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Trump unloads on Robert Mueller calling FBI raid on his attorney Michael Cohen 'an attack on our country and what we also stand for' after agents seize Stormy Daniels payment documents in campaign finance and bank fraud probe

Trump voices fury after his personal attorney Michael Cohen has his hotel room and office raided calling it 'an attack on our country'

At the White House he blames Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia probe and says: 'I have this witch hunt constantly going on.'

He called raid 'an attack on our country and what we also stand for' and claimed the Mueller probe is 'biased' 'conflicted' and Hillary Clinton is escaping scrutiny

FBI agents seized documents and emails relating to the payment Cohen made to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claims she had sex with Trump

Cohen is being probed for bank fraud and campaign finance violations and had his personal phone computer and bank records seized

He made $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels just before election to silence her on claim of sex with Trump; Trump denied knowing about it last week

Mueller took information about potential crime unrelated to his Russia probe to deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein who asked New York feds to act on it

Cohen's own attorney called move 'completely inappropriate and unnecessary' but Stormy Daniels's lawyer Michael Avenatti said: 'This could end badly for DJT'

Daniels also announced she is to pose nude for Penthouse and be interviewed by the magazine with more explicit details of her claims about sex with Trump

President Donald Trump hit back at the FBI's dramatic Monday raid on his longtime personal attorney hours after it happened with a blistering attack on the special counsel, federal investigators and his own attorney general.

FBI agents swooped in on the offices of longtime Donald Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen Monday – seizing a trove of documents related to the porn star Stormy Daniels case and communications between the attorney and the president, in a dramatic escalation of Robert Mueller's special counsel probe.

Agents got a warrant based on a 'referral' from Mueller, Cohen's lawyer claimed, according to a report in the New York Times, only days after Trump had denied having anything to do with paying the porn star.

They took his phone, personal computer and bank records - and he is now being investigated for both possible bank fraud and campaign finance violations, the Washington Post reported.

Hours later at the White House, flanked by cabinet members who were there to discuss how to respond to a chemical weapons attack in Syria, he raged: 'They raid an office of a personal attorney early in the morning and I think it's a disgrace.'

Trump called it 'an attack on our country and what we all stand for'.

He said agents 'broke into' Michael's Cohen's Manhattan office – a reference to search warrants executed that swept up a trove of documents related to the $130,000 payment to porn star Daniels as well as communications between Trump and his lawyer.

Trump on FBI raiding Michael Cohen: It's a total witch hunt

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Fury: Trump called the raid ordered by federal prosecutors on his personal attorney Michael Cohen's hotel room and offices 'an attack on our country and what we all stand for'.

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Fighting talk: Trump had been meeting senior military leaders and members of his national security team - including (right) his new national security advisor John Bolton - when he launched his angry tirade against the Mueller raid

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Michael Cohen, a personal attorney for President Trump, had his hotel room and office both raided by the FBI acting on the instructions of the attorney general

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Raided: Michael Cohen had been living at the Loews Regency on Park Avenue, close to Trump Tower, and had FBI agents raid his room there on Monday morning.

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Raided: Michael Cohen's offices are in 30 Rockefeller Plaza, which is also home to many of NBC's most high-profile shows including The Today Show, Nightly News and Saturday Night Live

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Target: He also went after Attorney General Jeff Sessions – whose decision to recuse himself set in motion events that led to the appointment of Mueller by deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein (right) who is revealed to have okayed the raid after hearing from Mueller.

He called Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators 'the most conflicted group of people I have ever seen.'

'This is the most biased group of people. These people have the biggest conflicts of interest I've ever seen. Democrats all, just about all,' Trump said, although Mueller himself is a Republican.

Agents seized tax documents and business records as they raided the Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue where Cohen had been staying, and his office in 30 Rockefeller Plaza, just above NBC's studios.

