Morning Joe and CNN's New Day rebut Trump's 'witch hunt' claim, noting the president's own appointees are investigating him

Morning Joe and CNN talk Trump — (Image credit: Screenshots/Twitter/CNN, MSNBC)

Early Tuesday morning, President Trump returned to his critique of the FBI's raid on his longtime personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, tweeting that "attorney–client privilege is dead!" and this is "A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!" Trump railed against what he called Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Democratic "witch hunt" in public comments on Monday evening, but on Tuesday's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough pointed out that Monday's raid was orchestrated by U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, "Rudy Giuliani's former law partner who Giuliani got appointed to the Southern District of New York as a prosecutor."

"This was a Trump man, a Trump contributor, and a Giuliani man who executed this search warrant," Scarborough said. "This is his doing, it was not Robert Mueller's doing, and there's nothing Donald Trump can say and there's no lies that he can try to spread that will change that."

"This raid was no Democratic fishing expedition," Scarborough added in a tweet. "This is Rudy's protégé running an investigation of a president whose campaign he cut a $5,400 check to in 2016. Trump interviewed and appointed him. Some conspiracy." On CNN's New Day, political analyst John Avlon noted that this is Trump's first crisis without Hope Hicks, his communications director and handler, but agreed that Trump also must be "reconciling himself to the fact that this is his Justice Department, this is a U.S. attorney for the Southern District appointed by him to replace Preet Bharara, so there's got to be an extra sense of betrayal which may further inflame his actions."

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Jeffrey Toobin went on to argue that Mueller's investigation "absolutely" might end if Trump orders him fired. "This is a very important point, that the president really has within his ability to stop this investigation," he said. Luckily, Trump was probably watching Fox & Friends.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.