Trump Celebrates as Pam Bondi Begins Revenge Crusade Against Obama
President Donald Trump claimed in a CNBC interview Tuesday that he had “nothing to do with” Attorney General Pam Bondi’s grand jury probe into Obama officials—but he’s certainly not mad about it.
Anchor Joe Kernan asked the president, who called in to the program, “You’ve talked about how you want success, not retribution. The Justice Department is now tapping a grand jury to look into the intelligence community’s assessment of what was happening with Russia [in the 2016 U.S. election]. You have nothing to do with directing the Justice Department in that?”
“Nope, I have nothing to do with it. Pam is doing a great job,” Trump responded. “I will tell you this: They deserve it. I was happy to hear it,” he continued.
Years after a bipartisan Senate panel and the CIA confirmed that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified documents that she claimed proved otherwise. Now Bondi plans to subpoena Obama-era officials for their purported role in what Trump has deemed the Russia “hoax.”
Whether or not Trump directed Bondi to relitigate an already-closed chapter of his history—conveniently launched at the same time he’s being walloped by his base for his mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and documented proximity to the dead pedophile—we can’t say for sure. But it’s certainly in line with the years of disinformation he’s spread about the matter, and his appetite for revenge.
Speaking of relitigating, Trump continued in his response to Kernan, claiming that multiple elections have been “rigged”: “What they did with the election—what they did with the last election too, but it was too big to rig—what they did in the 2020 election is grotesque, I mean that was a rigged election 100 percent.”
Kernan laughed, responding, “We can’t relitigate that. We can’t relitigate that.”
Hearing his interviewer’s casual comeback, Trump observed, “You know, a year ago you would’ve been upset if I said that. Today it’s different. Now I say it all the time: It was a rigged election.”
He’s not wrong. Trump’s relentless lies have browbeaten the American people into submission, and his administration’s claims that there was no Russian interference in the 2016 election are just another example, whether Trump’s behind the probe or not.