President Donald Trump on Thursday accused the FBI of potentially spying on his presidential campaign and said doing so would be a bigger scandal than Watergate.
Citing National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, former assistant U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, Trump said the FBI "probably" had an informant embedded in Trump’s campaign.
"Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI 'SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT.' Andrew McCarthy says, 'There’s probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign.' If so, this is bigger than Watergate!" Trump tweeted.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/997095653875617792
Trump quoted McCarthy speaking on Fox News about his latest articles, in which he argued Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson was referring to an FBI spy during Senate Judiciary Committee testimony. Simpson testified that former British intelligence officer Michael Steele told him the bureau had a "human source" in the Trump campaign.
.@AndrewCMcCarthy: "There's probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign." pic.twitter.com/QCCQSZZnkq
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 17, 2018
Trump also tweeted Thursday that Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation into Russian involvement in the election is the "greatest Witch Hunt" in American history.
"Congratulations America, we are now into the second year of the greatest Witch Hunt in American History...and there is still No Collusion and No Obstruction," Trump wrote. "The only Collusion was that done by Democrats who were unable to win an Election despite the spending of far more money!"
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/997076300476055552
Trump’s tweets followed a New York Times report about operation "Crossfire Hurricane," in which the Obama administration’s FBI investigated Trump’s campaign. Mainstream outlets have also been commemorating the one-year anniversary of Mueller’s appointment as special counsel on May 17, 2017.
The special counsel investigation has issued indictments on nine people and three businesses, securing five guilty pleas so far, while a pair of cases is going to criminal trial. But media attention has largely been on the allegation of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Mueller’s latest public moves have involved charging Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort of money laundering and tax fraud from before his time working with Trump’s campaign. Manafort has pled not guilty.
A federal judge recently took issue with how Mueller’s team has prosecuted Manafort, saying the investigators were only pressing him about past activities in order to get information on Trump.
The Washington Free Beacon was once a client of Fusion GPS. All of the work Fusion GPS performed for the Free Beacon was based on public sources, and none of the work product appeared in the Steele dossier. For more information, see here.