Trump accuses Obama and Biden of ‘TREASON’ as ex-acting AG Sally Yates says FBI went ‘rogue’ in Russia probe

DONALD Trump accused Barack Obama and Joe Biden of “treason” by illegally spying on his campaign.

Following ex-acting Attorney General Sally Yates’ testimony on the Russia investigation, Trump tweeted: “BIG NEWS! The Political Crime of the Century is unfolding”.

He added: “ObamaBiden illegally spied on the Trump Campaign, both before and after the election. Treason!”

The president retweeted a post by George Washington University tort law professor Jonathan Turley paraphrasing Yates’ testimony.

“Sally Yates just testified that she would not have signed off on the surveillance of Carter Page if she knew what she knows now. That follows Rod Rosenstein saying the same thing,” Turley tweeted, with a link to his site explaining former Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein’s testimony the day before.

Turley was called to Congress to testify in favor of Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998 and again as recently as last year when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee arguing against Trump’s impeachment.

The tweets in question refer to a heated exchange between Yates and South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, who questions Yates on her signing off on the FBI surveilling Carter Page.

Page, a former foreign-policy adviser to Donald Trump, was under scrutiny during the 2017 Special Counsel investigation into links between Trump associates and Russian officials, as well as any Russian interference into the 2016 election in favor of Trump.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report found no direct evidence Page had coordinated Trump campaign activities with the Russian government.

During the exchange, Yates defended the investigation but found fault with how former FBI Director James Comey led the investigation. Graham asked Yates knowing what she knows now, would she have signed off on the investigation, to which Yates replied, “I wouldn’t sign anything that I know to contain errors or admissions,” adding she learned of the errors through the Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz’s report.

The Horowitz report showed the FBI had failed to interview key witnesses in their surveillance and investigation, and proved the last two of four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to surveil Page were invalid.

Among Yates’ testimony included a push back against current Attorney General William Barr’s actions to dismiss charges against Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser.

Yates said she did not authorize the interview between the FBI and Flynn only because she did not have prior knowledge of them, but said the interviews were legitimate and she would have signed off on them regardless.

“We had evidence that the Russians were attempting to influence the election,” she said, “it was to find out about his conversations that he was providing false information.”

“Director Comey didn’t coordinate that with us and acted unilaterally,” she said, referring to Comey’s holding of the interview without informing her beforehand.

This prompts Graham to ask: “Did Comey go rogue?”

Yates responded, “you can use that term yes.”

This isn’t Trump’s first time claiming Obama and Biden had committed treason. In late June of this year, Trump accused the Obama Administration of treason without evidence, saying “It’s treason. Look, when I came out a long time ago, I said they’ve been spying on our campaign … Let’s see what happens to them now.”