by Chuck Ross
President Donald Trump on Sunday hailed recent disclosures of information regarding government surveillance of the Trump campaign, saying that it has afforded him a chance to “break” the so-called “deep state.”
In an interview with journalist Sharyl Attkisson, Trump suggested that additional information is going to come out about the surveillance efforts.
“Other things are going to come out, too. And a lot of other things are going to come out, but you don’t even need other things,” he said.
“I would like to see it move much faster,” Trump added.
Trump went on to accuse the “deep state” of trying to derail his presidency through the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.
“If it keeps going the way it’s going, I have a chance to break the deep state,” Trump said.
“It’s a vicious group of people. It’s very bad for our country. And that’s never happened before.”
Trump called former FBI Director James Comey a “dirty cop,” and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe a “bad guy.”
Trump praised Richard Grenell, the acting director of national intelligence, for declassifying and releasing a slew of documents related to investigations of the Trump campaign.
“Richard Grenell is a superstar. He had guts, he had courage to do what he did,” Trump said.
He also said he has high hopes for Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe, who takes over for Grenell on Tuesday.
“We have another superstar going in as you know, John Ratcliffe.”
Earlier this month, Grenell declassified a list of Obama administration officials who requested intelligence reports regarding Michael Flynn.
In April, Grenell declassified footnotes from a Justice Department inspector general’s report which showed that the FBI had evidence in 2017 that Russian intelligence operatives fed disinformation to Christopher Steele, the author of the anti-Trump dossier.
Grenell said Saturday the he is working on declassifying other documents related to the FBI’s investigation of Flynn.
“When you look at what Richard Grenell has done in eight weeks, these people didn’t do anything for two and a half years. They should have been exposing this.”
Trump criticized Dan Coats, who served as director of national intelligence through August 2019.
“Coats, he sat there,” Trump said. “He didn’t do anything.”
Watch the interview:
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Chuck Ross is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