'They continue to just go forward and here we are talking about Syria, we're talking about a lot of serious things ... and I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now. Actually it's much more than that. You could say right after I won the nomination it started

Trump after raid on his attorney

Trump also went after Attorney General Jeff Sessions – whose decision to recuse himself set in motion events that led to the appointment of Mueller by deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who is revealed to have okayed the raid after hearing from Mueller.

'He should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself and we would have put a different attorney general in,' said Trump, revising a longtime anger at the situation.

His admission that he would have replaced Sessions to head off the recusal could figure in Mueller's ongoing effort to establish obstruction of justice.

He continued to tout Mueller's failure to charge Trump or anyone on his team of colluding with the Russians, even as the probe continues to bring in members of his inner circle on other matters.

'They found no collusion whatsoever with Russia,' said Trump, seated in front of national security advisor John Bolton, experiencing his first day on the job.

Trump's remarks then meandered into territory explored by the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee and the early days of the Russia investigation.

They also dwelled on Rosenstein – a pivotal figure whose removal might be necessary in order to engineer Mueller's ouster.

A DOJ Inspector General is probing FBI conduct in the Clinton and Russia probes. Republicans on the panel have complained about a surveillance warrant that authorities got on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page over his Russia contacts.

Continuing to go after Rosenstein, Trump said: 'But it turns out he also signed the FISA warrant -- Rod Rosenstein who's in charge also signed the FISA warrant and he also signed a letter that was essentially saying to fire James Comey and he was right about that. He was absolutely right about that.'

'This is a pure and simple witch hunt,' Trump said.

Trump repeatedly sought to cast the probe as a hindrance to his ability to conduct his office, complaining that he was trying to plan to counter a chemical weapons attack in Syria.

And he called on Justice Department investigators to focus on 'crimes' on the 'other side' – meaning Democrats and the Hillary Clinton camp.

'So I just heard they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys,' Trump began using terminology associated with a crime.

'It's a disgraceful situation. It's a total witch hunt. I've been saying it for a long time. I've wanted to keep it down. I've given over a million pages in documents to the special counsel,' he said.

'When I saw this, when I heard about it, that is a whole new level of unfairness,' he said.

'This is the most biased group of people. These people have the biggest conflicts of interest I have ever seen. Democrats -- all. Either Democrats or a couple of Republicans who worked for President Obama,' he vented.

'They're not looking at the other side -- Hillary Clinton... all of the crimes that were committed, all of the things that happened that everybody is very angry about from the Republican side and the independent side. They only keep looking at us,' Trump went on.

Trump even blamed investigators allowed a raid on his attorney's office for spoiling what could have been an up day on the stock market.

'The stock market dropped a lot today as soon as they heard the noise you know of this nonsense that was going on. It dropped a lot,' Trump complained.

'It was up -- it was way up. It dropped quite a bit at the end. That we have to go through that. We've had that hanging over us from the very, very beginning. And yet the other side they're not even looking.'

'And the other side is where there are crimes and those crimes are obvious -- lies under oath all over the place, emails that are knocked out, that are acid washed and deleted, 33,000 emails were deleted after getting a subpoena from Congress. And nobody bothers looking at that,' Trump said.

The raid appears most likely to be related to Cohen's $130,000 payment to Daniels days before the election - but the FBI, Mueller, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York all declined to comment on the purpose.

FBI raids Trump's attorney Michael Cohen's office and hotel

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It all goes back to this: Daniels claims she and Trump had an affair in 2006. She took a $130,000 payment from Cohen in return for signing a gag order just before the election. That appears to now be at the center of a federal probe

Bloomberg reported that Mueller had gone to Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who oversees his probe, with information which Rosenstein decided to refer to the Manhattan U.S. attorney.

The raid prompted a furious response from Cohen's own attorney, who said that 'privileged communications' had been seized.

'Today the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients,' said Cohen's attorney Stephen Ryan.

'I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller,' he said.

'The decision by the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York to conduct their investigation using search warrants is completely inappropriate and unnecessary.

