President Trump on Wednesday blasted former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, after Clapper said the president should be happy the FBI monitored his campaign.
“No, James Clapper, I am not happy,” Trump tweeted.
“Spying on a campaign would be illegal, and a scandal to boot!” he added.
Trump was responding to comments Clapper made Tuesday on “The View.”
Co-host Joy Behar asked Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence from 2010-2017, if the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign, as the president has claimed.
“No, they were not,” Clapper said. “They were spying on, a term I don’t particularly like, but on what the Russians were doing. Trying to understand were the Russians infiltrating, trying to gain access, trying to gain leverage or influence — which is what they do.”
“Well, why doesn’t he like that? He should be happy,” Behar said, referring to Trump.
“He should be,” Clapper responded.
The president has spent the last several days claiming that an FBI informant was embedded within his campaign for political purposes. He has, without evidence, suggested the Obama administration planted the individual in his campaign in an effort to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election.
Trump has said it would be “one of the biggest political scandals in history,” and called for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the matter, an uncommon step for a sitting president.
The DOJ agreed to expand its inspector general probe to include “any irregularities with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s or the Department of Justice’s tactics concerning the Trump campaign.”