Special Counsel Robert Mueller, tasked with probing Russia's role in the 2016 Presidential election, is reporting to be extending the scope of his inquiry to examine whether Trump sought to impede the investigation by asking various officials to back off and certify that he has no Russian ties.
Daniel Coats, the current director of national intelligence, Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, and Richard Ledgett, till recently Rogers's deputy, are among those who have agreed to be interviewed by Mueller's team, according to US media outlets, and all of them have committed to cooperate.
Amid speculation that Trump is considering ways to fire Mueller, the expanded inquiry has outraged the beleaguered President and his associates, who consider the whole exercise a witchhunt.
"They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story.
Nice," Trump tweeted sarcastically on Thursday morning as reports of Mueller's exertions rocked the political circuit already agitated with Wednesday's shooting incident in which a Republican lawmaker was shot by a Democratic activist.
An hour later he added: "You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people!"
The reference to "bad and conflicted people" appeared to endorse the whisper campaign against Special Counsel Mueller by some Trump's associates who say he (Mueller) has hired investigators with ties to the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign, and therefore any probe will be politically motivated.
Trump's private legal team also suggested that the FBI deliberately leaked the information that the Special Counsel was expanding his probe to cover obstruction of justice charges, calling it "outrageous, inexcusable, and illegal."
The NSA has said it will "fully cooperate with the special counsel" even as Mueller, who is himself a former FBI Director, has begun meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee which is also looking separately into alleged Russian subversion of the Presidential election, as is a House committee.
Although the committees are led by Republicans -- because of the GOP majority in Congress -- Democratic members on the panels will be eager to get their teeth into any evidence.
In some ways, Trump has implicated himself by saying he fired former FBI Director James Comey to relieve pressure from the Russia probe, calling him "crazy... a real nut job."
The President was also cornered into publicly committing to a testifying under oath after he called Comey a liar when the sacked official said Trump fired him because of the Russia probe.
A cornered White House could try and use executive privilege to try to block officials from speaking to Mueller's team, although the US Supreme Court ruled during the Watergate scandal that officials cannot use privilege to withhold evidence in criminal prosecutions.
Besides, Trump himself has said he is willing to testify under oath "100 per cent" if called to do so.
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