President Donald Trump on Friday savaged his Justice Department’s watchdog report on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation as a “horror show,” and disputed its finding that the bureau’s management of the high-profile case was not influenced by political bias.
“The report, the IG report was a horror show. I thought that one sentence of conclusion was ridiculous,” Trump said during an unannounced interview with Fox News on the North Lawn of the White House. “The end result was wrong. There was total bias.”
Echoing his tweets from earlier Friday morning, the president again singled out FBI agent Peter Strzok for special criticism, claiming that the politically charged text messages Strzok sent to FBI attorney Lisa Page during the Clinton email probe exposed an attempt to undermine Trump’s candidacy in 2016.
“They were plotting against my election. Probably it’s never happened like that in terms of intelligence and in terms of anything else – but they were actually plotting against my election,” the president said.
In one back-and-forth with Page, Strzok – who was deeply involved in both the Clinton email investigation and Mueller’s separate probe of Russian election interference – seemed to vow to block Trump from winning.
Trump’s "not ever going to become president, right? Right?!" she asked via text on August 8, 2016.
"No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it," Strzok replied.
The two federal employees were carrying out an extra-marital affair during the campaign. Mueller booted Strzok from his team of top investigators in July after it was revealed that he had exchanged texts with another FBI agent criticizing the president.
“The people of the FBI are incredible. I would bet if you took a poll in the FBI I would win that poll by more than anybody’s ever won a poll, but the top people were horrible,” Trump said. “I’m actually proud because I beat Clinton dynasty, I beat Bush dynasty, and now, I guess, hopefully, I’m in the process of beating very dishonest intelligence.”
The original story can be found here.