EXCLUSIVE: Trump says exposing ‘corrupt’ FBI probe could be ‘crowning achievement’ of presidency thehill.com/hilltv/rising/…
“I hope to be able to call this, along with tax cuts and regulation and all the things I’ve done… in its own way this might be the most important thing because this was corrupt,” he said.
(We regret that too.)
Trump also said he regretted not firing James Comey immediately instead of waiting until May 2017, confirming an account Rudy Giuliani gave earlier in the day that Trump was dismayed in 2016 by the way Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email case.
Trump also said he regretted not firing James Comey immediately instead of waiting until May 2017, confirming an account Rudy Giuliani gave earlier in the day that Trump was dismayed in 2016 by the way Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email case.
“If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Trump said. “I should have fired him right after the convention, say I don’t want that guy. Or at least fired him the first day on the job. ...”
“I would have been better off firing him or putting out a statement that I don’t want him there when I get there.”
He criticizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court’s approval of the warrant that authorized surveillance of Carter Page, a low-level Trump campaign aide, toward the end of the 2016 election, suggesting the FBI misled the court.
“They know this is one of the great scandals in the history of our country because basically what they did is, they used Carter Page, who nobody even knew, who I feel very badly for, I think he’s been treated very badly...”
“... They used Carter Page as a foil in order to surveil a candidate for the presidency of the United States.”
As for the judges on the secret intelligence court: “It looks to me ...that they have been misled,” the president said. “I mean I don’t think we have to go much further than to say that they’ve been misled.”
“One of the things I’m disappointed in is that the judges in FISA didn’t, don’t seem to have done anything about it. I’m very disappointed in that Now, I may be wrong because, maybe as we sit here and talk, maybe they’re well into it.“
“We just don’t know that because I purposely have not chosen to get involved,” Trump said.
He denounced the FBI for leaking to create what he said was a false narrative against him, saying it appeared to be an “insurance policy” to destroy his presidency if he won.
“Number one how illegal is it? And number two, how low is it,” he said.
“Number one how illegal is it? And number two, how low is it,” he said.
“What we have now is an insurance policy,” the president said. “But it has been totally discredited, even Democrats agree that it has been discredited. They are not going to admit to it, but it has been totally discredited. I think, frankly, more so by text than by documents.”
Trump said he hasn’t read the docs he ordered declassified but said he expected to show they would prove the FBI case started as a “hoax”
“I have had many people ask me to release them. Not that I didn’t like the idea but I wanted to wait, I wanted to see where it was all going”
“I have had many people ask me to release them. Not that I didn’t like the idea but I wanted to wait, I wanted to see where it was all going”
In the end, he said, his goal was to let the public decide by seeing the documents that have been kept secret for more than two years. “All I want to do is be transparent,” he said.
Asked what he thought the outcome of his long-running fight with the FBI, the president said: “I hope to be able put this up as one of my crowning achievements that I was able to ... expose something that is truly a cancer in our country.”
