Trump Slams Yates Hearing: Nothing But Old, Fake News!

After Sally Yates, the former acting Attorney General of the Trump administration, and Deputy Attorney General under former President Barack Obama, testified at a Senate committee on “Russian meddling” in the 2016 US presidential election, President Donald Trump did not hold back his opinions on Twitter.

Also appearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism was Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — and neither of them offered any evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with the Russian government.

“Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is "no evidence" of collusion w/ Russia and Trump,” the president tweeted following the hearing.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017

Trump also asserted that Yates offered nothing new before the Senate.

“Sally Yates made the fake media extremely unhappy today —- she said nothing but old news!” Trump wrote on the social media platform.

The long and drawn-out hearing offered little of value, which the president pointed out — and at the cost of the American public.

“The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” Trump tweeted.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017

There was one aspect of the hearing that interested Trump, however: the issue of surveillance.

Committee chairman Senator Lindsey Graham, who has repeatedly called for military action against Russia, discussed his concerns about unmasking during the hearing.

"I've learned a bit about unmasking and what I've learned is disturbing," Graham said. "I'd like to know more and I want to make sure that that unmasking can never be used as a political weapon in our democracy."

Clapper responded to Graham’s unmasking concern by saying that “at no time did I ever submit a request for personal or political purposes, or to voyeuristically look at raw intelligence, nor am I aware of any instance of such abuse by anyone else.”

“Biggest story today between Clapper & Yates is on surveillance. Why doesn't the media report on this? #FakeNews!” Trump wrote in his signature style.

In March, White House lawyers learned that Susan Rice, who served as the National Security Adviser under President Obama, was the one behind unmasking members of the Trump campaign, such as Mike Flynn, whose conversation with a Russian ambassador was later leaked to the media.

Speaking on unmasking, Clapper stated that there were 1,934 people unmasked by the US government in 2016.