Trump attacks grand jury probe into Russia links

Donald Trump has told supporters that special counsel Robert Mueller's formation of a special grand jury panel to examine evidence of Russian collusion allegations in his 2016 presidential campaign was a "fake story".

In Huntington, West Virginia, where he beat Democratic Party candidate Hilary Clinton by 42 percentage points in last year's race to the oval office, Trump held a rally overnight as he sought to take solace and whip up new enthusiasm in his populist base.

Trump told a sea of 'Make America Great Again' trucker hats: "Most people know there were no Russians in our campaign; there never were. We didn’t win because of Russia. We won because of you."

He went on to accuse the media of trying to deny them of the leadership they wanted "with a fake story."

Mueller, who was appointed after the firing of FBI director James Comey in May, has assembled over a dozen investigators with experience in international bribery, organised crime and financial fraud from a pool of both current and former justice department prosecutors, the Washington Post reported, meaning that the former FBI boss could subpoena witnesses and records in the near future.

Ty Cobb, the president’s lawyer, said: “The White House favours anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly... The White House is committed to fully co-operating with Mr Mueller.”

So far the jury has demanded information about the meeting last June between the President's son, Donald Trump Jr, and Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin.

Mueller's team has begun to focus on financial ties between Trump, his associates and Russia, CNN later reported, as one of the best ways to drive the investigation forward.

While the remarks on the probe were quite scathing, the President did not make any scornful or disparaging remarks about Mueller himself, another change in direction from his brand of individually focused assaults the world has become accustomed to seeing from his Twitter account.

The President sarcastically asked the crowd, "Have you seen any Russians in West Virginia or Ohio or Pennsylvania? Are there any Russians here tonight, any Russians?"

Speaking the same day, Steve Williams, the mayor of Huntington, which Trump referred to during the rally as "the heart of Trump country," lambasted the President's claim that the Russia story was a hoax.

“It obviously isn’t because Mueller is announcing today that a grand jury has been impanelled. Methinks he doth protest too much."