President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Sunday it was looking more and more like his campaign for the 2016 presidential election had been illegally spied upon.
Trump issued the tweet 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.
In his tweets, Trump also took aim at defeated Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, her party's governing body.
"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 said, referring to the Democratic National Committee. "Republicans must get tough now. An illegal Scam!"
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.
"The FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian Government," the surveillance application filed in October 2016 said. The documents released include applications and renewal warrants filed in 2017 after Trump took office.
The documents released said "the FBI believes that the Russian Government's efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with" Trump's campaign. It added Page "has established relationships with Russian Government officials, including Russian intelligence officers."
Republican lawmakers have contended that the FBI made serious missteps when it sought a warrant to monitor Page in October 2016 shortly after he left the Trump campaign.
Last week, a federal grand jury charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking Democratic computer networks in 2016, in the most detailed U.S. accusation yet that Moscow meddled in the presidential election to help Trump.
Earlier this year, 13 other Russians and three Russian companies were indicted on charges of conspiring to interfere with the election.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, a ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said the documents lay out in detail "just why the FBI was so concerned that Carter Page might be acting as an agent of a foreign power."
"It was a solid application and renewals signed by four different judges appointed by three different Republican presidents," Schiff said on ABC's "This Week."
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida also broke with Trump, saying he didn't think the FBI did anything wrong in obtaining warrants against Page.
"I have a different view on this issue than the president and the White House," Rubio said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." ''They did not spy on the campaign from anything and everything that I have seen. You have an individual here who has openly bragged about his ties to Russia and Russians."
Page has denied being an agent of Russia, which he repeated Sunday to CNN, saying, "No. I've never been the agent of a foreign power."
In a 2013 letter, Page described himself as an "informal adviser' to the Kremlin but now he told CNN "it's really spin" to call him an adviser.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on CBS that while Congress needs to closely examine the warrant process, Trump gets the issue “confused” with Russian election interference.
“Mr. President, they meddled in the elections,” Graham said. “Sit down with Congress and the administration and you lead this nation to hardening the 2018 election process before it’s too late.”
Graham also repeated one continuing dispute, a contention by House Republicans that the surveillance application on Page didn’t properly reveal that Democrats -- including Hillary Clinton’s campaign -- underwrote the Steele dossier and that the partisan connection was mentioned only obliquely in a footnote.
The footnote, though, runs more than a page in length. It says that the person who approached Steele never advised him “as to the motivation behind the research into Candidate #1’s ties to R
Material from Reuters and the Associated Press was used in this story.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.