WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump rehashed longstanding grievances over the Russia investigation that shadowed a lot of his first time period, lashing out Tuesday following a brand new report from his intelligence director aimed toward casting doubt on long-established findings about Moscow’s interference within the 2016 election.
“It’s time to go after folks,” Trump mentioned from the Oval Workplace as he repeated a baseless declare that former President Barack Obama and different officers had engaged in treason.
Trump was not making his claims for the primary time, however he delivered them when administration officers are harnessing the equipment of the federal authorities to examine the targets of Trump’s derision, together with key officers chargeable for scrutinizing Russia’s makes an attempt to intervene on Trump’s behalf in 2016.
The backward-looking inquiries are going down even because the Republican administration’s nationwide safety businesses are confronting world threats. However they’ve served as a rallying cry for Trump, who’s attempting to unify a political base at odds over the Jeffrey Epstein case, with some allies urgent to reveal extra data regardless of the president’s push to show the web page.
Trump’s assault prompted a uncommon response from Obama’s post-presidential workplace.
“Our workplace doesn’t usually dignify the fixed nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White Home with a response,” mentioned Patrick Rodenbush, an Obama spokesman. “However these claims are outrageous sufficient to benefit one. These weird allegations are ridiculous and a weak try at distraction.”
Gabbard’s new report on the Russia investigation
Trump’s tirade, a detour from his official enterprise as he hosted the chief of the Philippines, unfolded in opposition to the backdrop of a brand new report from Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that represented his administration’s newest try and rewrite the historical past of the Russia investigation, which has infuriated him for years.
The report, launched Friday, downplayed the extent of Russian interference within the 2016 election by highlighting Obama administration emails exhibiting officers had concluded earlier than and after the presidential race that Moscow had not hacked state election techniques to control votes in Trump’s favor.
However Obama’s Democratic administration by no means prompt in any other case, even because it uncovered different means by which Russia interfered within the election, together with via an enormous hack-and-leak operation of Democratic emails by intelligence operatives working with WikiLeaks, in addition to a covert affect marketing campaign aimed toward swaying public opinion and sowing discord via faux social media posts.
Gabbard’s report seems to recommend the absence of manipulation of state election techniques is a foundation to name into query extra basic Russian interference. By issuing it, she appeared to get better her standing in Trump’s orbit, which only one month in the past had appeared unsure after Trump mentioned she was “fallacious” when she beforehand mentioned she believed Iran wasn’t constructing a nuclear weapon.
“She’s the most well liked one within the room proper now,” Trump mentioned Tuesday evening. “Tulsi, nice job — and I do know you might have much more coming.”
Democrats, for his or her half, swiftly decried the report as factually flawed and politically motivated.
“It’s sadly not shocking that DNI Gabbard, who promised to depoliticize the intelligence group, is as soon as once more weaponizing her place to amplify the president’s election conspiracy theories,” Sen. Mark Warner, the highest Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote on X.
A number of investigations discovered Russian interference in 2016
Russia’s broad interference in 2016 has been established via a sequence of investigations, together with particular counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which concluded that the Trump marketing campaign welcomed the Kremlin’s assist but in addition discovered inadequate proof to determine a felony conspiracy.
A Home Intelligence Committee report additionally documented Russia’s meddling, as did the Senate Intelligence Committee, which concluded its work in 2020 at a time when the panel was led by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who’s now Trump’s secretary of state.
A unique particular counsel appointed by the Trump Justice Division to hunt for issues within the origins of the Russia investigation, John Durham, did discover flaws, however not associated to what Gabbard sought to focus on in her report.
“Few episodes in our nation’s historical past have been investigated as totally because the Intelligence Group’s warning in 2016 that Russia was interfering within the election,” mentioned Rep. Jim Himes, the highest Democrat on the Home Intelligence Committee.
He added that each official investigation, together with the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee probe, “discovered no proof of politicization and endorsed the findings” of an intelligence committee evaluation on Russian interference made public in 2017.
Gabbard’s doc was launched weeks after a CIA report that reexamined that earlier intelligence group evaluation. That new evaluation, ordered by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, didn’t dispute Russia had interfered however prompt officers have been rushed within the evaluation they reached.
Trump administration is searching for investigations of former officers
Ratcliffe has since referred former CIA Director John Brennan to the Justice Division for investigation, an individual aware of the matter has mentioned. The division earlier this month appeared to acknowledge an open investigation into Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey in an uncommon assertion, however the standing and contours of the inquiries are unclear.
Apart from Obama, Trump on Tuesday rattled off an inventory of individuals he accused of performing criminally “on the highest degree,” together with Comey, his 2016 Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and former nationwide intelligence director James Clapper.
He accused Obama, with out proof, of being the “ringleader” of a conspiracy to get him. Obama has by no means been accused of any wrongdoing as a part of the Russia investigation, and, in any occasion, a landmark Supreme Courtroom opinion from final 12 months shields former presidents from prosecution for official acts performed in workplace.
Trump launched his tirade when requested about the Justice Division’s effort to talk with Ghislaine Maxwell, the previous girlfriend of Epstein, who was convicted of serving to the financier sexually abuse underage women.
“I don’t actually observe that an excessive amount of,” he mentioned. “It’s kind of a witch hunt, a continuation of the witch hunt.”
Trump is underneath stress from conspiracy-minded segments of his political base to launch extra in regards to the Epstein case. Democrats say Trump is resisting due to his previous affiliation with Epstein. Trump has denied information of or involvement with Epstein’s crimes and mentioned he ended their friendship years in the past.
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