WASHINGTON — President Trump acknowledged publicly for the first time Friday that he is under investigation in the expanding inquiry into Russian influence in the election, and he appeared to attack the integrity of the Justice Department official in charge of it.
In an early-morning Twitter message, the president declared that he was “being investigated’’ for his decision to fire James Comey, the former FBI director. And he seemed to accuse Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, of leading a “witch hunt.’’
The message was the first explicit concession by the president that Robert Mueller, the special counsel for the Russia inquiry, had begun examining whether Trump’s firing of Comey last month was an attempt to obstruct the investigation.
And Trump’s apparent reference to Rosenstein, who oversees the Russia investigation because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from it, came just hours after an oddly worded statement from Rosenstein complaining about leaks in the case.
In the statement, Rosenstein wrote that “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.’’
He added: “Americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. The Department of Justice has a long-established policy to neither confirm nor deny such allegations.’’
Rosenstein’s statement followed two articles by The Washington Post that cited unnamed officials, one saying that Mueller’s investigation had widened to include whether Trump committed obstruction of justice, the other that it was looking at financial transactions involving Jared Kushner, the president’s adviser and son-in-law.
After the statement, The Post updated the Kushner story so that its first sourcing reference was to “US officials.’’
The highly unusual statement by the deputy attorney general raised the question of whether Trump or some other White House official had asked him to publicly discredit the reports.
Part of the revelations surrounding the Russia investigation and the firing of Comey has been that Trump repeatedly pushed top intelligence officials to say in public that Trump was not personally under investigation and that there was no evidence of collusion between his campaign and Russia in its interference in the 2016 election.
But there was some evidence that Rosenstein’s motivation may instead have been his own mounting frustration at seeing details of the law enforcement investigation appear nearly daily in the news media.
A Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said that no one had asked Rosenstein to make the statement and that he acted on his own.
Still, the statement, followed by Trump’s tweet, demonstrated the pressure on the deputy attorney general.
Earlier this week, a friend of Trump’s said the president was considering firing Mueller — a task that would be complicated by Justice Department regulations, which say that only the attorney general may fire a special counsel and only if there is good cause.
Rosenstein is acting as the attorney general in the inquiry because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from investigations that touch on the 2016 presidential campaigns.
According to people briefed on his thinking, while Trump has left open the possibility of dismissing Mueller, his anger has been mostly trained on Sessions and Rosenstein. The president blames Rosenstein for appointing Mueller in the first place, and he faults Session for his earlier recusal from Russia-related issues.
But the people briefed on the president’s thinking said Trump also knows that firing Rosenstein would be politically dangerous.
In testimony before Congress on Tuesday, Rosenstein vowed to “defend the integrity’’ of the special counsel investigation, including by refusing any order to fire Mueller without justification. So far, he said, Mueller had done nothing to warrant removal.
Separately, the apparent expansion of Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice, including by firing Comey, has raised the question of whether Rosenstein, as a witness to and participant in the events in 2017 that culminated in that ouster, may have to also recuse himself.
In another development, members of Trump’s transition team were ordered Thursday to preserve documents and other materials related to the investigation of Russian interference in the election, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.
The memo, from the transition team’s general counsel’s office, is another indication that Mueller is casting a wide net in his inquiry into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow.
The memo says former transition team members “have a duty to preserve any physical and electronic records that may be related in any way to the subject matter of the pending investigations.’’
Also Friday, the Office of Government Ethics released Trump’s latest financial disclosure statement, which showed that he continues to make millions. It is the third one he has released since 2015.
The disclosure covers income over about 15½ months, ending in mid-April.The Trump International Hotel Washington had hotel-related revenue of $19.7 million, according to the filing. Mar-a-Lago generated $37 million during the reporting period.
