President Donald Trump stoked intra-party Democratic tensions as he took off for a trip to Asia – accusing 'Crooked' Hillary Clinton of 'cheating' and stealing her primary win over Sen. Bernie Sanders and urged a criminal probe

He picked up on sensational charges in a new book by a leading Democratic operative – and leaned on his own Justice Department to probe his election rival even as his own campaign remains under investigation for Russia ties.

'I always felt I would be running and winning against Bernie Sanders, not Crooked H, without cheating, I was right,' Trump tweeted late Friday morning as he began his trip.

'Bernie Sanders supporters have every right to be apoplectic of the complete theft of the Dem primary by Crooked Hillary!' Trump wrote.

'She stole the election from Bernie. So that’s what you want to take a look at,' said President Trump

The president posted the accusations after his plane had taken off from Joint Base Andrews for Hawaii.

Trump has accused his 2016 opponent of having stolen her primary victory from Sanders, a Vermont senator – as he repeatedly encouraged the FBI to investigate.

'Honestly they should be looking at the Democrats,' he said of his own Justice Department, after acknowledging Thursday it was wise not his role to interfere in the judicial process.

Trump alleged that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee violated campaign finance and money laundering laws in the run up to the 2016 Presidential Election and the primaries that proceeded it.

The president accused his 2016 rival of 'cheating'

Trump said Sanders supporters had the right to be 'apoplectic'

He amped up his attack Friday morning shortly before beginning his trip to Asia, while pushing back the latest developments in the Russia probe, including claims by two former campaign aides that he entertained a proposal during a March 2016 security meeting with aides to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

'All I can tell you is this. There was no collusion,' Trump told reporters. 'You want to look at Hillary Clinton and you want to look at the new book that was just put out by Donna Brazile, where she basically bought the DNC and she stole the election from Bernie. So that’s what you want to take a look at.

Trump wrote that 'everybody' is asking about the DOJ and 'Crooked' Hillary Clinton

He referenced a stunning new book by Donna Brazile

Trump called for the FBI and Justice to 'do what is right and proper'

'I'm really not involved with the Justice Department. I'd like to let it run itself. But honestly they should be looking at the Democrats. They should be looking at Podesta and all of that dishonesty. They should be looking at a lot of things. And a lot of people are disappinted in the Justice Department, including me,' Trump said.

He was referring to Democratic power lobbyist Tony Podesta, who stepped down from his firm after reports the firm did work for a Ukrainian political party that wasn't properly disclosed.

Trump tweeted Friday morning that 'everybody' is asking why the FBI wasn't investigating his primary rival.

President Trump believes Hillary Clinton broke a joint fundraising agreement signed in 2015

Although he didn't explicitly repeat his campaign call to 'lock her up,' he went back to his favorite 2016 moniker, labeling her 'Crooked Hillary,' following stunning disclosures by former Democratic Party interim chair Donna Brazile that Clinton siphoned money out of the party and effectively took it over months before she captured her party's nomination.

'Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems,' Trump wrote in the first tweet in a series Friday morning.

'New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary. What about the deleted E-mails, Uranium, Podesta, the Server, plus, plus...People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!' Trump said.

Then Trump brought back another of his famous insults, this time for Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Senator who got edged out by Clinton.

'The real story on Collusion is in Donna B's new book. Crooked Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from Crazy Bernie!' Trump wrote.

Just Thursday, Trump had seemed to acknowledge that it wasn't his place to tell the Justice Department whom to investigate.

'The real story on Collusion is in Donna B's new book. Crooked Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from Crazy Bernie!' Trump wrote Friday

'But you know the saddest thing, because I'm the president of the United States I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I am not supposed to be involved with the FBI,' Trump told WMAL's Larry O'Connor.

'I'm not supposed to be doing the kinds of things I would love to be doing and I'm very frustrated by it,' the president acknowledged.

On Thursday, Trump tweeted, 'Donna Brazile just stated the DNC RIGGED the system to illegally steal the Primary from Bernie Sanders. Bought and paid for by Crooked H....'

'This is real collusion and dishonesty. Major violation of Campaign Finance Laws and Money Laundering - where is our Justice Department?' the President continued in a second Tweet.

The tweet was in response to an explosive piece by former Democratic National Committee interim chair Donna Brazile in her upcoming book.

Brazile alleges that she found 'proof' the 2016 Democratic primary was rigged in Clinton's favor. She notes, however, that she believes no laws were violated.

The fundraising agreement, signed in August 2015 during the primary process, was unusual for an open seat.

Months later, Clinton's chief challenger, independent Senator Bernie Sanders, signed his own agreement with the party.

