(CNSNews.com) – The FBI and Justice Department had better “start doing their job and doing it right,” President Trump said on Thursday night, warning that if they did not do so, then he would “get involved.”
“People are angry,” Trump told a rally in Evansville, Indiana, where he appeared in support of Republican Mike Braun who is campaigning to unseat Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly.
Making it clear he was speaking about people at the top of the two entities – “because inside they have incredible people” – Trump said that “our Justice Department and our FBI have to start doing their job, and doing it right, and doing it now.”
“Because people are angry,” he continued. “People are angry. What’s happening is a disgrace.”
“I wanted to stay out, but at some point, if it doesn’t straighten out properly – I want them to do their job – I will get involved, and I’ll get in there if I have to.”
Trump has long been sparring with the Justice Department over the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and allegations of Russian collusion with Trump’s team during the campaign.
He has also been prodding Attorney General Jeff Sessions about investigating “the other side” – pointing to emails deleted from 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s private server, and to issues and individuals related to the origins of the Russia probe.
Trump’s remarks about the FBI and DOJ “doing their job” came immediately after he accused media outlets of not picking up “big” stories when they aren’t about Republicans or conservatives.
“You can have the biggest story about Hillary Clinton – I mean look at what she’s getting away with, but let’s see what she gets away with, let’s see,” he said.
A Daily Caller report this week cited unnamed sources claiming that a Chinese-owned company in the Washington area had hacked into the private server Clinton used while serving as secretary of state, getting real-time access to “nearly all her emails” as part of an intelligence operation.
Trump picked up on the story, tweeting that the FBI and DOJ had better make the “next move” in the case, otherwise “their credibility will be forever gone!”
An FBI official then disputed the claims, saying the bureau had “not found any evidence the servers were compromised.”
But that prompted Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) to accuse the FBI of being deceptive in rebutting the report, since it was not the FBI, but the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG), who had discovered the breach.
“It was not the FBI that found it, so their statement was technically correct, but very deceptive in its omission,” he said.
Gohmert was the lawmaker who confronted former senior FBI agent Peter Strzok during his testimony on Capitol Hill last month about having been briefed by ICIG staffers that emails on Clinton’s server were being copied to – in Gohmert’s words – “an unauthorized source that was a foreign entity unrelated to Russia.”
Gohmert said this week that Strzok’s inability to recall having been given that information by the ICIG was “not credible,” and he accused the former agent of “doing all he could to help protect Hillary Clinton.”
“Though Strzok and other FBI personnel were briefed on Hillary Clinton’s server being hacked [by a foreign intelligence entity that was not Russian], as now reported, they knew this would devastate Hillary Clinton’s chances of being elected and they were not about to let that happen,” he charged.
China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday responded to claims that Beijing had hacked Clinton’s emails by saying, “China is a staunch champion of cyber security and firmly opposes and cracks down on all forms of cyber attacks and espionage activities.”
“China believes that the international community should jointly address threats to cyber security through dialogue and cooperation on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit,” ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a briefing.
