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"The reason that President Obama did NOTHING about Russia after being notified by the CIA of meddling is that he expected Clinton would win ... and did not want to 'rock the boat.' He didn't 'choke,' he colluded or obstructed, and it did the Dems and Crooked Hillary no good," Trump wrote.

"The real story is that President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling. With 4 months looking at Russia ... under a magnifying glass, they have zero 'tapes' of T people colluding. There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given apology!" he wrote on Twitter.

It was unclear who Trump was demanding an apology from or who he was accusing Obama of colluding with.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on Monday that the Obama administration's actions on Russia raise questions about the former president's motivations.

"They have been very clear, they've been playing this card about blaming Trump and Russia," Spicer said during an off-camera briefing at the White House. "And yet at the same time, they were the ones who, according to this report, knew about it and didn't take any action."

"So the question is, if they didn't take any action, does that make them complicit? I think there are a lot of questions that need to get answered about who knew what and when," Spicer said.

Trump has often expressed deep frustration over accusations that individuals in his orbit colluded with Russia during the election and assertions that he may have tried to personally influence the FBI's probe into the matter.

The Post said the Obama administration felt its hands were tied when Russian hacking first came to light because it did not want to be accused of interfering in an already turbulent campaign. At the time, Trump was claiming publicly that the election was rigged against him.

In a tweet Saturday, Trump wrote: "Since the Obama Administration was told way before the 2016 Election that the Russians were meddling, why no action? Focus on them, not T!"

Trump also criticized Obama in an interview that was broadcast on "Fox and Friends" on Sunday.

"It's an amazing thing. To me -- in other words, the question is, if he had the information, why didn't he do something about it?" Trump said, apparently seizing on a quote in the Post report that indicated that many Obama administration officials now believe that their own response to Russian hacking was insufficient.

"I feel like we sort of choked," one former senior Obama aide told the Post, referring to the administration's decision to impose sanctions and insert cyberweapons inside Russia's critical infrastructure that could be activated at a future point rather than launch more extreme retaliatory measures.

Trump's criticism of Obama comes as questions remain about whether the White House intends to take any muscular action to punish the Kremlin or to shore up US electoral defenses.

But now Trump seems to be finally acknowledging that Russia did play a role in the election.

Last week, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that he had not had a chance to sit down with the President to ask him whether he agreed with his intelligence agencies that Russia did actually interfere in the election. Pushed on Friday, Spicer said that Trump stood by a comment in January this year when he said: "I think it was Russia." Spicer also said Trump was concerned about election interference by "any actor."

A former Obama White House official called the Trump administration's attacks "a transparent effort to distract from the terrible impact of their ACA repeal bill."

"This situation was taken extremely seriously," the official added, defending Obama's decision to raise the issue directly with President Putin, direct a comprehensive intelligence review, shut down two Russian compounds, sanction nine Russian entities and individuals, and eject 35 Russian diplomats from the country.

CNN's Stephen Collinson and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.

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Trump demands apology, accuses Obama of having 'colluded ...

Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign chairman, John Podesta, went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a closed-door hearing with the House Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the election.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Podesta said he was asked "to come forward to give, to the best of my knowledge, what I knew about [the election interference] and I was happy to cooperate with the committee." He declined to discuss specifics from the session.

Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and counselor to President Barack Obama, was caught up in the cyberattacks that took place at the end of the presidential campaign.

His emails were hacked and posted online last fall by WikiLeaks, revealing the inner workings of Clinton's campaign and political operation. The hack led to weeks of unflattering headlines for the campaign ahead of Election Day.

Asked about the Obama administration's response to the Russian efforts to influence the election, Podesta said the administration was "dealing with unprecedented weaponization of fruits of Russian cyberactivity."

"I think they were trying to make the best judgments they could on behalf of the American people," he said of the Obama team.

U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of being behind the hack on Podesta and other hacking during the election.

Podesta's comments come as President Trump has increasingly criticized Obama's response to the Russian efforts to influence the election. After the Washington Post reported on the Obama administration's internal deliberations about how to respond evidence of Russia meddling, Trump said in a Fox News interview that Obama "did nothing" about Russia.

The Obama administration's response to the Russian meddling has come under some criticism. The administration repeatedly warned Russia against interfering in the election and made resources available to protect state election systems ahead of Election Day in 2016.

In December, after the election, Obama issued new sanctions against Russia and ejected alleged Russian operatives from the country.

More here:
Clinton's former campaign chair defends Obama response to Russian hacking - ABC News

As news broke Tuesday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would delay a vote on the Senate GOP health care bill, Fox News touted a report on former President Barack Obamas lavish family vacations.

Lap of Luxury, read the lead headline on Fox News online site. Obamas Lavish Globetrotting Vacations Raise Democrats Eyebrows.

Fox News

About an hour after news broke on the fate of the health care bill which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates would result in 22 million fewer people with health insurance by 2026and 15 million fewer just in the next year Twitter users took notice of Fox News lead story vacation-shaming Obama, whos currently touring Bali with his family.

