Trump assails FBI, calling it ‘disgraceful’
Taking aim at the credibility of the FBI, President Trump unleashed a blistering attack on the bureau’s leadership even as he praised state and local police officers as a bulwark against rising violence and crime.
Trump denounced the bureau for its handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, calling it “really disgraceful” and continuing his questioning of the country’s intelligence and law enforcement institutions as no president has before.
“It’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI,” the president said. “We’re going to rebuild the FBI, it’ll be bigger and better than ever, but it is very sad when you look at those documents, and how they’ve done that is really, really disgraceful, and you have a lot of very angry people that are seeing it.”
The president’s broadside appeared to reflect his anger over revelations that senior FBI officials exchanged antiTrump and pro-Hillary Clinton text messages while working on last year’s Clinton probe and during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump associates colluded with Russian officials in the 2016 election.
Trump laced into the bureau as he was departing for its training academy in Quantico, Va., where he lavished praise on graduates of a weeks-long FBI National Academy program for law enforcement leaders from around the country. He praised the graduates, who were trained on FBI standards, touting their accomplishments and pledging his unwavering support.
“Anti-police sentiment is wrong and it’s dangerous,” he added. “Anyone who kills a police officer should get the death penalty.”
Trump depicted a nation besieged by violence, using dark rhetoric that was a stark departure from the language of his predecessors. He evoked this week’s attempted terrorist attack in New York when he called for stricter immigration policies.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whose has faced Trump’s wrath after recusing himself from the Russia probe, distanced himself from Trump’s criticism of the bureau, saying he does not share a view that the FBI “is not functioning at a high level all over the country.” He praised the bureau’s crime-fighting efforts and stopped short of saying he agreed with Trump’s assessment that the reputation of the agency is “in tatters.”
Hours before Trump’s speech, White House Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told Fox News Channel that edits to former FBI Director James Comey’s statement on Clinton’s private email server and anti-Trump texts from a top agent are “deeply troubling.”
“There is extreme bias against this president with high-up members of the team there at the FBI who were investigating Hillary Clinton at the time,” Gidley charged, as Mueller pushes on with a probe of possible Trump campaign ties to Russia. Gidley says Trump maintains confidence in the FBI’s rankand-file.
Edits to the Comey draft appeared to soften the gravity of the bureau’s finding in its 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state.
With the attack, the White House joined a growing movement among the conservative media and some Republicans to question the integrity of Mueller’s investigation.