President Donald Trump appears to be growing increasingly desperate to turn the national conversation away from his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He spent the weekend suggesting prominent Democrats should be prosecuted over bogus right-wing conspiracy theories, and on Tuesday he said it outright.
“Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump was asked which Democratic figures the Justice Department should target specifically in light of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s recent call for Obama administration officials to be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” over claims that they “manufactured” intelligence to allege Russia worked to get Trump elected in 2016.
“It would be President Obama, he started it,” Trump replied. “The leader of the gang was President Obama. Barack Hussein Obama, have you heard of him?” he continued. “He’s guilty, it’s not a question. This was treason. This was every word you could think of. They tried to steal the election.”
“This is like proof, irrefutable proof that Obama was seditious, that Obama was trying to lead a coup,” Trump said later. “It was with Hillary Clinton, with all of these other people, but Obama headed it up. … This is the biggest scandal in the history of our country.”
Obama’s office responded in a rare statement later on Tuesday. “Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response,” a spokesperson wrote. “But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and weak attempt at distraction.”
“Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,” the statement continued. “These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.”
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Several investigations and reviews — including one by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee review chaired by current Secretary of State Rubio — have concluded that Russia worked to elect Trump over Clinton in 2016. Trump has repeatedly called the idea a “hoax,” and has similarly been calling the Epstein scandal a “hoax” in the face of backlash to the Justice Department announcing it would not be releasing any more material on the sex offender and longtime friend of the president — despite Trump and top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, promising supporters they would release the government’s files on Epstein and the elites potentially in league with the disgraced financier.
Trump’s history with Epstein has been under the microscope as his administration has tried to bury the story. The Wall Street Journal reported last week on a salacious birthday note Trump wrote for Epstein in the early 2000s, and in which he allegedly wrote about how the two “have certain things in common.” Rolling Stone reported on the lengths the administration went to kill the story, which Trump has denied. The president sued the Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, for publishing the piece last week.
Trump is now going on the offensive against his political enemies over long-disproven conspiracy theories, ostensibly to distract from his ties to a sex offender. “We caught Hillary Clinton, we caught Barack Hussein Obama,” Trump said, adding: “It’s the most unbelievable thing I think I’ve ever read. You ought to take a look at that and stop talking about nonsense.”
From Rolling Stone US
