.@hogangidley45: “There are two groups that have created chaos more than the Russians and that’s the Democrats and the mainstream media.” pic.twitter.com/HBmruoSUn3
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 17, 2018
A White House spokesman accused Democrats and the mainstream news media of creating more recent “chaos” in America than the Russian government.
In an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Saturday, Hogan Gidley blamed the two groups for causing “chaos” by spreading stories related to Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
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“There are two groups that have created chaos more than the Russians and that’s the Democrats and the mainstream media,” Gidley said.
“[They] continued to push this lie on the American people for more than a year, and frankly Americans should be outraged by that,” he added.
Gidley’s comments are part of a recent push from the White House to claim that an indictment filed Friday from Mueller’s team of prosecutors targeting 13 Russian nationals and three organizations for alleged election interference vindicates the president.
President Trump tweeted Friday that the indictment handed down by the special counsel’s office proved that “no collusion” occurred between his campaign and Russia.
“Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for president,” Trump tweeted. “The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!”
“All of these efforts were about sowing confusion in the electoral process and undermining the next president, not about supporting one candidate over the other,” added White House spokesman Raj Shah in an appearance on Fox News.
Despite this, Mueller’s indictment states that Russians pursued the goal of elevating Trump’s campaign while attacking his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
“Defendants’ operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (‘Trump campaign’) and disparaging Hillary Clinton,” the indictment reads. “Defendants made various expenditures to carry out those activities, including buying political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities.”