by Hans Izaak Kriek*
President Trump escalated his attacks on his predecessor Obama by tweeting "OBAMAGATE" and implying he is linked to the FBI’s much-criticised handling of the now-dropped Michael Flynn case. Trump told reporters during a press briefing that former president Obama has committed the greatest political crime ever.
Last week, Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department dismissed the case against Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, which was seen as the key prosecution from Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign. Sidney Powell, one of Flynn’s lawyers said that FBI agents did their best to hide their investigation and attempted to entrap Flynn. She mentioned a meeting on Jan. 5, 2017 at the White House that included Obama, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan. Powell said the “whole thing was orchestrated and set up within the FBI, Clapper, Brennan and in the Oval Office meeting that day with President Obama.”
Obama told supporters that with regards to Flynn’s case, there “is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That is the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic, not just institutional norms, but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”
Trump said that Flynn was innocent and was targeted in an attempt to take down his presidency. He told reporters that he was unaware that the DOJ was going to drop its case. “I felt it was going to happen just by watching and seeing, like everybody else does. He was an innocent man. He is a great gentleman. He was targeted by the Obama administration and he was targeted in order to try and take down a president,” he said. Trump continued, “What they’ve done is a disgrace and I hope a big price is going to be paid. A big price should be paid. There has never been anything like this in the history of our country. What they did, what the Obama administration did, is unprecedented. A thing like this has never happened.”
Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor said that the FBI likely feared that Flynn would uncover illegitimacies surrounding the origin of the Russia probe. "I think the best way to look at this is what the FBI and the Obama Administration wanted to do here was really audacious if you think about it in terms of the idea of trying to continue an investigation after a new president has come into power and is in a position to shut down the investigation -- when the president ultimately is the target of the investigation," McCarthy said.
Trump: “More to come on ‘Obamagate’ in the coming weeks.
*International political commentator for European Business Review and editor-in-chief at Kriek Media International
By: N. Peter Kramer
