President Trump evoked “Obamagate” during his Republican National Convention speech Thursday night at the White House.
Speaking to a crowd on the South Lawn, Trump briefly veered off his prepared remarks to bring up the controversy that critics worry could amount to an “October Surprise” to disrupt the 2020 election.
“Remember this: They spied on my campaign, and they got caught,” Trump said. He then warned: “Let’s see now what happens.”
This would appear to be a reference to U.S. Attorney John Durham’s criminal inquiry into misconduct by federal law enforcement and intelligence officials during the Russia investigation, which scored its first plea deal with a former FBI lawyer last week.
The president’s impromptu comment Thursday was reminiscent of those he has made in the past, including during a recent interview with Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo in which he expressed hope that the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut would not be “politically correct and just get a couple of the lower guys.” Trump also raised expectations for Attorney General William Barr. “Bill Barr can go down as the greatest attorney general in the history of our country, or he can go down as an average guy. We’ll see what happens,” he said.
A major controversy for Trump and his allies has been the FBI’s effort to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority to wiretap a former aide on his campaign using a flawed anti-Trump dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and funded by Democratic interests.
Barr has also appointed Jeff Jensen, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District Court of Missouri, to review the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn and appointed John Bash, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District Court of Texas, to investigate “unmasking” requests by Obama administration officials.
With the November election fast approaching, Democrats, legal experts, and some government veterans argue there is no evidence of a conspiracy and warn that Barr is politicizing the Justice Department to punish Trump’s perceived enemies.
Last week, former Vice President Joe Biden delivered his acceptance speech for the Democratic National Convention from his home state of Delaware. Trump has attached Biden and former President Barack Obama to what he claims to have been an effort to sabotage his 2016 campaign and administration, claiming they “knew everything.”
