United States President Donald Trump tried to cast fresh doubt Monday on the federal investigation into Russian election interference in the 2016 presidential election, calling it a “fraud and a hoax designed to target Trump” and demanding an immediate end to the “Witch Hunt.”
Trump also said former campaign adviser Carter Page, the subject of government documents released over the weekend, wasn’t a spy or an agent of Russia.
“Carter Page wasn’t a spy, wasn’t an agent of the Russians - he would have cooperated with the FBI. It was a fraud and a hoax designed to target Trump,” the president said in a series of tweets quoting Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.
Fitton was interviewed Monday on “Fox and Friends,” an appearance Trump tweeted about.
“A disgrace to America,” Trump’s tweet continued. “They should drop the discredited Mueller Witch Hunt now!”
The president was responding to the Justice Department’s Saturday release of documents related to the wiretapping of Page. Trump has asserted without evidence that the documents, heavily redacted and released Saturday under the Freedom of Information Act, “confirm with little doubt” that intelligence agencies misled a special court that approved the wiretap warrant.
But lawmakers from both political parties said that the documents don’t show wrongdoing and that they even appear to undermine some previous claims by top Republicans on the basis for obtaining a warrant against Page.