Fox News loosely sourced story cites twoleft-wing activists who say theyre troubled by Obamas vacations in the months since he left office.The two sources,Democratic strategist and Fox News contributor Patrick Caddell and David Michael Smith of the Houston Socialist Movement, criticized Obama for leading the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

The story claims that the left-wing media and comedian John Oliver whose sarcastic sense of humor Fox News appears to be unfamiliar with are worried about Obamas luxury vacations. The report cites a February interviewOliver did with Late Night host Seth Meyers in which Oliver jokingly begged Obama to tone it down with the kite-surfing pictures while the U.S. grappled with the new Trump administration.

Trump, if youre curious, has taken costly trips to his Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster resorts for eight of the 23 weekends hes been in office.

Obama spoke out Thursday against the Senates health care bill.

Simply put, if theres a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family this bill will do you harm, he said in a statement. And small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation.

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As Health Care Bill Burns, Fox News Claims Outrage Over Obama Vacations - HuffPost

Dozens of residents were shut out of a community meeting Tuesday to discuss plans for the Obama Presidential Center, an expanded golf course and the rest of Jackson Park.

The meeting, at La Rabida Childrens Hospital, was combined with a regularly scheduled 5th Ward meeting where residents in the 5th and 7th wards hoped to discuss a controversial rezoning of the 71st Street corridor. It was the third in a series of community conversations about the future of Jackson Park.

Ald. Leslie Hairston, 5th, told a crowd gathered outside, many of whom arrived 15 minutes before the meeting was scheduled to start, that the room had reached its capacity of 75 participants.

"I am impressed with his turnout tonight. Its a Tuesday night, said Jamie Clare Flaherty, director of strategic initiatives for the Obama Foundation. In the early days there is a real opportunity for input. This is our mission in action. People literally beating down the door to get in. Thats awesome.

But Anne Holcomb, who left her job at a homeless shelter early to attend the meeting, did not have a chance to share her views. She and dozens of neighbors blocked the main entrance to La Rabida, even after Hairston assured them that more community meetings would be scheduled.

Referring to the Obama center to the north and the U.S. Steel property to the south, Holcomb said, South Shore is the meat in the redevelopment sandwich. She had hoped to address Hairstons proposal to convert a mile-long corridor of 71st Street from commercial to residential zoning. Instead, she lingered on the sidewalk with other residents.

Im very concerned about our lack of say as community members, Holcomb said.

mbrachear@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @TribSeeker

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Community meeting on Obama center, Jackson Park has to turn away residents - Chicago Tribune

Speaking on Fox News's "Fox & Friends," Newt Gingrich says that "Congress is about to have to call Barack Obama in to testify under oath about when he knew about Russia meddling." | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Congressional committees in both the House and Senate have an obligation to call in former President Barack Obama to testify as to what his administration knew regarding Russias campaign to interfere in last years presidential election and when it became aware of those efforts, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday morning.

Guess what's about to happen: The Congress is about to have to call Barack Obama in to testify under oath about when he knew about Russia meddling, Gingrich said on Fox Newss Fox & Friends. Who told him? Why did he do nothing? Who was in the meetings when he decided to do nothing? It's going to turn out, yes, there's a big Russian story. It's Barack Obama. Not Donald Trump. And you cannot make this stuff up.

Story Continued Below

Obamas response to the Russian campaign of cyberattacks has come under increased scrutiny in recent days since the publication of a Washington Post report detailing how and when the former president became aware of the Kremlins efforts as well as what retaliatory steps were taken. Obama was first made aware of the Russian cyberattack campaign in August, according to the Post.

Denis McDonough, Obamas White House chief of staff, defended his former bosss handling of the attacks in an interview with the Post, but another, unnamed administration official said that the Obama administration had choked in dealing with Russias interference efforts.

President Donald Trump, consumed by controversy regarding the multiple ongoing Russia investigations, has sought to turn the tables on his political foes by working to shift attention away from probes into whether or not anyone associated with him colluded with the Kremlin and onto Obamas handling of the cyberattack. Trump has accused his predecessor of willfully doing nothing to stop the Russians so as not to upset the 2016 campaign and Democrat Hillary Clintons perceived status as the likely winner.

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While it took until December for the U.S. intelligence community to formally release a declassified report detailing that Russia had indeed sought to interfere in the 2016 election, and had done so with the aim of aiding Trumps candidacy and harming Clintons, the White House had made public as far back as October that the Kremlin was behind the wave of cyberattacks against mostly Democratic targets.

But Gingrich said Tuesday that Congress must seek answers from Obama as to why he did not do more to stop the cyberattacks during the campaign.

The Congress has an obligation to call him in. How can you be told the president of the United States knew last August the Russians were, in fact, involved in this and not ask him and ask him under oath? I mean, how can you be so irresponsible? the former speaker said.

The House and Senate are going to have to call Obama in and say, Who told you? When did you have the meetings? Who advised you? Why did you not decide to do anything? And then why did you keep quiet for six months while everybody looked at the Russians and Trump when you, in fact, had this information last August?

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Gingrich: Congress has 'obligation' to call Obama to testify on Russia - Politico