President Trump launched a Twitter rant against Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe Friday morning, both attacking the investigators and insisting news about his team's lack of preparedness is untrue.
Read from the bottom up:
After mentioning "China talks are going very well," the president defended his team's readiness to respond to Mueller's findings.
His next tweet was in honor of Pearl Harbor, but then he circled back to the Russia investigation with the following:
President Trump also announced two big potential personnel changes Friday morning. He said he will nominate former Attorney General William Barr to be his next AG and State Department Spokeswoman and former Fox News reporter Heather Nauert to be the next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
NPR:
Depending on how long his Senate confirmation takes, Barr would likely oversee special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russian intervention in the 2016 election.
Long history with Mueller
During Barr's first stint as attorney general, Mueller served as the head of the department's criminal division, which pursued several high-profile investigations at the time.
It is unclear how Barr views Mueller's ongoing Russia investigation.
But Barr has expressed concerns about political donations made by members of Mueller's team. In 2017, he told The Washington Post that "prosecutors who make political contributions are identifying fairly strongly with a political party."
Barr added that he "would have liked to see him have more balance on this group."
He also has suggested that Trump's calls for the Justice Department to investigate his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, weren't improper.
"There's nothing inherently wrong about a president calling for an investigation," Barr told the New York Times. "Although an investigation shouldn't be launched just because a president wants it, the ultimate question is whether the matter warrants investigation."
He went on to say that a 2010 uranium deal that was approved when Clinton was secretary of state merits further investigation.
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Barr, 68, has extensive experience in government, particularly the upper echelons of the Justice Department.
In addition to his stint as attorney general, he also served as deputy attorney general from 1990 to 1991, and as assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel for two years before that.
Trump hailed Barr's track record in a Twitter post after his announcement at the White House.
In announcing his decision on Friday, Trump said Nauert was “very talented, very smart, very quick.” He said he thought she would be “respected by all.”
Others, including former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, criticized the choice. Nauert’s job as spokeswoman at State is “to read talking points and explain policy,” McFaul tweeted. The job of U.N. ambassador is very different, he said, and usually requires foreign policy or diplomatic expertise or both.
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If she gets the job, Nauert would take the post with less clout than Haley, a former South Carolina governor who announced in October that she would step down at the end of this year.
Trump is downgrading the ambassador’s position to a sub-Cabinet-level post. That means Nauert could be overshadowed by [Mike] Pompeo or Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, who had the U.N. job in 2005 and 2006. She also would be going up against foreign counterparts like the U.N. representatives from Russia and China, who each have decades of experience in diplomacy.
Trump Picks William Barr, Attorney General Under H.W. Bush, To Return To DOJ Helm (NPR)
Heather Nauert likely to be quizzed on her diplomatic resume (AP)