Donald Trump has never shied away from expressing his views on political rivals, and his latest comments about Barack Obama continue that trend.

In an interview aired on Fox News this past Sunday, Trump reiterated his assertion that the former president jeopardized democracy by purportedly spying on his 2016 campaign. He referenced recent legal challenges, saying they led Obama to remark on a podcast that democracy is currently under threat.

Trump went on to assert, “He says that all the time. He’s the one who threatened it, by spying on my campaign. He started it. Obama spied on my campaign, and he did it knowing it was illegal.”

‘He knew it was illegal, but he started the whole thing. And there were a lot of dishonest people, and I suspect they’ll be caught,’ he told Maria Bartiromo in a pre-recorded interview. Republicans have doubled down in recent weeks on the idea that they have fallen victim to politically motivated surveillance at the hands of Democrats in the last few years. 

Democrats have refuted such allegations. A bombshell document released by Republican Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley earlier this month shows that the lawmakers were being investigated during a probe into the January 6 Capitol riot.

Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, Bill Hagerty, Josh Hawley, Dan Sullivan, Tommy Tuberville, Ron Johnson, Cynthia Lummis and Marsha Blackburn, were probed, according to an FBI document published by Grassley. Pennsylvania’s Republican Representative Mike Kelly was also investigated, the document shows. The one-page file was created in the wake of former special counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation, which probed the riot and election interference claims.

The file sheds light on how the FBI conducted its investigation and used phone records to track sitting lawmakers. It is titled CAST Assistance, which refers to the agency’s cellular analysis survey team. The file is dated September 27, 2023, indicating that the investigation into the Republicans’ cellular data lasted well into Biden’s term.

Independent journalist Matt Taibbi also testified before Congress on September 30th about the TSA’s Quiet Skies program, which was meant to weed out individuals who were threats to national security after 9/11. Taibbi uncovered that, instead, former Democrat congresswoman and Trump’s current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was spied on, as were three unnamed GOP members of Congress. Quiet Skies was shuttered by the Trump administration earlier this year after ‘costing taxpayers approximately $200 million per year, all while failing to stop a single terrorist,’ per DNI Gabbard.