Trump Hits Back at ‘Corrupt’ FBI Investigation Bombshell: ‘No Reason’ and ‘No Proof’

Colby HallJan 12th, 2019, 7:22 am
 

President Donald Trump is pushing back on Friday’s bombshell New York Times report that the FBI opened an investigation into whether or not Trump may be working for the Russians in the days after he fired former FBI Director James Comey.

Notably, Trump is not taking aim here at the reporting of the NY Times reporting but instead undermining the institution that oversaw the investigation, or more to the point, the “corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons.”

Investigations do not need proof to begin, however.  Reasonable evidence is enough to start an investigation, with “proof” of guilt being only one of many possible outcomes. And as the Times report demonstrates, there were many reasons for the FBI to start an investigation.

According to the Times, FBI officials were so alarmed by Trump’s firing of Comey, and the tacit admission that it was due to the investigation into Russian election interference, that “they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests:

Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence…

Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.

That inquiry was taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, but it’s not clear if he’s still pursuing that angle.

Trump followed by reminding his Twitter followers just how unpopular Comey was at the time, tweeting:

The Rod Rosenstein-penned memo that Trump used as an explanation for dismissing Comey was critical of the former FBI Director, and much of that criticism focused on how Comey publicly handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email.

But wait, there’s more! Trump also reminded his Twitter followers that he has been “FAR tougher on Russia” than his predecessors:

In December of last year, the Trump administration announced plans to lift sanctions against Russian oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska who has deep connections to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Deripaska invested $18.9 million into a Ukrainian telecom venture ran by Manafort, who shared campaign polling data with Konstantin V. Kilimnik, who is a Ukrainian political consultant and person of interest in the 2017 Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

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Colby Hall - Founding Editor

Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.