President Donald Trump speculated that members of his administration would be jailed for long periods of time if they pursued investigations similar to those they faced during the 2016 campaign against former president Barack Obama in an exclusive Oval Office interview with The Daily Caller.
When asked whether he would declassify documents relating to a FISA warrant obtained on Carter Page, Trump said, “Well, we’re looking at it very seriously right now because the things that have gone on are so bad.”
Trump has faced growing calls from conservative lawmakers to declassify FISA and other DOJ related documents from the 2016 investigation into his campaign. Trump and these lawmakers allege that the investigations were improperly pursued by senior FBI leaders such as Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe and James Comey. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Trump Says ‘Conflicted’ Mueller Is Leading ‘An Illegal Investigation’)
Lawmakers and the president have also expressed concern over the role the salacious Steele dossier played in the Trump investigation. The dossier was later revealed to have been paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Trump Accuses Social Media Companies of Interfering on Hillary’s Behalf)
Trump continued, “I mean, they were surveilling my campaign. If that happened on the other foot, they would’ve considered that treasonous. They would’ve considered it spying at the highest level. Can you imagine if we were doing that to Obama instead of Obama and his people doing that to us? Everybody would’ve been in jail for the next 500 years.”