Donald Trump.
Mike
Theiler-Pool/Getty Images
In a tweet Saturday morning, President Donald Trump
said the GOP memo that was released Friday "totally
vindicates" him in the Russia investigation.
The tweet undermines claims from House Speaker Paul
Ryan that the memo is a completely separate matter from
special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
The memo claims that top law-enforcement officials
acted improperly when signing off on the secret surveillance
of a former Trump campaign adviser.
President Donald Trump slammed the special counsel Robert
Mueller's Russia investigation in a tweet Saturday morning,
pointing to a controversial memo as evidence of bias against
him at the FBI and the Department of Justice.
"This memo totally vindicates 'Trump' in probe. But the Russian
Witch Hunt goes on and on," Trump tweeted. "Their [sic]
was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now
used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding
NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!"
The tweet is at odds with what House Speaker Paul Ryan has said
about the purpose of releasing the memo.
On Tuesday, Ryan was clear to distinguish the memo from
Mueller's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016
US election and whether Trump obstructed justice during the
course of the probe.
But Trump's tweet indicates he sees the memo as an indictment
of the integrity of Mueller's investigation.
On Friday, Trump authorized the release of the memo, despite
objections from Democrats,
the FBI, and the DOJ, all of whom said the document contained
significant inaccuracies and omissions that mischaracterized
the intelligence community's work.
The memo claims, among other
things, that several top officials at the FBI and the DOJ acted
improperly when they signed off on Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) applications seeking to monitor Carter
Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
It was drafted by the Republican chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, and his aides, during
the committee's investigation into potential anti-Trump bias
and corruption among senior law-enforcement ranks.
"A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves," Trump told
reporters shortly before signing off on the memo's release.
But while the president and his allies said the memo presented
damning evidence of bias at the DOJ and the FBI, it left experts underwhelmed,
with many characterizing it as a set of Republican talking
points designed to undermine trust in the law enforcement and
intelligence community.
Later on Saturday, Trump again took to Twitter,
complaining that "nobody even talks" about his efforts to
improve the economy due to the Russia investigation.
"Great jobs numbers and finally, after many years, rising
wages- and nobody even talks about them," he tweeted. "Only
Russia, Russia, Russia, despite the fact that, after a year of
looking, there is No Collusion!"
Michelle Mark contributed reporting.
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