There is no doubt that Russia tried to involve itself in the 2016 presidential election, but it is “disgraceful” that former President Barack Obama’s administration allegedly tried to suggest there was collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russians, former Rep. Pete King told Newsmax Sunday.
Russia, the New York Republican told Newsmax’s “Wake Up America Weekend,” involved itself in every presidential campaign dating back to the end of World War II, but it was a “lie from beginning to end” to say that there was contact between the Trump campaign and Russia.
“I would say [Vladimir] Putin was the most surprised person in the world when Hillary Clinton lost on election night,” said King. “They wanted to damage Hillary Clinton a bit only because they wanted her to be a weaker president. They never thought that Trump was going to win. They made no effort. Or maybe they had made an effort, but they were never successful in establishing any contact or collusion with the Trump administration.”
The Trump administration, through documentation released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, has accused Obama and members of his intelligence community of staging a coup by alleging Russian interference to undermine Trump’s first term in office.
“To me, that is a horrible thing of actually trying to undermine a duly elected president, using federal law enforcement and federal intelligence agencies to carry out and propagate those lies,” said King. “Absolutely indefensible.”
Meanwhile, the mass media “bought into it completely,” said former Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., on the Sunday program.
“I actually worked for CNN for two years during that period of time and every single night it was on…I can tell you they were fully invested in it. They were hand-in-hand with [James] Comey, [James] Clapper, and [John] Brennan,” Kingston said. “They were marching up the hill. They wanted to nail everything. The Bible to them was the Steele dossier and every day was a new bombshell.”
King also on Sunday commented on Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein who answered questions last week from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
She received limited immunity, but that gives the “wrong impression” that she got a break, said King.
“Any time a prisoner is going to be speaking to the government and making a profit, whether it’s saying what they could offer, what they could make available, and to get that person to say that, you say that nothing they say at that meeting can be used against them,” said King. “But she has no more immunity now than she had going into it, and she’ll have no more immunity coming out of it. It was strictly limited to that one conversation.”
He added that Democrats are exploiting the issue of allegations about Epstein and Trump, but said if there was anything there, the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden would have leaked details “all over the place” if Trump was involved.
“I think it’s important that we just try to put it to the side, not say it’s a hoax, but to say that what happened was horrible,” said King. “It was terrible, but there’s nothing at all linking anyone in the Trump orbit to whatever Jeffrey Epstein was doing or not doing.”
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