WASHINGTON -- Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that he believes it's time for special counsel Robert Mueller to conclude his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and other potential misdeeds by those in the president's orbit.
"In the interests of the country, I think it's time to wrap it up." Pence told NBC News after the release of three Americans held by North Korea.
Pence said President Donald Trump's administration has "fully cooperated" with Mueller's probe, including turning over more than 1 million documents. Trump has called the investigation a "witch hunt," and his outside counsel, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, has called on the Justice Department to put an end to the probe.
Pence added: "I would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion."
The vice president was pressed on the news about millions of dollars in payments from companies to Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen. Pence said that was a "private matter" and "something I don't have any knowledge about."
Cohen, Trump's self-described longtime "fixer," is also under investigation for his role in paying hush money to a porn actress in the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
Separately, Giuliani abruptly parted ways with his law firm, citing the "pressing demands" of representing Trump in the special counsel's probe.
Giuliani took a leave of absence from Greenberg Traurig last month. But on Thursday, the firm announced Giuliani's resignation, effective the day before.
In a brief interview Thursday, Giuliani said there was no acrimony inside the firm regarding his work for Trump, saying that "half the firm is for him, maybe half against -- fifty-fifty. It wasn't about that; it was about giving my full attention to the president."
"This is a full-time job working for the president, and we've got to figure this out and get this over with," Giuliani said. "That's why the timing is right."
In a statement, Richard Rosenbaum, executive chairman of Greenberg Traurig, said that Giuliani originally intended to "play a limited role, for a short period of time" representing Trump.
"After recognizing that this work is all-consuming and is lasting longer than initially anticipated, Rudy has determined it is best for him to resign from the firm," Rosenbaum said.
Meanwhile, Democrats on the House intelligence committee have released more than 3,500 Facebook ads that were created or promoted by a Russian Internet agency, providing the fullest picture yet of Russia's attempt to sow racial and political division in the United States.
Most of the ads are issue-based, pushing arguments for and against immigration, LGBT issues and gun rights, among other issues. A large number of them attempt to stoke racial divisions by mentioning police brutality or disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement. Some promote Trump or Bernie Sanders, who ran against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary. Few, if any, support Clinton.
The intelligence committee Democrats had released a sampling of the ads purchased by Russia's Internet Research Agency last year, but they are now releasing the full cache of ads that Facebook officials turned over to the panel after acknowledging in September they had discovered the Russian efforts. The release of ads from early 2015 through mid-2017 does not include 80,000 posts that the agency also shared. Some of the ads are partially redacted, part of an effort by Facebook and the committee to protect unsuspecting people whose names or faces were used.
Some ads designed to appeal to critics of immigration were targeted to users who liked specific Fox News hosts, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, "Old Glory" and the United States Constitution, among other words.
Others were more narrowly targeted. Facebook users within 12 miles of Buffalo, N.Y., were directed to an event supporting justice for a black woman who died in a county jail.
Another ad criticizing a Texas school teacher who lost her job after making racist remarks was aimed at adults living in Cleveland, Baltimore, St. Louis and Ferguson, Missouri.
Information for this article was contributed by Zeke Miller, Mary Clare Jalonick, Chad Day, Eric Tucker, Tom LoBianco, Desmond Butler, Mae Anderson, Nick Jesdanun, David Hamilton, Michael Liedtke, Frank Bajak and Matt O'Brien of The Associated Press; and by Robert Costa and John Wagner of The Washington Post.
A Section on 05/11/2018