Trump escalates attacks on Obama and Clinton as questions swirl about Epstein

Boston Globe

5 days ago

'Obama was trying to lead a coup,' Trump said. 'And it was with Hillary Clinton.'
Trump's extended digression, which came during a visit with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines, was a stark example of his campaign of retribution against an ever-growing list of enemies that has little analogue in American history.
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It even prompted a rare response from Obama's office.
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'These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,' said Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesperson for Obama. '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.'
After Trump's attack on Obama, reports continued to surface about his relationship with Epstein. CNN published photos of Epstein at Trump's 1993 wedding to Marla Maples, the president's second wife.
Gabbard's report, which claimed there was a 'treasonous conspiracy' by top Obama officials, contradicted a lengthy study by the Senate Intelligence Committee that was signed by all Republican members of the committee, including Marco Rubio, now the secretary of state.
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The Obama administration never contended that the Russians had manipulated votes; instead, the administration, and the Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, concluded that Russia mounted a major effort to influence voters.
Still, in his remarks Tuesday, Trump claimed that he could have sent Clinton, the former secretary of state and another of his political rivals, to prison but chose not to. He said he would show no such leniency to Obama.
'I let her off the hook, and I'm very happy I did, but it's time to start after what they did to me,' Trump said. 'Whether it's right or wrong, it's time to go after people. Obama's been caught directly.'
The president then listed even more enemies he wanted his Justice Department to target, including his former FBI director, James Comey and James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, and former President Joe Biden.
'It would be President Obama,' Trump said. 'He started it, and Biden was there with him, and Comey was there, and Clapper, the whole group was there.'
'He's guilty,' he said of Obama. 'This was treason. This was every word you can think of.'
Trump's campaign to exact revenge against his perceived enemies has taken many forms. Over the past six months, he has pulled protective details from former colleagues facing death threats from Iran. He has revoked or threatened to revoke the security clearances of Biden, members of his administration and dozens of others. His administration has taken steps to target members of the media seen as unfriendly, taken the hatchet to entire agencies perceived as too liberal, and fired or investigated government workers deemed disloyal.
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The re-examination of the intelligence around the 2016 election began with John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, ordering a review of the agency's tradecraft that went into the intelligence community assessment in December of that year.
The review was deeply critical of the Obama administration and the former CIA director, John Brennan. CIA analysts took issue with the speed of the assessment and accused Brennan of allowing an unverified dossier prepared by a former British intelligence officer to influence the assessment.
But Brennan has long denied that the so-called Steele dossier had any impact on the assessment, and other former officials said that the analysts working on the report paid no attention to it, maintaining that it was unverifiable rumor.
Ratcliffe wrote on social media that the review had shown that the process was corrupt, and then he made a criminal referral to the FBI.
Last week, Gabbard issued another report that criticized the findings of the intelligence assessment even more directly.
Gabbard's report suggested that in the winter of 2016, intelligence officials under pressure from the White House changed their assessment from one that Russia had failed to mount a significant effort to hack election infrastructure to one that the Kremlin was trying to boost Trump and denigrate Clinton, the Democratic nominee.
But Gabbard's report conflated two different intelligence findings. Intelligence officials had concluded that Russia had not engaged in any major effort to hack election systems and change votes. But they also believed that Russia had tried to influence the election in various ways by releasing hacked documents to harm Clinton and sow dissent.
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Gabbard has also called for several Obama officials to face criminal investigation, without naming them.
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