President Donald Trump said he has been able to get through Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections by thinking about God.
At the White House during a service marking the National Day of Prayer, May 2, Trump remarked on the power of prayer and proceeded to comment on how he lived through the “witch hunts”—a term he has used several times to describe Mueller’s investigation.
“As God promises in the Bible, ’those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint,'” Trump said.
“And that’s something that Mike and I think about all the time, right Mike?” he said. The crowd laughed.
“What do you think, Mike?“ he added. ”I think so. Hey, we deserve it.”
“People say, ‘How do you get through that whole stuff? How do you go through those witch hunts and everything else?’” Trump said.
“And you know what we do, Mike, we just do it, right? And we think about God. That’s true.”
The Mueller Probe
The FBI, under the Obama administration during the 2016 elections, had launched a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign based on false information contained in the now infamous
Steele dossier.
The dossier had been paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, and was produced by Fusion GPS and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Special counsel Robert Mueller took over the FBI’s investigation in May 2017 and brought it to a
conclusion in late March 2019, with the final report
released on April 18.
Mueller found no evidence for any of the main
103 claims contained in the dossier—most notably, that though Russia did attempt to interfere in the election, there is no evidence to establish that either Trump or any U.S. citizen knowingly conspired or coordinated with the Russian government ahead of the election.
Trump said that following the conclusion of the Mueller probe, it is “now time to look at the other side.”
On May 1, Trump’s official YouTube channel
uploaded a video montage titled “Obama Knew.” The video features prominent Democratic lawmakers admitting that President Barack Obama did not do enough to defend against Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
“President Obama knew Russia was interfering in the 2016 election,” the video’s opening statement says. “But his team just watched it happen.”
According to data from a
CNN poll released May 1,
more than two-thirds of Americans believe that Congress should investigate the origins of the Justice Department’s inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The survey found that 69 percent of those polled “think Congress ought to investigate the origins of the Justice Department’s inquiry into Russian interference.” Of those who voted, 76 percent were Democrats, 69 percent were independents, and 62 percent were Republicans.
Obama Administration Spied on Trump Campaign?
More than two years ago, Trump made the initial claim that his campaign was spied on by the Obama administration. At the time, little evidence was publicly available to back up the claim, but investigations by Republicans in Congress have established that the FBI surveilled at least one Trump campaign associate. Further evidence suggests that Obama officials used
at least four other methods to spy on the campaign.
Attorney General William Barr told House lawmakers on April 10 he believes spying on the Trump campaign occurred during the 2016 election. Barr
added that he is looking into the matter in parallel to an investigation by the Department of Justice inspector general.
Barr said at the time he believed “spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” and that it’s important to examine whether the surveillance of the president’s campaign was adequately predicated. The attorney general also
revealed that his inquiry scope includes intelligence agencies beyond the FBI. He also hinted that he has evidence of spying that is not yet public.
On May 1, Barr
committed to brief congressional lawmakers on the possibility that senior FBI officials used counterintelligence briefings with Trump’s transition team to gather intelligence on the Trump administration. Barr also revealed that the FBI failed to warn then-candidate Trump about Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.
Epoch Times reporters Ivan Pentchoukov and Bowen Xiao contributed to this report.
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