Murkowski questions whether Trump admin is attacking Obama to distract from Epstein fallout
Piper Hudspeth Blackburn
, CNN
Photo:
AFP
GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski questioned whether Trump administration officials are accusing former President Barack Obama of treason in order to distract from the fallout over its handling documents related to
Jeffrey Epstein
.
"Obviously, this is new language. Words like treason are big words, right?" the Alaska Republican told CNN's Kaitlan Collins Wednesday in an interview on "The Source."
"It does cause one to wonder if this is an effort by folks in the administration to have the conversation, move on to something else, other than the Epstein matter, move on to something else, another, somebody other than President Trump so let's go back to prior presidents," she said.
"Based on the timing of all of this, it does kind of cause you to question," Murkowski said when asked by Collins if allegations from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were a "distraction technique."
GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski
Photo:
AFP / Getty Images / Drew Angerer
Her comments come after weeks of failed efforts from Trump to mitigate backlash over his administration's decision not to release more
documents related to the Epstein investigation
.
Murkowski told CNN that she encourages the release of more files from the probe, saying, "Just deal with the Epstein thing once and for all."
"I think if they had done it earlier on and moved on to other things, maybe we wouldn't be in this place where everyone is now thinking about, you know, what's the next big conspiracy behind all this," she added.
One day after President Donald Trump accused Obama of treason over the intelligence assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and sought to help Trump, Gabbard declassified a highly sensitive congressional report she claimed was more evidence of a "treasonous conspiracy."
A spokesman for Obama dismissed the accusations from Trump. "These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction," said Patrick Rodenbush.
A House Oversight subcommittee voted Wednesday to subpoena the Department of Justice for the Epstein files.
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