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‘There was only one white male in the room’: Trump defender’s racist attack on Mueller’s grand jury

"That room isn’t a room where POTUS gets a fair shake."

Special Counsel Robert Mueller leaves following a meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C.,  June 21, 2017. (CREDIT: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Special Counsel Robert Mueller leaves following a meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., June 21, 2017. (CREDIT: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

A witness who recently testified before Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s federal grand jury claimed in an interview with the New York Post’s Page Six this week that the jurors looked like they were all from “a Black Lives Matter rally.”

“The grand jury room looks like a Bernie Sanders rally. Maybe they found these jurors in central casting, or at a Black Lives Matter rally in Berkeley,” the witness told Post columnist Richard Johnson, who previously served as a Miss Universe pageant judge during Trump’s time at the helm. “…There was only one white male in the room, and he was a prosecutor.”

The witness claimed that, out of the 20 jurors on the panel, 11 were Black. Two, they said, were wearing “peace T-shirts.”

“That room isn’t a room where POTUS gets a fair shake,” they added, insinuating that more white jurors were needed in order for the process to be considered credible.

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Although the Post interview did not name the witness or reveal their political leanings, the witness was clearly sympathetic toward Trump and likely is connected to the White House or the Trump campaign.

The comments come amid continued efforts by supporters of the Trump administration and Republicans to discredit the special counsel’s investigation, which indicted former Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates in October on several charges, including money laundering, operating as unregistered foreign agents for the Ukraine, and conspiracy against the United States. Former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos also pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in July and has been cooperating with Mueller’s team. In December, President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn also pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with Russian officials.

In November, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) introduced a resolution on the House floor, demanding that Mueller recuse himself due to his previous involvement in the largely debunked Uranium One controversy.

“These deeply troubling events took place when Mr. Mueller was the Director of the FBI. As such, his impartiality is hopelessly compromised. He must be shut down immediately,” Gaetz wrote in a statement.

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Last month, congressional Republicans also called for an inquiry into the Mueller investigation over what they claimed was implicit bias against the president. A series of texts uncovered by the special counsel’s team and sent to lawmakers on December 12 showed senior FBI agent Peter Strzok and senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page — who were both assigned to the Mueller probe — discussing their mutual dislike of Trump as well as expressing concerns about him becoming president. The texts were exchanged during the 2016 election, well before the start of Mueller’s investigation, and both Strzok and Page were immediately removed from the Russia probe after the text messages were first discovered.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from the Russia investigation over his previous ties to the Trump campaign in March, said the messages “raise[d] serious questions of public trust.”

“We will ensure that anyone who works on any investigation in the Department of Justice does so objectively and free from bias or favoritism,” Sessions said, addressing Republican calls for him to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Mueller probe.

Trump himself has routinely dismissed the ongoing Russia investigation as a political witch hunt by Democrats, who he claims are upset about their  loss in the 2016 presidential election, and has repeatedly denied any collusion between his campaign and Russian officials.

“The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics, but the R’s are now fighting back like never before,” he tweeted in October. “There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!”