President Donald Trump has dramatically different opinions about the FBI — depending on who’s being investigated, noted CNN anchor Jake Tapper. Trump loves the “courageous” agency when it’s digging into Hillary Clinton’s activities, but he blasts agents when they might be coming for him, Tapper pointed out Thursday.
Tapper played a video clip of a speech before Election Day in which the Republican nominee said it “took guts” for then-FBI Director James Comey to investigate Clinton, his Democratic rival, “in light of the kind of opposition he had.” A few months later, as Comey looked into possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign to swing the U.S. presidential election, the president fired Comey.
Trump and his allies have “sought to undermine any institution that posed any challenge to him,” said Tapper on CNN’s “The Lead.” “We’ve seen the attacks on legislative oversight, intelligence agencies, the judiciary, journalists.”
Currently, “vicious attacks” are aimed at the “integrity of federal law enforcement officials,” Tapper added. “The president’s views on FBI investigations are not difficult to predict: When they’re of his opponents, he applauds them.”
Just as special counsel Robert Mueller seems to be breathing down Trump’s neck, the president blasted the FBI in tweets Sunday, saying the agency’s “reputation is in Tatters - worst in History!”
FBI Director Chris Wray said in his opening remarks at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday that there were “no finer people than the men and women” who work at the FBI.
Check out Tapper’s take in the video above.
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