President Donald Trump should not have walked back on his statement he believed Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence officials on the subject of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race, former federal prosecutor Larry Klayman told Newsmax TV on Wednesday.
"I don't think the president should have backed off what he said," Klayman, founder of the government watchdog Freedom Watch told Wednesday's "America Talks Live." "The intelligence community in this country has repeatedly lied to the American people, the FBI has been part of that for years.
"You can go back to the Gulf of Tonkin getting us into the Vietnam War, you can get back to the assassination of [President John F.] Kennedy, a lot of people believe the CIA may have been involved in that in some way with Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby.
"You can talk about a lot of other things that they've not been truthful on, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
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Trump sparked outrage when, during a press conference following his private, two-hour meeting with Putin, said: "I have President Putin; he just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be."
After being lambasted by Democrats and Republicans, the president backtracked Tuesday, saying he misspoke and meant to say "wouldn't" instead of "would."
Klayman believes the backlash against Trump was created by the Justice Department and so-called "deep state" that dislikes him.
"I think this was positioning by [special counsel Robert] Muller and the Justice Department, which is being controlled by this Rod Rosenstein character, the deputy attorney general, to really hurt Trump, to humiliate him and to create this impression," he told Newsmax TV hosts Miranda Khan, John Cardillo, and Gina Loudon.
"I have a gut feeling this is contrived . . . And that's what this Republican, Democrat deep state is trying to do, they're trying to take down this president. Now they have ammunition because of something he said . . . but I don't think he was wrong."
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