US President Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday his suspicions that his 2016 presidential election campaign was likely spied upon.
“Looking more & more like the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon (surveillance) for the political gain of Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC,” he tweeted, referring to defeated the Democrat candidate and the Democratic National Committee, her party’s governing body.
“Republicans must get tough now. An illegal Scam!”
Trump made the tweets after saying documents about his former presidential campaign adviser Carter Page confirmed with little doubt that the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation had misled the courts.
The FBI released documents on Saturday related to the surveillance of Page as part of an investigation into whether he conspired with the Russian government to undermine the election.
Page has denied being an agent of the Russian government and has not been charged with any crime.
Referring to the Carter Page documents, he said: “As usual they are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of “Justice” and FBI misled the courts. Witch Hunt Rigged, a Scam!”
The 412 pages, mostly heavily redacted, included surveillance applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and warrants surrounding the investigation into Page.
Earlier this month, a federal grand jury charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking Democratic computer networks in 2016, in the most detailed US accusation yet that Moscow meddled in the presidential election.
Officers of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, covertly monitored computers of Clinton’s campaign and Democratic campaign committees, and stole large amounts of data, the indictment said.
“In addition to releasing documents directly to the public, the defendants transferred stolen documents to another organization, not named in the indictment, and discussed timing the release of the documents in an attempt to enhance the impact on the election,” Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said.
Rosenstein revealed that he briefed Trump about the indictment. It contains no allegations that US citizens committed a crime, he said.
US intelligence officials have said Russia’s efforts to undermine elections are continuing and now target the November 6 congressional races.
Trump stunned the world on Monday by shying away from criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin for Moscow’s actions to undermine the election, sparking bipartisan fury at home and prompting calls by some US lawmakers for tougher sanctions and other actions to punish Russia.
On Tuesday, he said he misspoke at the Helsinki news conference with Putin and that he accepted intelligence agency conclusions about Russian election meddling, although he hedged by deviating from his prepared notes to say “it could be other people also. There’s a lot of people out there.”
Asked later in an interview with CBS News whether he held Putin personally responsible for meddling in the 2016 election, Trump said he did.
“Well, I would, because he’s in charge of the country. Just like I consider myself to be responsible for things that happen in this country,” he said.