'It resulted in the unnecessary seizure of protected attorney client communications between a lawyer and his clients.'

In a bizarre twist, Irish UFC star Conor McGregor has been staying at the Loews hotel after being charged with felony criminal mischief and a string of other crimes after he attacked a bus carrying other UFC stars with a dolly at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn last week.

Daniels' lawyer Avenatti tweeted: 'An enormous amount of misplaced faith has been placed on MC's shoulders IMO. If he does not hold up, this could end very very badly for DJT and others.'

His client had just announced that she would pose nude for Penthouse and be interviewed on her account of sex with Trump in much more explicit terms than she had spoken during her 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper.

Mueller is overseeing the probe of contacts between Russians and the Trump campaign.

CNN reported that President Trump had watched TV broadcasts of the FBI raid on his longtime personal attorney – and that he knew about the raid before the news came out.

Daniels is suing to have a nondisclosure agreement she and Cohen signed whereby she got $130,000 and agreed not to disclose any details of a relationship with a man.

President Trump breaks his silence on Stormy Daniels scandal

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Cohen's lawyer claims the referral came from special counsel Robert Mueller's office

Cohen says he made the payment with his own funds and without Trump's knowledge. Bank records have revealed he set up a Delaware LLC shortly before the payment was made to Daniels from the LLC.

Daniels claims she had a sexual affair with Trump, who did not sign the agreement, although a pseudonym for him was left blank on the final agreement.

She has spoken about the alleged affair on CBS '60 Minutes' notwithstanding the agreement that her lawyer says is void.

Cohen says he paid the money out of his topic to help Trump. He says he made it out of his own personal funds.

Ryan claimed agents seized 'protected attorney client communications,' the Associated Press reported, without further explanation.

The raid comes just days after Trump made his first comments on the porn star aboard Air Force One Thursday – and denied any advance knowledge of the payment that appeared to benefit him and his campaign just days before the 2016 election.

Asked if he knew about the payment, the president said 'No.'

Asked why Cohen made the payment, Trump said: 'Michael is my attorney. You'll have to ask Michael.'

The, asked by reporters on Air Force One if he knew where the money came from, Trump said: 'No, I don't know.'

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is suing for relief from a non-disclosure agreement that her lawyer claims is null and invalid.

Bloomberg reported that Mueller brought the information to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Russia probe and who decided that it should be handled by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District.

Mueller's general area deals with Russia-related matters. Under a memo partially revealed in a Mueller court filing, he is to go to Rosenstein's office for matters that fall outside his jurisdiction.

Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti, has been keeping the story in the news, now claiming he has a forensic sketch of a man who threatened her to keep quiet in 2011.

Avenatti said Cohen: 'has been placed in the crosshairs by Mr. Trump. He has been set up to take the fall.'

He also filed court papers Sunday to try to force Trump to answer questions about the agreement.

He is seeking a jury trial and wants sworn testimony from Trump and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, about a $130,000 payment made to Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election as part of a nondisclosure agreement she is seeking to invalidate.

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Stormy Daniels in her interview with Anderson Cooper to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, March 25

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The actress Stephanie Clifford, who uses the stage name Stormy Daniels, performs at the Solid Gold Fort Lauderdale strip club on March 9, 2018 in Pompano Beach, Florida

White House denies Trump has sexual relationship with Stormy

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Stormy Daniels: I was threatened to drop Trump affair story.

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Michael Avenatti on CNN April 9, 2018

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Michael Avenatti tweeted the photo on Sunday of Daniels with Lois Gibson, who he referred to as 'the foremost forensic artist in the world'

Stormy Daniels tried to sell story weeks before election

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'We're going to be releasing that tomorrow along with a significant reward asking that the public come forward,' Avenatti said on CNN. 'We are very close to identifying this individual.'

He predicted that identifying the man his client says threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot will ' tighten the noose, if you will.'

It's unclear how Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, could remember facial features of the man seven years later. But Avenatti hinted that the result will point to the president or his inner circle.

