More than 300 people gathered in Portland Thursday night at one of several rallies across Maine to demand Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election be allowed to continue, according to organizers and multiple media reports.The team led by former FBI director Mueller is probing, in part, whether there was any coordination between the Russian government and the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
The investigation was thrown into doubt when Trump, now president, on Wednesday forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who refused to intervene in Mueller’s inquiry.
The Portland demonstration was one of a number of such rallies taking part around the state and country Thursday. The group Suit Up Maine claimed nearly 400 people turned out to demonstrate in Kittery, 200 more in Brunswick, 150 in Bar Harbor and 75 in Damariscotta, as well as nearly 100 in each Belfast, Rockland and Augusta.
“[W]e know that a constitutional crisis looms as Trump gets ready to fire [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein and Mueller,” said Portland rally organizer Dini Merz, of the group Mainers For Accountable Leadership, in a statement. “Once woken, we will never go back to sleep and we intend to be out here flooding the streets to protect the Mueller investigation and our democracy from the Russians.”
This story appears through a media sharing agreement with Bangor Daily News.