President Donald Trump brushed off a question Tuesday about a potential meeting between Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Instead, he launched into a rant about Barack Obama and the 2016 election.
When asked if he had any concerns about the Maxwell meeting, Trump replied, “No, I have no concern.” He added, “He’s a very talented person. He’s very smart. I didn’t know that they were going to do it. I don’t really follow that too much.”
Then, without being asked, Trump pivoted to one of his frequent talking points — the so-called “witch hunt” against him — and ended up labeling his own allies’ claims the same way.
“It’s sort of a witch hunt. Just a continuation of the witch hunt. The witch hunt that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama absolutely cold, Tulsi Gabbard,” he said while accidentally calling the claim itself a witch hunt.
“What they did to this country in 2016, starting in 2016,” Trump continued. “But going up, all the way going up to 2020 in the election, they tried to rig the election and they got caught. And there should be very severe consequences for that.”
He then brought up Hillary Clinton, saying: “You know, when we caught Hillary Clinton, I said, ‘You know what? Let’s not go too far here. It’s the ex-wife of a president,’ and I thought it was sort of terrible. And I let her off the hook, and I’m very happy I did. But it’s time to start after what they did to me and whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people.”
“Obama’s been caught directly. So people say, ‘Oh, you know, a group.’ It’s not a group, it is Obama. His orders are on the paper. The papers are signed. The papers came right out of their office.”
He claimed classified documents had been released proving it:
“Well, the highly classified has been released. And what they did in 2016 and in 2020 is very criminal. It’s criminal at the highest level. So that’s really the things you should be talking about. I know nothing about the other, but I think it’s appropriate that they do go.”
Gabbard’s claims, repeated by Trump, have been widely discredited. Multiple investigations — including by a Republican-led Senate panel — confirmed that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election to help Trump, not that Obama orchestrated anything criminal.
But Trump wasn’t focused on facts. His message was meant to change the narrative: Don’t look at Epstein — look at Obama.
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