The threat 'could only have come from one of three places,' he said confidently.

'My client, which means she threatened herself, which makes no sense; In Touch magazine, which makes no sense because why would they threaten my client relating to the publication of an interview in their own magazine?; or someone associated with Trump or the Trump Organization.'

He (Trump) was like, 'Wow, you-- you are special. You remind me of my daughter.' You know-- he was like, 'You're smart and beautiful, and a woman to be reckoned with, and I like you. I like you.'

Daniels on the night she 'had sex' with Trump in 2006

Daniels said in a Los Angeles court filing she always thought Trump was a party to the deal.

'Such an agreement would not have made sense for many reasons,' she said in the filing.

'It was my understanding that Donald Trump was a party to the Settlement Agreement and that he was going to sign both documents,' Daniels said.

Her lawyer is trying to establish a basis for questioning Trump about the deal, even though he is not a signatory.

Beyond his attorney's statement, it is not clear what the overall objective of the search was.

Cohen appears in the infamous Steele Dossier of unverified information about President Trump and ties between his associates and Russia.

He is suing Buzzfeed for publishing the document.

Even if Stormy Documents got scooped up, it is possible warrants were seeking information of another variety.

Cohen was in contact for the Trump Organization with Russian-American businessman Felix Sater in 2015 about a proposed Trump Tower Moscow.

SPANKING, A $130,000 GAG ORDER AND SECRET DEALS - HOW CLAIMS OF SEX WITH STORMY DANIELS TURNED INTO A FULL-SCALE FBI RAID

July 2006: Porn star Stormy Daniels says she meets now President Donald Trump at a Nevada golf tournament. They have an alleged sexual encounter.

2011: Daniels gives an interview about her tryst with Trump to In Touch Weekly. In 2018 she tells 60 Minutes that she was threatened by a man in Las Vegas over the telling of her story, and so the interview never ran.

October 2016: In the weeks before voters head to the polls, Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen uses a Delaware-based LLC to make a $130,000 payment to Daniels, in exchange for her to sign a non-disclosure agreement to keep quiet about the alleged sexual encounter.

May 17, 2017: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appoints former FBI Director Robert Mueller to take over the Russia probe on the heels of President Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey.

January 12, 2018: The Wall Street Journal breaks the story that Cohen paid the $130,000 to Daniels, weeks shy of the 2016 presidential election.

February 13, 2018: Cohen publicly admits to paying the $130,000, but says he did so with his own personal money, and was reimbursed by the Trump campaign nor the Trump Organization. In referencing the payment, Daniels' attorney says the NDA is breached.

March 6, 2018: The Washington Post reported that Mueller requested documents and interviewed witnesses about incidents involving Cohen. Additionally, Daniels filed a lawsuit against Trump in California Superior Court claiming that the NDA never went into effect because Trump never signed it.

March 16, 2018: Lawyers for both Cohen and Trump attempt to get the Daniels' lawsuit moved from state to federal court. This marked the first time lawyers for Trump are actively involved in legal action over the Daniels' matter.

March 28, 2018: The 60 Minutes' interview with Daniels airs. She details spanking Trump with a magazine with his face on the cover and having sex with him once.

April 5, 2018: For the first time, Trump speaks about the $130,000 payment telling reporters on board Air Force One that he had no knowledge of it at the time. 'You'll have to ask Michael,' the president responded when asked why Cohen made the payment

April 9, 2018: The FBI raids the New York City offices of Cohen. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan received a referral from Mueller, the New York Times reported. CNN reported that documents related to the Daniels affair were swept up in the search. In a noter to Cohen reported by the New York Times, Sater wrote: 'Lets make this happen and build a Trump Moscow. And possibly fix relations between the countries by showing everyone that commerce & business are much better and more practical than politics. That should be Putins message as well, and we will help him agree on that message. Help world peace and make a lot of money, I would say thats a great lifetime goal for us to go after.'

'Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,' Sater wrote.

Mueller is probing an array of contacts between Trump associates and Russians.

Trump has said repeatedly there was 'no collusion.'

The White House declined to comment on the raid when asked about it.

Watchdog group Common Cause has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission arguing that the payments to Daniels constitute a possible violation of campaign finance laws.

Paul Ryan of Common Cause told USA Today: 'I'm happy to see the DOJ is doing its job. Donald Trump said he knew nothing about the payment to Stormy Daniels. The FBI will now quickly get to the bottom of whether Trump lied to the American people when he said no knowledge about Michael Cohen's payment to Stormy Daniels,' he said.

Cohen also hand-delivered a so-called peace plan for Russia and Ukraine that would have lifted sanctions on Russia to fired national security advisor Michael Flynn, according to a Times report on the February delivery of a sealed plan.

Cohen delivered it a week before Flynn resigned.

The raid on Trump's longtime consigliere and latest twist in the Russia probe comes as Trump called out Russian President Vladimir Putin on Twitter by name for the first time following a suspected chemical weapons attack by the pro-Russia regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Syrian rebel territory.

The White House kicked out 60 Russian diplomats following the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain, and leveled new sanctions on Russian entities.

The raid immediately raised issues of attorney-client privilege. Cohen was the president's personal lawyer during the presidential campaign, which means their communications are assumed to be beyond the reach of law enforcement and the courts.

A critical loophole exists, however: the 'crime-fraud exception.' That allows prosecutors to use privileged material if it shows a client intended to further or cover up a crime.

Because of the usually sacrosanct nature of attorney-client communications, the FBI will likely use a 'taint team' to keep prosecutors from seeing anything privileged that could later cause a criminal conviction to be voided.

Every word of Trump's rant after Mueller's FBI agents raided his personal lawyer in probe

Here is every word of what President Donald Trump said as released in a White House transcript:

THE PRESIDENT: So I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys - a good man.

And it's a disgraceful situation. It's a total witch hunt. I've been saying it for a long time. I've wanted to keep it down.

We've given, I believe, over a million pages' worth of documents to the Special Counsel.

They continue to just go forward. And here we are talking about Syria and we're talking about a lot of serious things.

We're the greatest fighting force ever. And I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now - and actually, much more than that. You could say it was right after I won the nomination, it started.

And it's a disgrace. It's, frankly, a real disgrace. It's an attack on our country, in a true sense. It's an attack on what we all stand for.

So when I saw this and when I heard it - I heard it like you did - I said, that is really now on a whole new level of unfairness.

So this has been going on - I saw one of the reporters, who is not necessarily a fan of mine, not necessarily very good to me.

He said, in effect, that this is ridiculous; this is now getting ridiculous. They found no collusion whatsoever with Russia.

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Fire and fury: Trump let loose as he hold a session with his top advisers on what to do in the aftermath of a point gas attack in Syria

The reason they found it is there was no collusion at all. No collusion. This is the most biased group of people.

These people have the biggest conflicts of interest I've ever seen.

Democrats all - or just about all - either Democrats or a couple of Republicans that worked for President Obama, they're not looking at the other side; they're not looking at the Hillary Clinton - the horrible things that she did and all of the crimes that were committed.

They're not looking at all of the things that happened that everybody is very angry about, I can tell you, from the Republican side, and I think even the independent side. They only keep looking at us.

So they find no collusion, and then they go from there and they say, 'Well, let's keep going.'

And they raid an office of a personal attorney early in the morning. And I think it's a disgrace.

So we'll be talking about it more. But this is the most conflicted group of people I've ever seen.

The Attorney General made a terrible mistake when he did this, and when he recused himself.

Or he should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself, and we would have used a - put a different Attorney General in.

So he made what I consider to be a very terrible mistake for the country. But you'll figure that out.

All I can say is, after looking for a long period of time - and even before the Special Counsel - because it really started just about from the time I won the nomination.