In the piece, Brazile alleges that before Clinton became the Democratic nominee, her campaign signed a joint fundraising agreement with the DNC and Hillary Victory Fund, in which her campaign would finance the DNC in exchange for oversight from the Clinton campaign.

Usually, the nominee doesn't take over fundraising until after they have accepted the nomination.

'This is real collusion and dishonesty,' Trump says.

Speaking on Fox News on Thursday night, the President said that he felt sorry for Bernie Sanders who lost the Democratic primary to Mrs Clinton.

''I think it's a major story. It's illegal and it's really very unfair to Bernie Sanders. I got a lot of his votes when he thrown out, but I thought it was terrible,' Mr Trump said.

In a late-night Tweet, President Trump alleged Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee violated campaign finance and money laundering laws in the 2016 Election

Brazile has written a tell-all article about the dysfunction and mismanagement she uncovered at the organization she was brought in to run after hacked emails revealed efforts by party insiders to tilt the scales toward Clinton.

Brazile, who was herself thrown into controversy when it was revealed she passed on debate questions to the Clinton camp, unloads on her predecessor, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and discloses a smoking gun document in the form of a fundraising agreement that sent resources to the Clinton camp.

Astonishingly, Elizabeth Warren - who campaigned with Clinton - said she believed Brazile.

Asked on CNN by Jake Tapper: 'Do you agree with notion that it was rigged' she answered simply: 'Yes.'

'This is a real problem but what we've got to do its to hold this party accountable,' she said.

Brazille alleges that Hillary Clinton's campaign seized control of the Democratic National Committee months before she won her party's nomination.

It resulted in diverting resources away from struggling state parties, and allowed the national party to accumulate a mountain of debt, writes former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile.

Former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile has written a scorching book about the Clinton camp's virtual takeover of the party before she got the Democratic nomination

'Debbie was not a good manager. She hadn't been very interested in controlling the party—she let Clinton's headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired so she didn't have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was,' Brazile writes in an essay in Politico magazine.

Brazile only learned of the party's financial troubles in July after she was named interim chair after Wasserman Schultz stepped down, in a call with CFO Gary Gensler.

'What?' I screamed. 'I am an officer of the party and they've been telling us everything is fine and they were raising money with no problems,' she writes that she told him.

One culprit was President Obama, who failed to refill party coffers after his 2012 win.

Hillary Clinton on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Credit: Comedy Central/The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile writes in a new book that Hillary Clinton virtually took overthe DNC just four months after she announced her run, before she even got the nomination

'Obama left the party $24 million in debt—$15 million in bank debt and more than $8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaign and had been paying that off very slowly. Obama's campaign was not scheduled to pay it off until 2016,' Brazile writes.

Clinton's fundraising took care of the remaining debt - then put the DNC, which is supposed to be neutral until there is a nominee, on 'an allowance.'

Gensler laid out the state of affairs in a phone call. 'He described the party as fully under the control of Hillary's campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Bernie camp. The campaign had the DNC on life support, giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising clearing house,' according to Brazile.

She says Wasserman Schultz ignored her board of directors, including on the bombshell development that Russia hacked the DNC's emails.

'She seemed to make decisions on her own and let us know at the last minute what she had decided, as she had done when she told us about the hacking only minutes before the Washington Post broke the news,' she writes.

When the Hillary Victory Fund organized big donors fundraisers who cut checks that were to go to state parties, the funds came back to her won Brooklyn headquarters.

Brazile says she called rival Bernie Sanders had told him she had discovered 'cancer' in the organization

Brazile blasts Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, who stepped down as chair during the campaign following the release of hacked emails

'Money in the battleground states usually stayed in that state, but all the other states funneled that money directly to the DNC, which quickly transferred the money to Brooklyn,' according to Brazile.

States 'kept less than half of 1 percent of the $82 million they had amassed from the extravagant fund-raisers Hillary's campaign was holding,' according to Brazile.

The party was burning through up to $4 million each month.

'When I got back from a vacation in Martha's Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America,' according to Brazile.

In exchange for its fundraising, 'Hillary would control the party's finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff,' according to Brazile.

Brazile describes a joint fundraising agreement between Clinton and the DNC as a smoking gun

She said she was searching for evidence of 'internal corruption' before she found the agreement. It wasn't illegal, 'but it sure looked unethical,' she writes.

She writes that she called Sanders to tell him what she'd found. 'Hello, senator. I've completed my review of the DNC and I did find the cancer,' she says she told him. 'But I will not kill the patient.'

She says she urged Sanders to urge his supporters to back Clinton anyway, and says she told him she had concerns about Clinton holding together the Obama coalition.

'When I hung up the call to Bernie, I started to cry, not out of guilt, but out of anger. We would go forward. We had to,' she writes.