For at least the second time in 2019, Donald Trump took to Twitter to suggest that he may want two years added to his initial four-year term. He believes he should be compensated for the time spent on matters related to investigating his own alleged wrongdoing.
On Friday, Trump’s target was former FBI Director James Comey, who was cleared of leaking classified information by way of a Department of Justice inspector general’s report, as The Washington Post reported.
But the IG report also found that Comey had likely violated a DOJ policy by releasing memos he wrote regarding his conversations with Trump. In those memos, Trump urged Comey to shut down his investigation of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, as The Inquisitr reported.
Apparently, that latter finding led Trump to slam Comey as “a dishonest fool” in a Friday morning Twitter message.
In that same tweet, Trump also stated that “our rights and liberties were illegally stripped away,” by Comey, though he did not explain how he or anyone else had been deprived of “rights and liberty.” He concluded the tweet with the question, “We should be given our stolen time back?”
Reporters for The Washington Post attempted to get clarification on the meaning of Trump’s question but received no comment from the White House.
The Post noted, however, following the public release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation report that in May, Trump retweeted a message by one of his most outspoken supporters, Jerry Falwell Jr., who wrote on Twitter , that Trump was entitled to “reparations,” and that Trump “should have 2 yrs added to his 1st term as payback for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup.”
Falwell later claimed that his statement was intended as “a little bit tongue-in-cheek,” according to a separate Washington Post report.
But in a Twitter post of his own a day later, also in May, Trump appeared to echo Falwell, writing, “They have stolen two years of my (our) Presidency (Collusion Delusion) that we will never be able to get back.”
Trump’s May tweet that appeared to support Falwell’s call for two years to be added to his term was issued shortly after Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a warned. She said that if Trump fails to win the 2020 presidential election, he may refuse to leave office anyway. That, in effect, would be the same as staging a coup, The New York Times reported.
Trump has made at least 10 accusations against Comey regarding his alleged leak of classified information, as documented to Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake via Twitter. However, the inspector general report said there was “no evidence” that Comey had leaked classified info.