President attacks Obama, questions FBI in tweets before playing golf at Turnberry
TURNBERRY, SCOTLAND >> President Donald Trump, at his luxury seaside golf course, turned his eye to domestic politics Saturday morning. He attacked former President Barack Obama, questioning the FBI, torched CNN and bragged about his 2016 win.
With country roads to the golf course cordoned off and aides mum about the president’s activities, he gave a lens into his mind around 11 a.m. local time. He also played golf.
“The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration,” the president tweeted about Friday’s federal indictments against 12 Russian intelligence agents charged with hacking into the Democratic National Committee servers and stealing emails.
Trump did not criticize the actions of the Russian spies nor President Vladimir Putin, who he will see Monday in Helsinki, for a meeting and news conference that many of Trump’s advisers have warned against. He instead focused his criticism on Obama, as he did Friday when asked about the Russia’s seizure of Crimea.
The president has resisted calls from some Democrats
and Republicans to call off the Putin meeting after the indictments were handed down in Washington. Nor has the president outlined a comprehensive plan for what his administration will do to keep such meddling from happening again.
Trump was told before he left for Europe that the Department of Justice planned to indict 12 Russians for the hack, but he still sounded positive notes about Putin and attacked the special counsel investigation during Friday’s news conference.
He also offered an unsubstantiated theory he often repeats, questioning whether the hidden hand of the government was biased toward Democrats in 2016
and whether there was covert material on a Democratic server hacked by the Russians.
“Where is the DNC Server, and why didn’t the FBI take possession of it? Deep State?” he asked on Twitter, using a term that conservatives use for a cabal of nonelected bureaucrats and officials working to undermine the elected representatives.
The president has spent the last four days haranguing allies to spend more on defense at NATO and alternately criticizing and praising British Prime Minister Theresa May.
But domestic politics have never been far from Trump’s mind in Europe. He has frequently criticized Obama — an unusual move for U.S. presidents on foreign soil — and continued apace with his attacks on the news media.
The trip to his golf course seemed part relaxation and part plug for a property struggling to turn a profit. During his news conferences, Trump has mentioned the resort by name several times, calling it “incredible.”
Trump hit the links Saturday, playing the course using a golf cart, which he drove. Most players at Turnberry, unless they have a note from their doctor, are required to walk the course, though they can hire caddies to wheel their bags of clubs.
He was also expected to see the burial grounds of his ancestors in Scotland, aides said.
It was an odd scene, with Scottish police serving sentry in the dunes and along the fairways of the seaside course, keeping protesters and photographers at a distance. Occasionally, one could hear the thwack of a ball being hit from the tees.
At the perimeter to the golf links were small clusters of demonstrators. Retired schoolteacher Helen Broussard, 70, was holding up an anti-Trump placard that read, “Yer jaiket’s oana shoogly pet, Donnie” — “Your jacket is on a wobbly peg” — meaning roughly that the president is on his way out.