Reuters
President Donald Trump said “young and beautiful lives” have been destroyed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s “Witch Hunt” investigation into Russian interference during the election and any collusion on the part of Trump campaign staffers.
“Who’s going to give back the young and beautiful lives (and others) that have been devastated and destroyed by the phony Russia Collusion Witch Hunt?,” Trump said in a tweet on Sunday. “They journeyed down to Washington, D.C., with stars in their eyes and wanting to help our nation … They went back home in tatters!”
The tweet appears to pertain to a column in the New York Post on Sunday in which former campaign aide Carter Page said because of the media coverage surrounding him in late 2016 his consulting business was damaged and he lost his girlfriend, who was “freaking out with the fake news about me.”
Page told columnist Paul Sperry that Stefan Halper, a confidential FBI informant, spied on him as part of a “politically motivated” investigation of the Trump campaign.
Trump has called Halper, a Cambridge University professor who reportedly met with members of the campaign — including Page, George Papadopoulos and Sam Clovis — in the summer of 2016 a “spy” and said the affair could be “one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. SPYGATE.”
Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have jumped on the revelation that Halper, a veteran of past Republican presidential administrations, contacted Trump campaign officials as proof that Mueller’s investigation was launched for “political purposes.”
Trump said the Obama administration’s FBI embedded Halper in his campaign.
Last Thursday, Democrats who attended a classified briefing by FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, said they saw no evidence that Halper was placed in the Trump campaign.
“Nothing we heard today has changed our view that there is no evidence to support any allegation that the FBI or any intelligence agency placed a spy in the Trump campaign or otherwise failed to follow appropriate procedures and protocols,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said after the meeting.
In another tweet later Sunday, Trump continued his assault on the “13 Angry Democrats” who are investigating him and questioned why Hillary Clinton’s campaign wasn’t investigated for collusion.
“Why didn’t the 13 Angry Democrats investigate the campaign of Crooked Hillary Clinton, many crimes, much Collusion with Russia?” he posted. “Why didn’t the FBI take the Server from the DNC? Rigged Investigation!”
Trump appears to be referring to Mueller and his team of investigators.
Mueller, a Republican, was nominated by former President George W. Bush to head up the FBI in 2001.
In May 2017, Mueller was named special counsel by Rosenstein, a Trump appointee.