President Trump on Thursday called continued congressional probes into Russia’s meddling in the presidential election a “disgrace,” arguing that the probes are bad for the country.
In an interview on “The Howie Carr Show,” Trump asserted that Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate committees have been forced to admit that they have found no collusion so far.
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“In fact, even in all fairness with all of these investigations going on in the Senate and the House — they walk out, even the Democrats — ‘There’s no collusion but we’ll continue to look, there’s smoke, there’s no collusion but there’s’ — and the Republicans are coming out just saying, ‘There’s just no collusion,'” Trump said.
“And it’s a disgrace that it can go on,” he added. “To honest it’s a disgrace and it’s bad for our country.”
Trump also knocked recent revelations that Facebook ads purchased by Russians reached millions of Americans during the 2016 presidential race, claiming that the ads mostly addressed irrelevant issues.
“You look now at the ads with Facebook and this, it’s not even ads that pertain to what we’re talking about,” Trump said. “It’s a strange thing.”
Trump has previously dismissed Russian Facebook ads as a hoax perpetrated by the “dishonest” media.
“The Russia hoax continues, now it’s ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary?” Trump tweeted last month.
Earlier in October, the company revealed that 10 million Facebook users were exposed to Russian ads during the 2016 election. The company has since significantly raised its estimates, with Facebook’s general counsel testifying Wednesday that Russian-linked content may have reached as many as 146 million people on Facebook.
Democrats have ripped Facebook’s response to the problem, and have called on the company to release the ads publicly.
“The American people deserve to see the ways that the Russian intelligence services manipulated and took advantage of online platforms to stoke and amplify social and political tensions, which remains a tactic we see the Russian government rely on today,” Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.
Trump has long dismissed probes into possible ties between his campaign team and Russia amid Moscow’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 election. Multiple House and Senate committees have been investigating the issue, which is also the subject of a Justice Department probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller, whose team issued their first indictments this week.