A day after Fox News talked about investigating Obama, Donald Trump threatened to launch an investigation into the popular former president.
Trump said, “They want to investigate. They want to go fishing, and I watched Bob Mueller, and they have nothing. There’s no collusion. There’s no obstruction. It’s a disgrace. We want to find out what happened with the last Democrat president. Let’s look into Obama the way they looked at me. From day one, they looked at everything that we’ve done. They could look into the book deal that President Obama made. Let’s subpoena all of his records.”
Trump then threatened to investigate the Clinton Foundation and called House Republicans gentleman and gentlewomen because they didn’t issue subpoenas. In other words, Trump was happy because they didn’t do their jobs and investigate him.
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Trump is now openly threatening to investigate Obama: "We want to find out what happened with the last Democrat president. Let's look into Obama the way they've looked at me … they could look into the book deal that President Obama made. Let's subpoena all of his records." pic.twitter.com/uDO0kL9QfA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 26, 2019
On one level this is silly, because Obama’s book deal was not a crime, while Trump has already been implicated in multiple felonies. Below the surface, Trump’s comments are a reminder that he has only survived politically because he was able to distract from his own behavior by making the 2016 election about Hillary Clinton. Trump is still trying to create a distraction scandal. He wants to investigate Obama to take attention away from the ongoing investigations into his own potentially criminal activity.
Republicans spent five years investigating Obama after they won control of the House, and they found nothing.
Trump is the one on a fishing expedition as he is looking for anything to distract the intense investigative heat that is threatening his presidency.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
