President Trump said former President Barack Obama should testify to Congress on what he might have known about the FBI’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Trump sent out a tweet on Thursday calling for Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to call Obama to testify in front of the committee. On May 7, the DOJ motioned to drop the charges against Flynn of lying to the FBI after new evidence revealed that intelligence officials allegedly sought to catch Flynn in a perjury trap or get him to admit to violating the 1799 Logan Act.
“If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama. He knew EVERYTHING,” Trump said. “Do it @LindseyGrahamSC, just do it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!”
If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama. He knew EVERYTHING. Do it @LindseyGrahamSC, just do it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 14, 2020
Despite Trump’s urging, Graham does not plan to follow through on the request.
“I don’t think now’s the time for me to do that. I don’t know if that’s even possible. I have grave concerns about the role of executive privilege and all kinds of issues,” he told Politico on Thursday. “I understand President Trump’s frustration, but be careful what you wish for. Just be careful what you wish for.”
Documents released on Wednesday showed that a number of top officials in the Obama administration, including former Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, asked for Flynn to be “unmasked,” or revealed, in certain classified intelligence reports.
As the Intelligence Community investigates foreign governments and officials, U.S. agents sometimes intercept communications made by private citizens, so they “mask” the identities of those individuals behind codenames in reports. Government officials routinely submit requests to have certain private citizens identified to them. In the case of Lt. Gen. Flynn, however, after he was unmasked, his identity as a participant in a December 2016 phone call with Sergey Kislyak, then Moscow’s ambassador, was leaked to the press. Leaking classified information is a crime punishable with up to a decade in prison.
Former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and others, also submitted similar unmasking requests.
On Tuesday, before the documents on Flynn’s unmasking were released, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) suggested that Obama “is in the middle of this” and ordered his top FBI official, Comey, to investigate Flynn and the Trump campaign.
“I don’t believe any of this could have happened without President Obama. I completely believe that not only did he know — and others have already said that he knew about the conversation, he knew about trying to go after General Flynn and that it was being directed from the White House. So I have every expectation that President Obama is in the middle of this,” Paul said in an interview with Fox News.
“But I think it’s worse. I think you go back to Operation Crossfire Hurricane, the whole fake dossier and all the stuff, all of the FISA warrants that were I think improperly and illegally gotten started on the Trump campaign, I really strongly believe that President Obama gave specific and direct oversight and direct permission for this,” Paul said.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.