Obama 'Weaponizing' Federal Government To Spy On Trump, Ex-White House Doctor's Explosive Charge

Recently retired Navy Admiral Ronny Jackson, a Republican, who spent more than a decade as a physician to Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, including five years as the top White House physician, has accused Obama on Tuesday of weaponizing the federal government against Trump.

Jackson tweeted, "President Obama weaponized the highest levels of our government to spy on President Trump. Every Deep State traitor deserves to be brought to justice for their heinous actions."

In April 2018, Trump nominated but quickly withdrew the nomination for Jackson to be the head of Veterans Affairs, one of the largest Cabinet agencies. The withdrawal was over accusations of misconduct, including allegations that he improperly handled prescription drugs during his White House years.

Jackson, age 53, retired from the Navy on Dec. 1, 2019, and eight days later filed to run as a Republican for Congress in Texas's 13th congressional district.

Jackson may be using his association with Trump to jumpstart his political career. He has never run for public office before and will face almost a dozen other Republicans who have already entered the race.

The 13th district is heavily Republican with Trump getting about 80% of the vote in the 2016 presidential election. If Jackson somehow wins the seat, it will not change the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The tweets by Jackson are like music to Trump’s ears as another voice that supports his claims against Obama. Trump sent a tweet May 10 using the term “OBAMAGATE” followed by a re-tweet of Buck Sexton, a conservative commentator, that said, “the outgoing president [Obama] used his last weeks in office to target incoming officials and sabotage the new administration."

Trump’s use of “Obamagate” continues the practice of adding the term “gate” to any major American political scandal. It began during the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974.

The emerging scandal involves Michael Flynn, a retired United States Army lieutenant general who was briefly the National Security Advisor to Trump. Flynn also served under Obama as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency but was fired in 2014.

Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI but later said his admission of guilt was coerced when the FBI threatened to bring up charges against his son. This was in the middle of the Mueller investigation against Trump’s alleged misdeeds with Russian and later the Ukraine that Democrats hoped would lead to Trump’s impeachment. The charges against Flynn were dropped May 7.

On Wednesday, acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell released a list of the names of former Obama administration officials who asked for documents that led to the identity of Flynn’s "unmasking” (a term used by U.S. intelligence when revealing the identity of someone on a monitored communication) between the 2016 election and Trump's inauguration.

The names on the list include well-known Obama aides as well as then-Vice President Joe Biden. Trump argued the Obama administration sought to hurt him politically by leaking selective bits of information to the media. Trump and his allies have pointed to Flynn's "unmasking" as evidence of foul play to which Obama was complicit.