Barack Obama excoriates Trump: 'Nobody in my administration got indicted'

Former president's comments come day after special counsel withdraws plea deal from Paul Manafort

Barack Obama has highlighted Donald Trump’s legal woes in a speech a day after the special counsel ended a plea deal with the US president’s former campaign chairman.

"Not only did I not get indicted, nobody in my administration got indicted," the former president told an audience at Rice University on Tuesday.

"By the way, it was the only administration in modern history that that can be said about. In fact, nobody came close to being indicted, probably because the people who joined us were there for the right reasons."

Mr Obama’s comments came the same day Mr Trump branded Robert Mueller, the special counsel, a “conflicted prosecutor gone rogue” after his office said Paul Manafort had repeatedly lied to the FBI.

The “crimes and lies” made by Mr Manafort during a series of interviews with lawyers meant a plea deal made in September was no longer applicable, Mr Mueller’s office said in a court filing.

During the Q&A to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the university’s Baker Institute, a public policy think tank, Mr Obama decried the dysfunction and partisanship in Washington.

“The degree to which the United States underwrites the international order - it is not always in the obvious ways - but if there’s a problem around the world they do not call Moscow, they do not call Beijing. They call Washington,” he said.

“Even our adversaries expect us to solve problems and expect us to keep things running, and when you start getting dysfunction in Washington… that doesn’t just weaken our influence, it provides opportunities for disorder to start ramping up all around the world.”

He also expressed frustration over the state of the media landscape.

"By the time I take office, what you increasingly have is a media environment in which if you are a Fox News viewer, you have an entirely different reality than if you are a New York Times reader," he said.

In what was seen by some as a final swipe, Mr Obama appeared to allude to a lack of respect towards the presidency by the current occupant of the White House.

“There’s a reverence there, for that office,” he said. “That is independent of you. And if you don’t feel that, then you shouldn’t be there because a lot of fights, a lot of sacrifices, a lot of bloodshed is represented in that office.”