Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford ridiculed Democrats’ and media outlets’ denunciations of President Donald Trump’s accusations of voter fraud and irregularities by sarcastically questioning why the same scrutiny wasn’t applied to claims of Russian collusion they say influenced the 2016 election.
Lankford, 52, appeared on Newsmax TV mockingly referring to the FBI's and CIA’s initial “Crossfire Hurricane” counterintelligence investigation that became special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s probe into claims that the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump conspired with Russian government operatives to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mueller’s investigation found no evidence of collusion.
“In 2017, Democrats complained over and over again that the Russians stole the election with no proof that a single vote was changed, but for four years, all I’ve heard over and over again was ‘The Russians stole the election, the Russians stole the election,’” Lankford said to Newsmax TV’s “Spicer & Co.”
“But I never remember seeing a reporter walking up to one of those Democratic senators or House members, saying ‘What is your evidence for that? Do you have any evidence?’ And, of course, they had none and never did have, although we spent hundreds of millions of dollars in investigations from (Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy) Pelosi’s House digging through that. But somehow that never seems to come up.”
Lankford also blasted reports of his comments regarding Joe Biden’s intelligence briefings, which he said was portrayed as he was demanding the former vice president get them because Biden had been declared the winner. Biden, he says has been receiving them ever since he was declared the Democratic nominee for president.
“Last summer, (Biden) started receiving these briefings. He gets them every single day,” Lankford said. “Now they ended at election day. I think he should continue to get them because we’re still in the campaign mode. He’s still candidate Joe Biden. Both sides receive the briefings. That is the normal standard we do as a country.
“Joe Biden is not president elect, he’s just private citizen Joe Biden, but he should be receiving the same briefings now that he was receiving during the summer. We shouldn’t cut him off. Because we still don’t know who’s going to be president.”
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