Donald Trump Praises ‘New York Times,’ Says Their Report On Campaign Spying Is ‘Bigger Than Watergate’
Donald Trump praised his long-time foe The New York Times after the news outlet published a story saying that the FBI sent an agent posing as an assistant to meet with campaign advisers.
“Finally, Mainstream Media is getting involved – too ‘hot’ to avoid,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Pulitzer Prize anyone? The New York Times, on front page (finally), ‘Details effort to spy on Trump Campaign.’ @foxandfriends This is bigger than WATERGATE, but the reverse!”
As The Inquisitr previously reported, on Thursday, The New York Times released a report claiming that the FBI sent an agent, who posed as an assistant to a Cambridge researcher, to meet up with George Papadopoulos, an adviser on Trump’s campaign. The agent was sent as part of the bureau’s attempt to look into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
It was this meeting that has prompted Trump and his allies to claim that the government spied on his team and that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was politically motivated.
Though the agent directly asked the Trump campaign if they were involved with Russia, the investigation didn’t reveal any useful information, The New York Times noted.
Attorney General William Barr has repeated the claims that the Trump campaign was spied on, prompting a backlash after he called for the situation to be looked into.
Per PolitiFact, Trump has incorrectly claimed that the entire investigation started as a result of an unsubstantiated report known as the Steele dossier. The investigation actually began after Papadopoulos claimed to an Australian diplomat that he had heard that Russia had information on Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s tweet seems to have been prompted by a lower-third scroll on Fox News’ Fox & Friends that read “NYT Details Effort to Spy on Trump 2016 Campaign.”
JUST IN: FBI sent undercover investigator to meet with Trump campaign aide as part of Russia probe: report https://t.co/W48NATYWT7 pic.twitter.com/Kg7DOpMn6G
— The Hill (@thehill) May 2, 2019
All this comes as the president continues to focus on the fallout from the release of the heavily redacted Mueller report. He has repeatedly called the investigation a “witch hunt” and has made numerous attempts to block further investigations into the findings in the report.
At the same time, the president has called for Congress to get back to work in an attempt to shift the focus away from him.
“OK, so after two years of hard work and each party trying their best to make the other party look as bad as possible, it’s time to get back to business. The Mueller Report strongly stated that there was No Collusion with Russia (of course) and, in fact, they were rebuffed at every turn in attempts to gain access.” he said in a series of tweets.
He then called on Congress to work on infrastructure, border security, and drug prices instead.
