Donald Trump threatened his political opponents with dire consequences in a 45-minute-long rant during a phone interview with Fox News ‘ Sean Hannity, reports Esquire .
Ever since a redacted version of the Mueller report was first released earlier this month, the president has been part of a direct face-off with congressional Democrats who have vowed to continue investigations against him. Trump, who has labeled the Robert Mueller investigation a “witch hunt” concocted by his political opponents, stressed his point again on Sean Hannity’s show, going so far as to say that it was an attempted “coup” against the elected government of America.
Trump has made baseless allegations about Obama administration officials “spying” on his campaign previously. Observers believe the allegations against his predecessor are an attempt by the president to distract the American public from the findings of the special counsel report, but that characterization didn’t stop Trump from emphasizing his point on Sean Hannity’s show.
“Really, it’s a coup, it’s spying, it’s everything you can imagine,” Trump said.
“Early on, I used the word ‘wiretap,’ and I put it in quotes, meaning surveillance, spying—you can sort of say whatever. But that was a long time ago…two years ago, when I said that on a little bit of a hunch, and a little bit of wisdom, it blew up. Because maybe they thought I was wise to ’em and they were caught.”
The 45 most outrageous lines from Donald Trump’s rambling interview with Sean Hannity | Analysis by CNN’s Chris Cillizza https://t.co/IDHk1Mklbf pic.twitter.com/UFq3ZY7Oj1
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 27, 2019
Trump also used the phone interview with Hannity as an opportunity to lay into one of his most-often talked about themes during the 2016 presidential elections — Hillary Clinton’s emails. Trump said that Clinton sent “hundreds of thousands of text messages or emails through the Weiner server, or computer” — a false claim with the president appearing keen to conflate Hillary Clinton’s private server issues with the email exchanges between her former aide, Huma Abedin, and her husband, Anthony Weiner.
These are not the only debunked claims reiterated by the president during his phone interview with Hannity. According to CNN , in addition to raising claims about Obama officials “spying” on him, Trump also said that former FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were the leading edge of a “deep state” conspiracy against him. Trump insinuated that former FBI director James Comey had a personal vendetta against him and initiated the Russia investigation partly because of his disagreements with Trump. He also suggested the previously debunked theory of Mueller and Comey being thick friends.
Hannity and Trump are pushing conspiracy theories about the Obama-era Justice Department.
“Really it’s a coup,” Trump says, before admitting that his (unfounded) claim about the Obama DOJ wiretapping him was based on “a little bit of a hunch.” pic.twitter.com/WFCi3SjIRN
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2019
