denied that there was any collusion between his campaign and the Kremlin and has suggested that Comey lied about his interactions with the president regarding Flynn. Trump has suggested that there could be recordings of his interactions with Comey that would vindicate him, although he has yet to release any such recordings or even confirm their existence. 
 
 The president's denials have seemingly done little to assuage the concerns of the American public. A poll released Thursday by The Associated Press found that more than 60 percent of Americans think that Trump "has tried to impede or obstruct the investigation" into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. 
 
 The poll also shows that 68 percent of those surveyed are at least moderately concerned that the president or someone associated with his campaign had ties to the Kremlin that would be considered inappropriate. Forty-eight percent said they were either "very concerned" or "extremely concerned." 
 
 While Trump opted against naming which “very bad and conflicted people” he was referring to in his Thursday morning tweet, allies of the president have been much more direct in their criticism. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich launched a multitweet flurry Thursday morning in the wake of the Post report. 
 
 “What happened to Russia? Anti-Trump focus of ‘special’ counsel should now be clear. Mueller is the ‘anti-Trump special counsel,’” Gingrich wrote. “Mueller is now clearly the tip of the deep state spear aimed at destroying or at a minimum undermining and crippling the Trump presidency. Mueller is setting up a dragnet of obstruction, financial questions and every aspect of Trump's life and his associates’ lives. Very dangerous.” 
 
 “The brazen redefinition of Mueller's task tells you how arrogant the deep state is and how confident it is it can get away with anything,” the former speaker added. 
 
 Gingrich’s statements of late regarding Mueller mark an about-face for the former speaker, who initially called the special counselor a “superb choice” whose “reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity.” By Tuesday, as other Trump allies worked to discredit Mueller on Twitter and through TV appearances, Gingrich shifted his tone, writing online that “Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair.” 
 
 Despite his criticism, Gingrich, who claimed to have spoken to the president on Monday night, said he did not believe Trump would fire Mueller, something he had been reportedly considering earlier this week. Chris Ruddy, a friend of Trump’s who heads the conservative outlet Newsmax, said Monday that he believed Trump was considering dismissing Mueller, although he later said he had not talked to the president directly about the issue. 
 
 The White House, too, has said Trump does not have plans to fire Mueller, although it has maintained that he has the right to if he chooses. Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal attorneys handling the Russia investigation, declined Sunday to rule out the possibility that the president might dismiss the special counsel. ||||| For 10 months, President Donald Trump and his team abided by a simple rule: Don’t go after special counsel Robert Mueller. 
 
 But this weekend, as he digested news that the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election was circling nearer to him and his family, Trump came closer than ever to abandoning his unspoken truce with Mueller, reigniting fears among Republicans that the president could fire the special counsel. 
 
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 Cooped up in the White House without any public events on his schedule and cable news blaring, Trump unleashed a Twitter tirade that differed from past outbursts in one significant way: He mentioned Mueller directly. Before this weekend, Trump had only referenced Mueller by name once on Twitter, in a retweet. 
 
 Now, it appears, Mueller is fair game. 
 
 “The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” Trump tweeted Saturday night. On Sunday morning, he asked, “Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans?” 
 
 Some members of the special counsel's team have donated to Democrats in the past, but it is false to claim that the entire team is made up of Democrats. Mueller himself is a Republican. 
 
 By Sunday afternoon, Trump had left the confines of the White House to visit his golf course in Virginia. Later Sunday, the White House said that there were no plans to fire Mueller. 
 
 “In response to media speculation and related questions being posed to the Administration,“ attorney Ty Cobb said in a statement, “the White House yet again confirms that the President is not considering or discussing the firing of the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.” 
 
 Until this weekend, Mueller was the rare figure in Trump’s orbit who seemed off-limits. The president and his aides have taken pains to avoid attacking Mueller, even as they repeatedly stressed that there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. “We’re going to continue to fully cooperate out of respect for the special counsel,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters last week. 
 
 Trump’s comments come after his lawyer, John Dowd, on Saturday urged Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to shutter Mueller’s investigation. Dowd reportedly first told The Daily Beast he was speaking in his capacity as Trump’s lawyer, but he later backtracked, insisting he was speaking only for himself. 
 
 A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment. Sanders did not respond to questions about whether Trump would fire Mueller. 
 
 Firing Mueller would set off a firestorm in Washington, likely triggering a severe backlash against the president even among his Republican supporters in Congress. 
 
 “If he tried to do that, that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency, because we're a rule-of-law nation,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. The senator issued the same warning last summer after Trump raised the same alarms. 
 
 A person familiar with the president’s thinking on the Mueller probe told POLITICO on Sunday that Trump’s tweets over the previous 48 hours appeared to be a response to the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, news of the Trump Organization subpoena, and what he’s been hearing from his friends outside his immediate circle of staffers and attorneys. 
 
 “We know he’s obsessed with this case. He’s been obsessed with it from Day One, since before the special counsel’s been appointed,” the person said. “We know he actually enjoys talking about it because it goes to his nature. It goes to what he knows best: a fight.” 
 
 The person downplayed the notion that Trump’s tweets are the result of a strategic push by the president’s lawyers and advisers to undercut Mueller. 
 
 “[Trump] trusts his own instincts. He trusts it above the instincts of his own lawyers. He trusts it above the instincts of his own communications team, whether inside or outside the White House,” the person said. 
 
 
 
 Playbook PM Sign up for our must-read newsletter on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. 
 
 Meanwhile, Trump also suggested Sunday morning that McCabe, who was fired Friday, did not make memos of their conversations in person and that such documents, if they do exist, could be "fake." 
 
