Following a raid this week by the FBI of the offices of the attorney for President Donald J. Trump, InsiderNJ legal analyst Joe Hayden, a veteran defense attorney, challenged Trump’s ongoing characterization of special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s probe as a “with hunt.”

“It’s not a witch hunt by Mueller if someone in DOJ is signing off on it,” Hayden said. “If the Southern District of New York finds something that pertains to his investigation they can ship it back. This was done professionally at a very high level. An examination of the facts clearly shows it was not a witch hunt.

“The head of the FBI was a Republican appointment appointed by Trump,” Hayden added. “It’s a Republican AG and [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein is a Republican. To in any way suggest a Democratic witch hunt doesn’t hold up to the scrutiny of fact. It really doesn’t. The facts are the facts. If people want to be tribal and believe what they want to believe, they can but they’re not looking at facts.”

Hayden called Monday’s raid seismic from a legal standpoint.

“I don’t ever remember transactions involving the President subpoenaed this way,” the attorney said. “It’s unprecedented; and again, these are veteran law enforcement Republicans and rock ribbed independents. It’s no witch hunt.”

That characterization used by a President in trying circumstances, of course, is not unprecedented, Hayden noted.

“Remember, Richard Nixon used that very term to defend himself when the Watergate investigation started,” said the attorney.