U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday federal probes into Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election to help him win are a “disgrace,” and he questioned why investigators are not looking into a disclosure the Democratic National Committee acted improperly in favor of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during last year’s primary election season.
Trump raised questions about the DNC controversy in a series of tweets prior to departing for a 12-day trip to Asia, and one day after former interim DNC Chairwomen Donna Brazile disclosed an agreement between the DNC and Clinton’s campaign that effectively allowed Clinton to reign over the party’s finances and other operations before the primary elections began.
“Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn’t looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems..,” Trump tweeted.
In a second tweet, Trump referred to Brazile’s revelation, which was made in her new book, and cited a number of other issues surrounding Clinton and the DNC.
“…New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary. What about the deleted E-mails, Uranium, Podesta, the Server, plus, plus….”
In yet another tweet, the president then turned his attention back to federal investigators, whom he suggested are not doing their job effectively.
“….People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!”
Trump implied in his fourth tweet that allegations are untrue his presidential campaign colluded with Russia to capture the White House last year.
“The real story on Collusion is in Donna B’s new book. Crooked Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from Crazy Bernie!”
In an apparent reference to Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, the president used his derogatory nickname for her, in reference to an interview Warren had with CNN Thursday, saying she believed the Democratic primary elections were rigged to help Clinton win.
“Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets go FBI & Justice Dept.”
Before leaving the White House for his trip to Asia — his longest foreign presidential trip to date — the Republican president criticized the probes into his campaign’s possible collusion with Russia and again turned his attention to the Democrats.
“There was no collusion, there was no nothing. It’s a disgrace frankly that they continue.” He added: “… they should be looking at the Democrats,” he said. “They should be looking at a lot of things and a lot of people are disappointed in the Justice Department, including me.”
After Trump departed for his trip abroad aboard Air Force One, he resumed his tweeting, suggesting supporters of Clinton’s Democratic presidential rival Bernie Sanders are angry about his loss in the primary elections.
“Bernie Sanders supporters have every right to be apoplectic of the complete theft of the Dem primary by Crooked Hillary!”
“I always felt I would be running and winning against Bernie Sanders, not Crooked H, without cheating, I was right.”
The president’s focus on the Democrats comes four days after Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged two former Trump campaign aides in connection with the probe into Russia’s attempt to influence last year’s presidential election.
Paul Manafort, who for three months was Trump’s campaign chairman last year, and former business associate Rick Gates, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington as part of Mueller’s criminal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. They were the first charges Mueller has made public in his five-month probe, although the allegations did not relate directly to the election.
Manafort was charged with conspiring against the U.S., money laundering, and lying to the government as part of a wide-ranging lobbying effort for former Ukrainian strongman Viktor Yanukovych.
In addition, Mueller disclosed that former Trump foreign affairs adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty October 5 to lying to federal agents in January about his contacts with people “he understood to have close connections to senior Russian government officials.”
As he spoke with reporters Friday at the White House, Trump said he has few recollections about a March 16 meeting with Papadopoulos, at which Papadopoulos allegedly offered to set up a meeting for the candidate with Vladimir Putin.
“I don’t remember much about that meeting. It was a very unimportant meeting. It took place a long time ago. Don’t remember much about it,” said Trump.
Trump’s flurry of activity on Twitter Friday came hours after one of his Twitter accounts, “(@realDonaldTrump),” was deactivated for 11 minutes Thursday evening.
Twitter initially said the account had been inadvertently deleted due to human error, but later said it was deactivated by an employee on the worker’s last day on the job.
“We are conducting a full internal review,” the company said.
