Donald Trump told an author this year that his predecessor in the Oval Office committed treason by engineering a plot to spy on his presidential campaign, a move that led to the lengthy and politically explosive Russia probe.
‘What they did was treasonous, Okay? It was treasonous,’ Trump said in an interview for conservative pundit Doug Wead’s upcoming book, ‘Inside Trump’s White House: The Real Story of His Presidency.’
‘I have never ever said this, but truth is, they got caught spying. They were spying,’ he said, adding that he was referring to ‘Obama.’
It’s unclear when the president leveled his accusation, but the book’s publishers leaked the relevant excerpt to The Washington Examiner on a day when news broke that Trump’s Justice Deparment has lanuched a criminal investigation into the Russia probe.
Trump told reporters Friday at the White House that he wanted his administration to ‘investigate the investigators.’
Donald Trump told an author this year that his predecessor in the Oval Office committed treason by engineering a plot to spy on his presidential campaign
Obama was in power when, Republicans say, officials in his intelligence community and law enforcement agencies conspired to saddle Trump with false accusations of illicit foreign influence
The Justice Department hasn’t said what crimes are being investigated or who its targets are. But calling the matter a ‘criminal’ probe instead of an internal administrative inquiry allows prosecutors to convene a grand jury and subpoena witnesses.
A new book by conservative commentator Doug Wead includes interviews with the president, his acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric and Lara Trump
Among the witnesses who could face subpoenas are former FBI director James Comey and former CIA head John Brennan.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller presided over a 22-month probe that netted no significant prosecutions related to unsubstantiated claims that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian agents to tilt the 2016 contest in the president’s direction.
Attorney General Bill Bar and Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham recently traveled to Europe and gathered evidence about intelligence activities that led to the Mueller operation, according to a DOJ official.
Trump believes people inside what would become his administration worked quietly to hamstring him as he fought Hillary Clinton for the White House.
‘The interesting thing out of all of this is that we caught them spying on the election. They were spying on my campaign. So you know? What is that all about?,’ Trump asked Wead during his book interview.
‘I have never ever said this, but truth is, they got caught spying. They were spying,’ he said, again saying ‘Obama’ when asked who he meant.
Attorney General William Barr (left) appointed John Durham (right), the US attorney in Connecticut, to lead an inquiry into the origins of Mueller’s probe that has developed into a criminal investigation
The president raised eyebrows and catcalls in 2017 when he tweeted that the Obama White House ‘had my wires tapped’ in Trump Tower during the campaign.
That claim has never been proven true, but Trump later morphed his claim into a more generic one about spying. Barr has spoken publicly about a probe into ‘improper surveillance’ and has said ‘I think spying did occur.’
Trump insists his campaign didn’t collaborate with Russian agents.
‘It turned out I was right. By the way,’ he says in the book. ‘In fact, what I said was peanuts compared to what they did. They were spying on my campaign. They got caught and they said, “Oh we were not spying. It was actually an investigation”.’
‘Can you imagine an administration investigating its political opponents?’
Trump himself is now under fire for using his power and influence to force Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, the former vice president who is among the 2020 Democratic front-runners.
Wead’s publisher says his book includes interviews with the president, along with White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump and his wife Lara Trump.