Former President Barack Obama is weighing in after President Donald Trump called for indictments to be brought against him and a few other top Democrats.
The former president reacted to Trump’s remarks where he called for Obama, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be charged with crimes.
“Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes — the greatest political crime in history of our country — then we’re going to get little satisfaction unless I win,” Trump said during a Fox News interview on Oct. 8, adding, “And that includes Obama, and that includes Biden.”
Trump has also taken aim at the three of them in tweets.
Obama, Biden, Crooked Hillary and many others got caught in a Treasonous Act of Spying and Government Overthrow, a Criminal Act. How is Biden now allowed to run for President?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2020
In response, Obama was asked during Wednesday’s “Pod Save America” interview, “Is it weird for you when he tweets that you should be indicted?”
“This is something that even his, you know, his fellow Republicans tend to just pretend it doesn’t happen…They kind of dodge reporters when they’re asked about it,” Obama answered.
He called the allegations “so absurd that even Republican-controlled committees looking into it have dismissed them. And, you know, Attorney General Barr has dismissed them.”
“One of the central foundation stones of a democracy is the idea that you do not allow the politicization of the criminal justice system, the intelligence system, the military. Right? That is stuff that you keep out of politics because it’s too dangerous…You can’t have a democracy in which political opponents are subject to this kind of inflammatory language.”
See Obama’s comments below:
.@TVietor08: Is it weird for you when Donald Trump tweets that you should be indicted? @BarackObama: pic.twitter.com/zlGu6iipEJ
— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) October 15, 2020
“Now, he did the same thing with Hillary and the ‘lock her up’ theme. And so I’m not surprised by it, that it continues,” Obama continued.
The former president added, “I’m disappointed that Republicans who know better have not checked him on this. And I think a very important question after the election, even if it goes well with Joe Biden, is whether you start seeing the Republican Party restore some sense of ‘here are norms that we can’t breach’ because he’s breached all of them and they have not said to him, ‘this is too far.”
