Moments before boarding Marine One to head to the FBI National Academy’s graduation ceremony, President Trump spoke with a group of reporters outside the White House. And with little provocation, he launched into a somewhat nonsensical diatribe against the agency, calling attention to the recent revelation of anti-Trump texts shared between agents formerly attached to Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. “It’s a shame what happened with the FBI,” said Trump, echoing his tweeted sentiment that the bureau was in “tatters” — a claim his own James Comey replacement, Christopher Wray, recently refuted.
Said Trump of the FBI:
“It’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI. But, 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. It’s a very sad thing to watch, I will tell you that.”
As for Mueller’s probe (and other congressional investigations into the matter), the president simply said “there’s been absolutely no collusion.” He even repeated the false claim that this “has been proven.” Meanwhile, at the FBI National Academy itself, Trump said very little regarding his criticisms of the agency. He instead spent most of his address praising local law enforcement, repeating his campaign’s and administration’s problematic claims about gang (and gun) violence in Chicago, and other related matters. He even suggested “criminals who kill police officers should get the dealth penalty.”
“We believe criminals who kill police officers should get the death penalty,” President Trump says at FBI National Academy https://t.co/XqWKnHu9uR pic.twitter.com/jKGDrRYgjI
— CNN (@CNN) December 15, 2017