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President Donald Trump lashed out at “Crooked, Dirty Cops” and the Democratic National Committee in a series of heated tweets Thursday ahead of Attorney General William Barr’s press conference on special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited Russia report.
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Trump, who did not mention the probe of Russian election interference directly but has regularly decried it as a hoax and a “witch hunt,” tweeted Thursday morning about “The Greatest Political Hoax of all time!”
The president also shared on Twitter a video splicing together various instances of him saying that there was “no collusion” between his presidential campaign and Russia.
Barr was scheduled to hold a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., at 9:30 a.m. ET — before releasing to the public a redacted version of Mueller’s nearly 400-page report on Russia’s interference and possible coordination with Trump’s campaign.
Democrats, including House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York, have criticized that timing, accusing Trump’s recently appointed attorney general of attempting to establish a narrative about the findings in the report.
In a four-page letter last month, Barr said that Mueller did not find sufficient evidence of a conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein also concluded that Trump did not illegally obstruct justice.
At the presser, Barr will address whether the White House invoked executive privilege related to parts of the report, as well as the department’s interactions with the White House regarding the contents of the report, according to a DOJ spokeswoman.
Barr will also talk about the process officials followed when redacting certain portions of the report for a public release. Questions about what will be redacted have become especially controversial on Capitol Hill, as some Democratic leaders continue to demand that Barr provide for them the full, unredacted report along with all of its underlying evidence.
Barr has signaled his resistance to hand the lawmakers a completely unscrubbed report, but the DOJ does plan to share a less-redacted version with some members of Congress and their staff some time after the public version has been released.
In a follow-up, Trump sent a two-word tweet exclaiming “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!” That phrase has become a familiar refrain for the president in the final months of the special counsel’s 22-month investigation.
The president also encouraged his nearly 60 million followers to watch Barr’s press conference on Fox News.