Thread by @JasonLeopold

#FOIAFriday SCOOP: DOJ released a doc to me in response to a 5 year old #FOIA request. It's a doc I didn't specifically ask for. It's a transcript of an off the record discussion Obama had with reporters about Trump, et al, 3 days before he left office

1/
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Obama told reporters he was not too worried abt 4 yrs of Trump

“Take on some water, but we can kind of bail fast enough to be okay. 8 years would be a problem. I would be concerned about a sustained period in which some of these norms have broken down and started to corrode”

Obama told reporters during this January 17, 2017 discussion that they should pay particularly close attn to DOJ

Obama said in these previously unpublished remarks that he didn’t believe Trump was particularly interested in starting any wars other than “bombing the heck out of terrorists."

This is what Obama thought about Trump's view of foreign policy

Obama said at the time that the Republican Party "is ideologically completely incoherent.”

“You don’t know what they stand for,” he said.

He went on

For all of Trump’s harsh criticisms about Obama, the 44th president said Trump’s public persona was radically different than in his private interactions.

This is what he said.

This was a nearly 90 minute off the record discussion Obama had with reporters. He touched on a wide range of topics, including his communtation of @xychelsea's prison sentence and @Snowden's leaks.

But it was Obama’s comments about the GOP and Trump that seem almost prescient

Obama said his No. 1 concern about the then incoming Trump administration was the potential politicization of law enforcement

There are a bunch of other revealing tidbits in this transcript such as Obama expressing his frustration with "the Greenwalds of the world" and his comments about Coney and the FBI

Obama had some advice for reporters covering Trump right before he left office

that should read *Comey*