Trump says that there has been an attempt to "hit" his administration: "It's much bigger than Watergate"



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Trump was responding to a Fox News report about texts exchanged between Lisa Page, former FBI lawyer, and Peter Strzok, a former FBI agent. The president immediately claimed that the SMS were evidence of a conspiracy against him, but the Fox News report says that it was "unclear, according to the posts, if Strzok and Page had simply sought to establish links with the new administration, or if they wanted to organize the information meetings to investigate Trump and his associates. "

"Really, it 'sa coup d' état, it 's spying," Trump told Fox News in an interview, adding that Strzok and Page "were trying to" get on with it. infiltrate the administration ".

During his testimony before Congress last summer, Strzok defended a text message that he had sent about Trump's potential election, saying "we will stop him." Strzok said that the text was "in no way, unequivocal, a suggestion that the FBI, I, would take any measure whatsoever to have an undue impact on the electoral process, whether for a candidate" . Later, he stated that "at no point in any of these texts have these personal beliefs ever been equated with actions that I have undertaken".

In her testimony before Congress, Page also stated that the professional decisions made by her and Strzok were not related to the personal text messages exchanged.

Trump said Page and Strzok "were dirty cops" and "sick people," claiming that "it was an attempt to overthrow the US government."

"I think it's much more important than Watergate, I think it's perhaps the biggest scandal in the political history of this country, perhaps beyond politics. "said Trump.

This is another example of the President spending on Fox News and using incendiary rhetoric to describe the campaign investigation. Last month, following the release of Attorney General William Barr's letter summarizing the report of special advocate Robert Mueller, Trump called the investigation "an attempt to take control of our government" and accused Page, Strzok and "hundreds of others" of treason.

Trump frequently criticized a series of text messages exchanged with Strzok, in which they denigrated him as a presidential candidate. Page and Strzok have both been involved in the FBI's investigation into the treatment of confidential information by Hillary Clinton, in addition to the early days of the Bureau's investigation into the interference of Russia in the 2016 election, and briefly served in the team of special advocate Robert Mueller.

The president's allies have already attached themselves to the texts between Strzok and Page without context. The conservatives had previously speculated on a "secret society" at the FBI born of an exchange of text. They later learned that it was a reference to a gag of Vladimir Putin's themed calendars that one of the employees had bought for those who were working at the beginning. of the investigation on Russia.

Later, the president's allies referred to a September 2016 Page text stating that "Potus wants to know everything about what we are doing", alleging – without any corroboration – that President Barack Obama had demanded information about the 39, FBI investigation. Hillary Clinton manages the classified information.

Strzok was dismissed from the Mueller team once the SMS was discovered during internal investigations. The page left the team before the text messages were discovered.

Trump later listed a number of his other critics of the FBI and the rest of the intelligence community, all of whom served under President Barack Obama and were involved in the early days of the campaign's investigation. Trump, as potentially being part of a plot. against him.

"Let's see what happens with (former FBI Acting Director, Andrew) McCabe and (former FBI Director, James) Comey and (former CIA Director, John) Brennan and (the former National Intelligence Director, James) Clapper, "said Trump, adding," Let's see how high it goes up. "

Trump also touched on a number of other topics during his long interview on Fox News, including requests to the Foreign Intelligence Oversight Court, related to the investigation of Russia and its campaign .

Trump's congressional allies have been pushing him for a month to declassify court cases, accusing justice officials and the FBI of being biased against the president.

On Thursday, Trump announced its intention to accede to their request.

"Everything will be declassified," said Trump. "And I'm happy to have waited."

Congressional allies who urged the president to do so have privately expressed the hope that he will redouble his efforts to declassify these documents now that the investigation into Russia is over and that this can not be perceived. as a hindrance to the ongoing investigation. Trump had previously stated that he would declassify FISA applications, but he had been persuaded not to do so last year.

Laura Jarrett of CNN, Kaitlan Collins, Clare Foran, Sophie Tatum and Sarah Westwood contributed to this report.

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