In the wake of the Orlando shooting, Republican front-runner for the Presidential nomination, Donald Trump, insinuated President Barack Obama was involved in a conspiracy supporting Islamic extremists. Trump was heavily criticized for his remarks but there may be support for his claim.
In an interview to Fox News on Monday, Trump implied that Obama was hiding his motivations for not focusing on Islamic sources for terror attacks in America.
“Look, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind,” Trump said. “And the something else in mind—you know, people can’t believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism’. There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on.”
Trump’s comments drew a flurry of criticism, but also support and, surprisingly, validation. Trump tweeted a link to a Breitbart News article concerning an email memo to high level defense officials in the Obama administration dated August 2012. According to Breitbart’s report, the memo was also sent directly to the office of Secretary of State and present front-runner for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton.
An: Media fell all over themselves criticizing what DonaldTrump “may have insinuated about @POTUS.” But he’s right: https://t.co/bIIdYtvZYw
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2016
“The document is an IAR, an intelligence information report,” said Christopher J. Farrell, who serves on the board of directors of Judicial Watch, which obtained the document. “It is produced by somebody within the Defense intelligence agency (DIA). It is reporting from the field by an intelligence agent” who could be a U.S. government agent, a defense attaché, or a source.
“It’s a report from the field back to headquarters with some intelligence that somebody is willing to bet their career on,” Farrell said.
The report, tweeted by Trump, seems to prove that America was, in fact, supporting Al-Qaeda in Iraq, as a principal means to combat Syria.
Trump was not the only politician to point his finger at Obama, blaming him for Islamic terror. Republican Sen. John McCain said Thursday that President Barack Obama is “directly responsible” for the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida in which a Muslim claiming ties to ISIS killed 49 people.
According to audio obtained by NBC News, McCain stated this opinion to reporters on Capitol Hill.
“Barack Obama is directly responsible for it because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, al Qaeda went to Syria and became ISIS and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama’s failures, utter failures by pulling everybody out of Iraq thinking that conflicts end just because we leave,” concluding, ” So the responsibility for it lies with President Barack Obama and his failed policies.”
Senator McCain is no stranger to confronting the President, since he ran against Obama as the Republican candidate for the 2008 presidential elections. McCain later issued a statement clarifying his remarks, saying that it was the president’s policies, “not the president himself,” responsible for the rise of ISIS.
To clarify, I was referring to Pres Obama’s national security decisions that have led to rise of #ISIL, not to the President himself
— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) June 16, 2016