And you look at what took place and what happened, and it's a disgrace. It's a disgrace.

I've been President now for what seems like a lengthy period of time. We've done a fantastic job.

We've beaten ISIS. We have just about 100 percent of the caliphate or the land. Our economy is incredible.

The stock market dropped a lot today as soon as they heard the noise of this nonsense that's going on. It dropped a lot. It was up - way up, and then it dropped quite a bit at the end. A lot.

But that we have to go through that - we've had that hanging over us now from the very, very beginning.

And yet the other side, they don't even bother looking. And the other side is where there are crimes, and those crimes are obvious.

Lies, under oath, all over the place. Emails that are knocked out, that are acid-washed and deleted.

Nobody has ever seen - 33,000 emails are deleted after getting a subpoena for Congress, and nobody bothers looking at that. And many, many other things.

So I just think it's a disgrace that a thing like this can happen. With all of that being said, we are here to discuss Syria tonight.

We're the greatest fighting force anywhere in the world. These gentlemen and ladies are incredible people, incredible talent, and we're making a decision as to what we do with respect to the horrible attack that was made near Damascus.

And it will be met, and it will be met forcefully. And when, I will not say, because I don't like talking about the timing.

But we are developing the greatest force that we've ever had. We had $700 billion just approved, which was the reason I went along with that budget because we had to fix our military.

General Mattis would tell you that above anybody. We had to fix our military. And right now, we're in a big process of doing that. Seven-hundred billion and then $716 billion next year.

So we're going to make a decision tonight, or very shortly thereafter. And you'll be hearing the decision.

But we can't let atrocities like we all witnessed - and you can see that and it's horrible - we can't let that happen. In our world, we can't let that happen, especially when we're able to - because of the power of the United States, because of the power of our country - we're able to stop it.

I want to thank Ambassador John Bolton for joining us. I think he's going to be a fantastic representative of our team.

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Welcome to the White House: Trump broke aside briefly from his rant about the special counsel to single out John Bolton, his new national security advisor, for praise

He's highly respected by everybody in this room. And, John, I want to thank you very much. This is going to be a lot of work. Interesting day. He picked today as his first day.

So, Generals, I think he picked the right day. But certainly, you're going to find it very exciting. But you are going to do a fantastic job and I appreciate you joining.

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Thank you. It's an honor to be here.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you all very much.

Q Are you concerned about what the FBI might find, Mr. President? Do you have any concern?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I'm not.

Q Why don't you just fire Mueller?

THE PRESIDENT: Why don't I just fire Mueller?

Q Yeah, just fire the guy.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it's a disgrace what's going on. We'll see what happens. But I think it's really a sad situation when you look at what happened.

And many people have said, 'You should fire him.' Again, they found nothing. And in finding nothing, that's a big statement.

If you know the person who's in charge of the investigation, you know about that. Deputy Rosenstein - Rod Rosenstein - he wrote the letter, very critical, of Comey.

One of the things they said: 'I fired Comey.'

Well, I turned out to do the right thing, because if you look at all of the things that he's done and the lies, and you look at what's gone on at the FBI with the insurance policy and all of the things that happened - turned out I did the right thing.

But he signed - as you know, he also signed the FISA warrant. So Rod Rosenstein, who's in charge of this, signed a FISA warrant, and he also signed a letter that was essentially saying to fire James Comey. And he was right about that. He was absolutely right.

So we'll see what happens. I think it's disgraceful, and so does a lot of - other people. This is a pure and simple witch hunt.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank all very much.

Q Any more clarity on who was responsible, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Say it?

Q Any more clarity on who was responsible for the chemical weapons attack?

THE PRESIDENT: We are getting clarity on that - who was responsible for the weapons attack. We are getting some very good clarity, actually. We have some pretty good answers.

Q What are your options?

THE PRESIDENT: We have a lot of options, militarily. And we'll be letting you know pretty soon. Probably after the fact.