Donald Trump Jr. dismisses Susan Rice interview: ‘#fakenews’

Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday dismissed an interview in which former national security adviser Susan Rice denied charges that she or others in the Obama administration used intelligence for political gain against President Trump’s transition team.

Minutes after Rice appeared on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” for her first interview since allegations surfaced that she requested the names of Trump staffers incidentally gathered during surveillance, the president’s son took to Twitter.

“Should have gone to CNN that way she would get the Qs in advance… who am I kidding they were never going to ask a real question? #fakenews,” Trump Jr. tweeted.

Should have gone to CNN that way she would get the Qs in advance… who am I kidding they were never going to ask a real question? #fakenews https://t.co/m6ATjfJJOO

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 4, 2017

{mosads}Trump’s eldest son has been needling Rice on Twitter since the reports surfaced. Earlier Tuesday, he praised controversial conservative personality Mike Cernovich, who has been criticized for comments about women and for pushing a conspiracy theory about a Democratic-sponsored child abuse ring at a D.C. pizzeria. Trump Jr. called for Cernovich to win the Pulitzer Prize for first reporting the alleged Rice connection to the unmasking request — or the identification of Americans caught up in otherwise legal surveillance. 

Rice is accused of asking the names of Trump officials to be unmasked. Trump allies are claiming she did so for political reasons. While Rice did not deny the action, she denied that her actions went outside the scope of her job.

“The allegation is that, somehow, Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes. That’s absolutely false,” she said on MSNBC.

When asked if she ever requested for the names of Trump transition members to be unmasked, Rice said “absolutely not for any political purposes” and added she was not behind the leaks that revealed former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn had misled Vice President Pence about his discussions with the Russian ambassador before the inauguration.

“The notion, which some people are trying to suggest, that by asking for the identity of the American person is the same as leaking it, that’s completely false,” she said.

“There is no equivalence between so-called unmasking and leaking. The effort to ask for the identity of an American citizen is necessary to understand the importance of an intelligence report in some circumstances.”