PRESIDENT Donald Trump attacked the FBI and lawmakers probing suspected Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S presidential election, drawing sharp criticism for saying an excessive focus on Russia led investigators to miss signs that could have prevented a deadly school shooting in Florida.
In a series of tweets over the weekend from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump said congressional investigations and political “hatred” showed Russia had succeeded in sowing “discord, disruption and chaos” in the United States.
He accused his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, of failing to do enough to stop Russian election interference.
“They are laughing their asses off in Moscow,” Trump tweeted on Sunday morning.
In a tweet on Saturday night, Trump criticized the Federal Bureau of Investigation for missing warning signs in the case of Nikolas Cruz, 19, who is charged with killing 17 people on Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, a Fort Lauderdale suburb.
The FBI acknowledged on Friday that it failed to investigate a warning that Cruz possessed a gun and the desire to kill.
“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable,” Trump wrote. “They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion,” he added.
The Republican president offered no evidence of any link between the investigation of Russian meddling and the FBI’s failure to prevent the Florida shooting, the deadliest-ever at a U.S. high school.
Student survivors of the massacre slammed Trump for connecting it to the Russia probe, which has shadowed his year-old presidency.
