President Donald Trump on Monday revived his accusation that the Obama Administration ‘spied’ on his campaign – this time employing a slogan he used days ago to attack Rep. Ilhan Omar using charged footage of the Sept. 11th attacks.
‘THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN (We will never forget)!’ Trump Tweeted Monday morning before heading out to Ilhan’s home state of Minnesota for a tax event.
Trump’s tweet followed his call hours earlier for an investigation of the investigators as Washington awaited the release of Robert Mueller’s report and braces for a look at its findings. He relied on the same slogan he had referenced days ago when going after Omar.
President Donald Trump called for an investigation of the investigators ahead of the release of Robert Mueller’s report
On Friday afternoon, Trump tweeted a video of a plane crashing into one of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11th, as he blasted Omar for her comment that ‘some people did something.’ Critics called her language dismissive, although Omar said her words were taken out of context.
‘WE WILL NEVER FORGET!’ Trump wrote, in a tweet that Democratic critics immediately blasted for stoking emotions and potentially endangering the first-term Muslim congresswoman.
Trump tweeted out the spying accusation Monday, adding: ‘We will never forget’
REMEMBER THIS? Trump used similar language on Friday while attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar. He retweeted a video that showed a plane striking one of the Twin Towers. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had sought additional security precautions for Omar, one of two Muslim women serving in Congress
‘This is endangering lives,’ said Omar, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she took additional measures to ensure Omar’s security.
Trump’s Monday missives, by using the identical language, linked the two events. Trump considers the Russia probe to be ‘illegal’ and a ‘witch hunt,’ and has called it an attack on the country that he has compared to a coup.
Surveillance warrants at the start of the investigation were approved by judges who hear special foreign intelligence cases, although Trump’s defenders have argued that the process was corrupted by the use of the golden showers dossier.
President Trump said it was time to ‘INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS’ as Washington prepared for the release of the Mueller report
Omar also spoke of a recent Fox News segment in which host Brian Kilmeade questioned if she was ‘an American first’, saying she expected her colleagues to come out in her defense
In an early morning tweet, the president claimed Mueller and Attorney General William Barr, based on the special counsel’s findings, ‘ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction’ for him and his 2016 campaign team.
He then pivoted to claim crimes were committed by Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and ‘dirty cops’ – a likely reference to the FBI based on his past criticism – and called for an investigation.
‘Mueller, and the A.G. based on Mueller findings (and great intelligence), have already ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction. These were crimes committed by Crooked Hillary, the DNC, Dirty Cops and others! INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS!,’ he tweeted.
His public spin comes the week Mueller’s report is expected to be given to members of Congress and released to the public any day now.
The 400-page report will have some redactions for on-going investigations but is expected to lay out Mueller’s findings in its probe of Russia’s role in the 2016 election.
Democrats have demanded the full report after Barr, in a letter to Congress, said Mueller left it up to the attorney general to determine whether the president obstructed justice in the investigation.
Barr wrote he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined there was no cause for obstruction.
‘The Mueller report is about an attack on our elections by a foreign government. And we want to know about that. We wanna know about that in terms of being able to prevent it from happening again. So it’s bigger even than Donald Trump,’ Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CBS’ ’60 Minutes’ in an interview that aired Sunday night.
She wouldn’t say if she thinks Barr is covering up for Trump.
‘I have no idea. I have no idea. He may be whitewashing, but I don’t know if he’s covering anything up. There’s no use having that discussion. All we need to do is see the Mueller report,’ she said.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said on Sunday she doesn’t think the full report will be damaging to President Trump.
‘I don’t think it’s going to be damaging to the president because the entire purpose of the investigation was whether or not there was collusion. Mueller was crystal clear in the fact that there was no collusion,’ she said on ‘Fox News Sunday.
She argued that if Mueller could not determine obstruction that meant there wasn’t any.
‘They couldn’t find anything. They couldn’t make a determination which is basically Mueller’s way legally of saying we can’t find anything. We’re going to leave that up to the process which is the attorney general. He has made a decision, and so, we consider this to be case closed. That there was no collusion, there was no obstruction which I don’t know how you can interpret that any other way than total exoneration,’ Sanders said.
Trump has long claimed to be the victim of a ‘witch hunt’ and railed against former FBI director James Comey and former agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
The two agents, who were having an affair, were working on the counter intelligence investigation of Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election and their texts revealed their belief Trump should not win the presidency.
House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have demanded the full Mueller report
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said she doesn’t think the full report will be damaging to President Trump
Attorney General William Barr testified last week he should be in a position to release the redacted Mueller report ‘within a week’
Trump has repeatedly railed against the probe of Clinton’s private email server, which then-FBI director Comey said was ‘extremely careless’ but did not recommend filing charges.
The president’s tweet on Monday also reflects comments his attorney general made late week when he testified before Congress.
Barr told lawmakers last Tuesday he was ‘reviewing’ the conduct of the FBI at the start of the Russia probe and he revealed he will make public a redacted version of the Mueller report within a week.
‘I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016,’ Barr said at a subcommittee hearing.
Republicans on Capitol Hill have taken up the president’s call to investigate those who pursued the Russia investigation over the last 19 months.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsay Graham is conducting his own investigation of the origins of the probe, while also probing the FBI’s 2016 Clinton email investigation.