The following article by Frank Dale was posted on the ThinkProgress website July 16, 2018:
The president also praised Putin and told Hannity that the Mueller probe is hurting U.S.-Russia relations.
President Trump accused his predecessor, President Obama, of rigging the ongoing Russia investigation against him and instructing an FBI agent to carry out the task, during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity Monday night.
FBI agent Peter Strzok, a former member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation team, has long been a target of conservatives, who claim his previous anti-Trump texts to a colleague with whom he was having an affair prove the Russia investigation is nothing more than a political witch-hunt. Trump has repeatedly echoed those claims, suggesting Strzok wanted to prevent him from winning the presidency and that the investigation is baseless, despite the numerous indictments Mueller’s team has handed down over the past year.
On Monday night, following his diplomatic summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, Trump took things a step further by implying his predecessor had directly ordered Strzok to rig the investigation against him.