Trump calls Russia probe ‘a big hoax,’ says Dems have ‘done a lousy job’
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Trump, in an interview that aired Saturday on “Fox & Friends,” called the FBI Special Counsel’s Russia investigation “a big hoax” and claimed that Democrats are keeping up pressure on the Justice Department to release the report sooner because “they’ve done a lousy job.”
“You know there's no collusion, OK? The famous word 'collusion.' There's no obstruction because they put a decision and the attorney general made the decision, he said no obstruction,” Trump told Fox News’ Griff Jenkins. “So there's no collusion, there's no obstruction. There's no nothing.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“It's all a big hoax and the Democrats want to keep playing it because they've done a lousy job,” he said.
Attorney General William Barr last month revealed his summary of the Mueller report, which stated that the special counsel found no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 presidential election. The special counsel did not come to a conclusion on obstruction of justice, but Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the evidence was “not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
But as the White House declared "complete exoneration," Democrats have kept up the pressure in demanding the release of the full report. Barr has said he wishes to review the report with the special counsel’s team to determine details to be redacted prior to its release to Congress.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Democrats had set a deadline of April 2 for the full report to be released to Congress and to the public. That deadline was missed and Barr has said he intends to release the report by “mid-April, if not sooner.”
On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Wednesday to authorize subpoenas for the full report. Meanwhile, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has claimed that there is evidence of collusion with the Russians.
HOUSE JUDICIARY DEMOCRATS AUTHORIZE SUBPOENAS FOR MUELLER REPORT
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“There is plenty of evidence of collusion and corrupt co-mingling of work between the Trump campaign and the Russians,” Schiff said during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday. “But I fully accept that as a prosecutor that he couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that crime.”
On Friday, Trump said that he was president because Democrats “haven’t governed well.”
“They haven't governed well again that's why I'm here,” he said. “The way they governed is the reason that I'm president and we are doing a great job.”
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He also took aim at Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., for their responses to the Barr letter.
“Schiff and Nadler they keep playing their game,” he said. “They can't get off it and they were very disappointed but it was a very easy decision.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Anna Hopkins contributed to this report.