Trump reacts to testimony that Clinton spread Russia allegations: 'Where do I get my reputation back?'

EXCLUSIVE: Former President Donald Trump reacted to the bombshell testimony out of the trial of Michael Sussmann that Hillary Clinton herself approved the dissemination of false information alleging a covert communications channel between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank to the media.

Trump told Fox News Digital that the entire Russia investigation is "one of the greatest political scandals in history," and that he will "never" get his "reputation fully back."

Former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook on Friday testified as part of the first criminal trial out of Special Counsel John Durham’s years-long investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, saying Clinton approved and "agreed" to share the discredited data with the media.

Former FBI General Counsel James Baker testified Thursday that the bureau investigated the data alleging a Trump connection to the Kremlin-linked bank, and found that "there was nothing there."

"This is one of the greatest political scandals in history," Trump told Fox News Saturday morning. "For three years, I had to fight her off, and fight those crooked people off, and you’ll never get your reputation fully back."

"Where do I get my reputation back?" Trump said again.

"I had to fight them off," Trump said. "And if we had real leadership, instead of people like Mitch McConnell, they would do something about it. And guys like Bill Barr. They would have done something about it."

Trump said that the law enforcement and intelligence community resources devoted to investigating him and members of his 2016 campaign distracted officials from what "could have been a real danger with Russia."

The FBI, in July 2016, opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether candidate Donald Trump and members of his campaign were colluding or coordinating with Russia to influence the 2016 campaign.

That FBI investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, was handed off to Special Counsel Robert Mueller after Trump was elected. Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017.

After nearly two years, Mueller’s investigation yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 presidential election.

Durham was tapped in 2019, shortly after Mueller announced his findings, by Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the origins of the FBI’s original investigation into the Trump campaign, which led to the appointment of Mueller as special counsel.

Mook, during cross-examination by government prosecutor Andrew DeFillippis, was asked about the Clinton campaign’s understanding of the Alfa Bank allegations against Trump and whether they planned to release the data to the media.

Mook said he was first briefed about the Alfa Bank issue by campaign general counsel Marc Elias, who at the time was a partner at law firm Perkins Coie.

Mook testified that he was told that the data had come from "people that had expertise in this sort of matter."

Mook said the campaign was not totally confident in the legitimacy of the data, but had hoped to give the information to a reporter who could further "run it down" to determine if it was "accurate" or "substantive."

He also said he discussed whether to give the information to a reporter with senior campaign officials, including campaign chairman John Podesta, senior policy advisor, now White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and communications director Jennifer Palmieri.

"I discussed it with Hillary as well," Mook said.

"I don’t remember the substance of the conversation, but notionally, the discussion was, hey, we have this and we want to share it with a reporter," Mook said.

The government asked Mook if Clinton approved "the dissemination" of the data to the media.

Mook later said he "can't recall the exact sequence of events," when asked if he shared the idea to give the Trump-Alf... (Read more)

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