A US political commentator has labelled Russia’s influence on the 2016 presidential elections as “the worst political scandal in American history.”
Bill Maher said he felt “an obligation” to address allegations the Trump administration had held close ties with the Kremlin before Donald Trump took to the White House.
Speaking on his HBO show “Real time”, he also declared America “was hanging by a thread” and labelled Mr Trump's presidency "a clown show", citing a desire to put "facts ahead of the entertainment" as the motivation for his hard-hitting accusations.
"The crime is treason. The crime is colluding with Russia to fix an American election!” Mr Maher said.
"Stop looking at the distractions and the clown show, and look at what matters. Which is, I would say, this is the worst political scandal in American history, and it's not going away.”
He also said alleged “leaks” from US intelligence agencies, that Mr Trump dismissed as “fake news” during his first solo press conference, were warnings to the American people about the President.
“[Mr Trump] is f****** nuts and he’s dangerous and they know it and they are trying to tell us,” he said.
"When the intelligence agencies are leaking like this, they are crying out.”
His comments came after national security adviser Michael Flynn was forced to resign when it was revealed he attempted to cover up conversations he had with the Russian ambassador.
Mr Trump maintained Mr Flynn was “doing his job” but asked him to resign because “he didn’t tell our Vice President [Mike Pence] properly.”
Mr Flynn blamed the scandal on the “fast pace of events” that meant he gave “incomplete information” about phone conversations with Sergey Kislyak in December before the Trump administration took office.
However, Mr Maher accused the Trump administration of being complicit in the scandal.
"For the first time in 240 years, we have a president who may have actually had influence and had been elected with the direct assistance, not just of a foreign power, but of a foreign intelligence agency,” he said.
