President Donald Trump on Wednesday went on a conspiratorial rant in which he accused former President Barack Obama of being behind the purportedly "corrupt" election in 2016 that Trump himself actually won.
During a joint press conference with Sergio Mattarella, the president uncorked a rambling tirade in which he claimed without any evidence that Obama had tried to rig the 2016 election against him.
"It was a corrupt election," Trump said, before saying that Attorney General Bill Barr was looking into whether that corruption "goes right up to President Obama." The president then predicted that the investigation would implicate Obama.
Shortly after that, the president took a shot at the Italian government by suggesting that it may have been involved in Obama's purported "corruption."
Trump and his allies have been promoting a theory for months that Obama and America's law enforcement agencies conspired to frame him for his campaign's multiple contacts with Russian officials in order to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election.
This conspiracy theory makes little sense, however, as it was not acknowledged publicly that Trump's campaign was under investigation by the FBI until after the president had won the election. Additionally, former FBI Director James Comey's decision to reopen the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails just 11 days before the election undercuts the theory that he was part of a massive conspiracy to put her in the White House.