The president said on Sunday he would ask the Justice Department to look into whether his presidential campaign was infiltrated or surveilled by the FBI
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) — U. S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he would ask the Justice Department to look into whether his 2016 presidential campaign was infiltrated or surveilled by the FBI or the department under the Obama administration.
The Republican president’s pronouncement followed a morning in which he posted seven tweets denouncing as a «witch hunt» the federal investigation of whether his campaign worked with Russia to sway the election.
«I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes — and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!» Trump wrote on Twitter.
Earlier, Trump, without naming Special Counsel Robert Mueller, repeated his criticism of the probe as politically motivated. He reprised his attacks on Hillary Clinton, his Democratic challenger in 2016 and maintained that the Democrats were not submitted to the same scrutiny by the FBI.
Trump also implied that the special counsel investigation of whether foreign governments tried to influence the presidential campaign was designed to hurt Republicans in the November congressional elections.
«Now that the Witch Hunt has given up on Russia and is looking at the rest of the World, they should easily be able to take it into the Mid-Term Elections where they can put some hurt on the Republican Party,» he wrote. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Sandra Maler)
