Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, who distributed the list of former Obama administration officials involved in unmasking Gen. Michael Flynn, said Thursday that he has always felt that there was a "concerted effort to sabotage" President Donald Trump's administration.
"It began the day after the election, when according to these folks, the wrong one won," the Wisconsin Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
He explained that in December 2016, a "flurry of unmasking happened," and at that time, "we are starting to see what was kicking into overdrive is the Russian hoax, even through the end of January, the FBI knew there was no evidence of collusion."
Even so, then-FBI Director James Comey "engineered" the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel and launched the country into a constitutional crisis over the past 2-3 years.
"Unfortunately, that hampered this administration," said Johnson. "We are noted in this country for the peaceful transfer of power. Members of the Obama administration did not respect that tradition."
He added that he thinks the reason the Obama administration went "overboard" to exonerate Hillary Clinton was because they had thought she'd be elected, even though President Barack Obama knew "full well" she was using a private email server.
"There are a lot of questions this unmasking revelation has created, a lot of questions that need to be answered from Vice President (Joe) Biden to President Obama," said Johnson.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has accused Senate Republicans of pursuing "diversionary partisan conspiracy theories" to prop up Trump, but Johnson said Schumer "doesn't know what he is talking about."
The investigation into Hunter Biden's activities in Ukraine is also heating up, said Johnson, but his committee hasn't yet decided if it will call him to testify. At this point, he said, it is trying to get information on documents from Democrat-led strategy firm Blue Star Consulting, which represents the "corrupt" oil board Biden was on when he worked for Burisma.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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