 "Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me," the president wrote on Twitter. "I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?" 
 
 On Saturday, POLITICO reported that McCabe, like former FBI Director James Comey, felt the need to memorialize his conversations with the president before he was fired on Friday. The former top FBI official has also given the memos to Mueller's team, as it continues to probe Russian interference in the 2016 election. 
 
 The president also continued his attacks on Comey, who is set to release a book soon. 
 
 “Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when asked ‘have you ever been an anonymous source ... or known someone else to be an anonymous source...?’ He said strongly ‘never, no.’ He lied as shown clearly on @foxandfriends.“ 
 
 Seizing on a point made in conservative media, including by Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, Trump claimed that Comey lied under oath during his testimony to Congress last June. The former director's testimony has receive renewed attention over reports that McCabe, who was fired for for unauthorized disclosure to the media, may have done so with Comey's knowledge or blessing. 
 
 If Comey were to have authorized McCabe to speak to the media, it could contradict what the former director told Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) during his testimony. 
 
 "Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?" Grassley, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, asked last summer, according to a transcript of the hearing. 
 
 "Never," Comey responded. 
 
 The Iowa senator asked again: "Question two, relatively related, have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?" 
 
 "No," Comey said. 
 
 While Trump has frequently blasted the Russia probe, he had steered clear of attacks on Mueller, even once calling him “an honorable man” in a Fox News interview. 
 
 Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said Sunday that the president may have a point when it comes to the number of Democrats on Mueller's team, but he largely praised the special counsel for limiting leaks and for the detailed information included in the Feb. 16 indictment of 13 Russian nationals and other businesses for their alleged role in interfering with the election. 
 
 "It is odd the number of Democrats that he has put on board his team," Lankford told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week." "That does raise some flags in some sense there." 
 
 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer argued that the president is "floating trial balloons" to derail Mueller's probe. 
 
 "The president is floating trial balloons about derailing the Mueller investigation," the New York Democrat said in a statement. "Our Republican colleagues, particularly the leadership, have an obligation to our country to stand up now and make it clear that firing Mueller is a red line for our democracy that cannot be crossed." 
 
 Rep. Adam Schiff, speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” said the idea of Mueller being fired was something that needed to be condemned before it could happen. 
 
 “Members need to speak out now,” the California Democrat said of his colleagues in Congress. “Don't wait for the crisis.” 
 
 Trump’s comments came at the end of a chaotic week that also saw the president fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and leave national security adviser H.R. McMaster dangling in the wind. 
 
 A defense lawyer working with a senior Trump aide on the Russia case said in an email that the president’s latest assault on Mueller “seems to me to be of a piece with the firing of Tillerson and the trash chute on which McMaster has been placed (not enough to just fire someone, you need to publicly humiliate them for a few weeks first), namely, Trump unshackled.” 
 
 “He appears to believe that — across the board — his instincts are better than those around him who have been exerting a moderating influence,” the lawyer added. “It's no secret where Trump stands on Mueller and, so, no particular surprise that this is coming now. And, as at the White House more generally, there are always those — in this case, Dowd —who are ready to reaffirm his (worst) impulses and act on them.” 
 
 Josh Gerstein and David Cohen contributed to this report.
– Christopher Ruddy is seen as a confidante of President Trump, so his assertion on PBS on Monday that Trump might fire special prosecutor Robert Mueller is drawing a lot of attention. It wasn't exactly a firm statement, with the Newsmax CEO saying that Trump is "considering perhaps terminating" Mueller, who is looking into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. He added: "I think he's weighing that option." That prompted a quick response from White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who said that Ruddy "never spoke to the president regarding this issue" and that "only the president or his attorneys are authorized to comment.” Related coverage: Who's Ruddy? The Los Angeles Times has a quick bio of the longtime Trump pal that explains why he's generally a reliable gauge on what Trump is thinking. Trial balloon? That Atlantic speculates that Ruddy could be deliberately floating the idea to see how it flies, noting that he's done so previously with, among other things, statements in regard to Reince Priebus. 'Explosive': The New York Times says firing Mueller would be "politically explosive" given Trump's recent firing of James Comey. It might mean that he'd have to fire deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, too, the man who appointed Mueller in the first place. A big no: Rosenstein himself testified before a Senate panel on Tuesday and was asked a simple question by Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen: “Have you seen good cause for firing Mueller?” He had a simple answer, per the Hill: “I have not." Conservative push: Newt Gingrich initially praised Mueller as a "superb choice," but on Monday, he tweeted: "Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair. Look who he is hiring.check fec reports. Time to rethink." Fellow conservative Ann Coulter joined the push, tweeting, "Now that we know TRUMP IS NOT UNDER INVESTIGATION, Sessions should take it back & fire Mueller." Big hire: Gingrich's remark about Mueller's hires may be in reference to high-powered criminal specialist Michael Dreeben joining the team. A post at Lawfare on Friday called the hire "the worst thing that happened to Donald Trump this week," because it signaled an aggressive investigation. Overplayed? A post at Axios suggests all this will amount to nothing. "Ordering the firing of Mueller really does seem unlikely," writes Mike Allen. "The near-universal advice Trump will be getting from his White House team—and from legal advisors close to the administration—will be that it's a catastrophic idea to get rid of Mueller." Before Ruddy: On ABC Sunday, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow perhaps got all this started by refusing to rule out the possibility of Trump firing Mueller. "I'm not going to speculate on what he will, or will not, do," said Sekulow, per Politico. He added that he "can't imagine" it would happen, however.