President Donald Trump doubled down on his assaults towards former President Barack Obama, once more accusing his predecessor, with out proof, of personally concentrating on him with a federal investigation of his 2016 presidential marketing campaign and its communications with Russia associated to election interference.
On Tuesday, whereas within the Oval Workplace with the president of the Philippines, Trump revisited his claims that Obama ordered his administration to go after him amid the intelligence group’s investigation of Russia’s involvement in making an attempt to intervene within the 2016 election in favor of Trump, who, finally, defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a surprising end result.
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of Nationwide Intelligence, claimed as a lot after her workplace launched a memo on Friday. Gabbard accused the Obama-led intelligence group of “treasonous conspiracy,” although her supposed proof isn’t strongly supported, in accordance with a truth verify by The Washington Put up.
After posting over the weekend an AI-generated video of Obama being arrested, Trump continued his political assaults on America’s first Black president, calling him “responsible” of treason and making an attempt to “steal the election” from him.
“That is like proof, irrefutable proof that Obama was sedacious,” mentioned Trump, who mispronounced the phrase “seditious,” that means a revolt towards a lawful authority. He continued, “Obama…was making an attempt to guide a coup. And it was with Hillary Clinton, with all these different folks, however Obama headed it up.”
Trump claimed his administration uncovered “the most important scandal within the historical past of our nation.”
On the root of Trump’s anger is a years-long investigation of Trump and his 2016 marketing campaign’s communications with Russia and whether or not or not that they had engaged in a conspiracy with the overseas adversary to win the election. Whereas Particular Counsel Robert Mueller concluded there was no proof of conspiracy, he did level out 10 cases of attainable obstructions of justice dedicated by President Trump throughout his first time period, together with the firing of FBI Director James Comey, who led the investigation.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly pointed to a file gathered by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, which contained unproven salacious accusations about Trump and an alleged conspiracy between the Trump marketing campaign and Russia. Whereas a lot of the salacious content material within the file was uncorroborated, different studies about Russia’s intent to wreck Clinton’s marketing campaign in favor of Trump, and, extra importantly, affect the end result of the election, have been closely supported by a number of investigations.
A spokesperson for President Obama on Tuesday slammed the Trump administration’s “weird allegations” as a “ridiculous and weak try at distraction.”
Referring to the DNI report launched final week, spokesperson Patrick Rodenbush mentioned, “Nothing within the doc issued final week undercuts the extensively accepted conclusion that Russia labored to affect the 2016 presidential election however didn’t efficiently manipulate any votes.”
He added that these findings have been additionally affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio, who’s now Trump’s Secretary of State and Nationwide Safety advisor.
Democrats have swiftly dismissed Trump’s false claims about Obama. Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic chief of the U.S. Home of Representatives, mentioned on Monday that Trump and his administration are “operating scared” due to the groundswell of public demand for them to launch FBI recordsdata associated to convicted youngster pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a former shut good friend of Trump.
“What are they hiding from the American folks?” mentioned Jeffries.
Reecie Colbert, a Democratic strategist, advised theGrio that Trump is “determined to alter the topic away from this Epstein scandal, the discontent together with his base, and the disastrous Large, Stunning Invoice, which is weighing on his ballot numbers.” She continued, “He’s deflecting, and he’s hoping to offer his base some purple meat.”
Colbert, who mentioned Trump is in a “one-way feud with President Obama,” mentioned it’s ironic that Trump is looking for the arrest of Obama, contemplating his prison conviction and former indictments that have been dismissed because of his 2024 election win.
“He’s the one who has 35 felony convictions, and he’s the one who acquired out of 80 extra indictments for his prison conduct,” mentioned Colbert.
