'Like I said: A puppet': Hillary Clinton repeats her allegation that Trump is working on behalf of Russian interests

Screenshot/NBC

Hillary Clinton called President Donald Trump a "puppet" in a Monday tweet.

• Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, reiterated her claim that President Donald Trump is a "puppet" of Russia in a rare Monday tweet addressing Trump.
• "Like I said: A puppet," she added to a retweet of a now-viral video from an October 2016 presidential debate in which she first asserted that Trump was a "puppet" of Russia and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
• Clinton's tweet comes after two bombshell news stories reported that the FBI had opened a counter-intelligence probe into whether Trump was working on behalf of Russia, and that Trump went to "extraordinary lengths" to hide the contents of his meetings with Putin from other officials.

Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, reiterated her claim that President Donald Trump is a "puppet" of Russia in a rare Monday tweet addressing Trump.

"Like I said: A puppet," she added to a re-tweet of a now-viral video from an October 2016 presidential debate in which she first asserted that Trump was a "puppet" of Russia.

When Trump claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had "no respect" for Clinton, she hit back by saying, "that's because he'd rather have a puppet as president," prompting Trump to reply "no puppet, you're the puppet!"

"It's clear you won't admit that the Russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you spouted the Putin line, sign up for his wish-list, break up NATO ... and you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race," she said.

In July 2018, special counsel Robert Mueller's office indicted 12 Russian security officers for the spring and summer 2016 hacks of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

The hacked emails were then obtained and disseminated into the American electorate by the radical pro-transparency group WikiLeaks. In the summer of 2017, Mueller's team indicted 13 Russian nationals for running a troll farm to perpetuate fake news and propaganda on social media networks for the purpose of interfering in the 2016 election.

Read more: Here's everyone who has been charged and convicted in Mueller's Russia probe so far

Clinton's tweet comes after two bombshell news reports published over the weekend further alleged suspicious, and possibly improper, connections between Trump and Russia.

On Friday night, The New York Times reported that the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation into whether Trump was working on behalf of Russian interests after he fired former FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.

Trump admitted in a TV interview that the "Russia thing" - referring to the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and its probe of former Trump campaign officials - was a factor in his decision.

Read more: The FBI reportedly started investigating whether Trump was a Russian asset after he fired Comey

Then on Saturday, the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal both reported that Trump had gone to "extraordinary lengths" to conceal the substance of his conversations with Putin, going as far to take the interpreter's notes from the conservation, hide them from senior staff members, and order the translator not to discuss the contents of the meetings with other administration officials.