President Donald Trump said Friday he was in the process of fighting a war with agencies like the FBI, citing their “very dishonest” behavior in their investigations.
“I’m actually proud because I beat the Clinton dynasty. I beat Bush dynasty, and now I guess hopefully I’m in the process of beating very dishonest intelligence,” Trump said.
He said the FBI betrayed both Republicans and Democrats in the 2016 presidential election.
“[W]hat they did was incredible and a real insult to millions of people that voted in that election on both sides,” Trump said.
The president repeatedly attacked Comey, calling him “the ringleader of this whole den of thieves” at the FBI and said his actions were likely “criminal.”
He also mocked Comey for using a private email address to conduct business on the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of private email to conduct business.
“He had a private e-mail,” Trump marveled. “That was of all the things, that wasn’t to me maybe the most interesting. But it was probably the funniest.”
He said that the Inspector General report released Thursday was “pretty good” but “blew it at the very end” by saying that the investigations were not tainted by bias.
“The report, the IG report was a horror show,” he said. “I thought that one sentence of conclusion was ridiculous.”
Trump taunted Strzok’s text saying he wanted to “stop” the president.
“They said they will stop me,” he said. “In the meantime, the economy hit an all-time high this morning. Never been better.”
Trump clarified he was only criticizing the corrupt leadership at the top of the FBI, not the rank-and-file agents. He said that Comey’s replacement at the FBI would fix the problems in the agency.
“I think Christopher Wray’s a very different from Comey,” he said. “Which is what you need … and he’s moving step by step. And you’re going to see a whole new very proud FBI.”