Humiliated by the FBI, Trump unleashes pathetic lies in early morning tantrum

The mounting crusade against the FBI by Donald Trump and his allies in Congress has produced widespread backlash and a stinging rebuke from the FBI itself.

As it becomes clear that the memo created by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and championed by Trump to discredit federal law enforcement is likely political loser for Republicans, Trump is clearly getting frustrated. Because early Friday morning, he started lashing out on Twitter.

“The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans – something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people!”

Trump would do well not to throw stones, as he is a big part of the reason the FBI, once respected by both parties, is now a politicized issue. He sought loyalty from three senior justice officials, fired one who refused, attempted to fire the special counsel who was looking into that firing, and is now under investigation for obstruction of justice.

As for his claim that the FBI is working “in favor of Democrats over Republicans,” evidently he missed the news this week that Pete Strzok,  the FBI agent whose text messages supposedly proved anti-Trump bias, wrote the letter released by former FBI Director James Comey about re-opening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails right before the election.

And it was Trump whose original stated reason for firing Comey was his supposedly improper handling of that investigation in a way that was unfair to Clinton.

Further, all the senior FBI officials involved in these controversies are Republicans.

But Trump did not stop with that attack. He followed up with a tweet quoting Tom Fitton, the president of right-wing attack dog group Judicial Watch, alleging FBI abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act:

“You had Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party try to hide the fact that they gave money to GPS Fusion to create a Dossier which was used by their allies in the Obama Administration to convince a Court misleadingly, by all accounts, to spy on the Trump Team.” Tom Fitton, JW

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2018

This criticism is reportedly the thrust of the Nunes memo as well, but it is completely false.

First, the infamous dossier was originally commissioned by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication. Second, the dossier actually confirmed much of the FBI’s existing intelligence, and was only part of the basis for the investigation. And third, this entire argument ignores the fact that to do all this, the FBI first had to convince a federal judge of probable cause and get a sign-off on a warrant.

Trump does not seem to know or care about any of this, because it does not fit his narrative about being a victim of political targeting.

As Republicans further retreat into a bubble of their own facts, the law presses on relentlessly and undeterred.