Thursday on ABC’s “The View,” former Obama administration Chief of Staff and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) said the unmasking controversy dubbed “Obamagate” is an attempt to distract from former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn lying to the FBI.
Co-host Sunny Hostin said, “Rahm, you know, President Trump is also now pushing this new Obama conspiracy theory, that he’s dubbed Obamagate. Apparently, the theory seems to be that President Obama and his top officials argued then security adviser Michael Flynn and others to somehow sabotage Trump’s presidency as if he hasn’t done that for himself. But is this yet another tactic to distract from the COVID crisis since it’s also true that not only did President Obama tell Trump not to hire Flynn, Flynn himself pled guilty to a felony charge to lying to the FBI?”
Emanuel said, “Look, I went through two different times of being interviewed by the FBI; once for President Clinton and then the highest security clearance as Chief of Staff for President Obama. There’s a rule when it comes to the FBI interview, you lie, you die. Simple rule.”
He continued, “He lied, and he acknowledged it three times, and President Trump on December 2, 2017 tweeted out, ‘I fired him because he lied.’ A jury of one, the president, fired him because he lied. Now look, you have two choices. Tell the truth or lie. U.S. history for 200. He picked lying. He could have told the truth, and this would have all been— gone away. He lied not only to the FBI, he lied to Vice President Pence, and President Trump fired him for lying. Then he also said it not once but three separate times to the judge. Now the whole legal system is on trial here about whether we have a system of laws. I just think that this is an attempt, again, to airbrush out of history and airbrush the fact that you had somebody who lied about his contacts to the Russians. Trump, whenever it comes to Russia, everything about him comes exposed, is being exposed, he gets really nervous when people understand his relationships with Russia and also people around him who are in constant conversation with one of America’s major adversaries around the globe who are undermining America’s leadership.”
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