Retired Navy Adm. Ronny Jackson (R), who served as White House physician for both former President Obama and President Trump, accused Obama on Tuesday of weaponizing the federal government against Trump.
“President Obama weaponized the highest levels of our government to spy on President Trump,” Jackson tweeted. “Every Deep State traitor deserves to be brought to justice for their heinous actions.”
Jackson’s tweet comes after Trump targeted Obama is a series of tweets on Mother’s Day. Trump tweeted “OBAMAGATE” and then retweeted conservative commentator Buck Sexton, who claimed that “the outgoing president” — in reference to Obama — “used his last weeks in office to target incoming officials and sabotage the new administration.”
The president was later asked to elaborate about his tweets by a Washington Post reporter, though Trump sidestepped the question.
“You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody,” Trump replied. “All you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours.”
On Wednesday, acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell released a list of the names of former Obama administration officials who asked for documents that led to the identity of former national security adviser Michael Flynn being “unmasked” between the 2016 election and Trump’s inauguration.
The copy of that list includes various well-known Obama aides as well as then-Vice President Joe Biden. In the past, Trump has argued that the Obama administration sought to hurt him politically by leaking selective bits of information to the media. Trump and his allies have pointed to Flynn’s “unmasking” as evidence of foul play.
Obama fired Flynn as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 and cautioned the Trump administration against hiring him as national security adviser.
Recently, the Department of Justice dropped a case against Flynn where he was changed with lying to the FBI about calls he had with a Russian official following the 2016 election. Flynn originally pleaded guilty to lying about the calls.
In April 2018, Trump nominated Jackson to be the head of Veterans Affairs, one of the largest Cabinet agencies. However, Trump quickly withdrew his nomination after accusations of misconduct by Jackson began to pile up.
Jackson, 53, is now running for Texas’s 13th Congressional District seat, despite living outside of the district. The seat is currently held by Rep. Mac Thornberry (R), who is retiring after his current term.
The retired admiral will square off against fellow Republican candidate Josh Winegarner in a runoff election to determine to GOP nominee for the seat on July 14. In the initial March 3 Republican primary, Winegarner received 38.8 percent of the vote, with Jackson winning 19.9 percent. Trump endorsed Jackson prior to the March election.
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