FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks, while calling former Vice President Joe Biden “sleepy Joe” during a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio. U.S., August 1, 2019. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston/File Photo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump berated FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday after a U.S. government investigation found no evidence of political bias when the FBI began investigating contacts between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia in 2016.
Trump’s allies and his detractors both found support in Monday’s report by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, which found 17 FBI missteps. The findings are unlikely to end debate over the legitimacy of the probes that have overshadowed his presidency.
Asked if he thought the FBI unfairly targeted the Trump campaign, Wray, who was appointed by Trump, told ABC News in an interview on Monday: “I do not.”
Trump responded on Twitter early on Tuesday: “I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but it sure wasn’t the one given to me.
“With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!”
Representatives for the FBI and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Trump’s tweet.
In Monday’s interview, Wray said he took the errors seriously but noted the watchdog had found the probe “was opened with appropriate predication and authorization.”
He also pushed back against the notion – advanced largely by Trump and his backers – that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is part of a “deep state” bureaucratic network aimed at undermining Trump.
“That’s the kind of label that’s a disservice to the men and women who work at the FBI who I think tackle their jobs with professionalism, with rigor, with objectivity, with courage,” Wray told ABC, calling the term “an affront to them.”
Reporting by Susan Heavey; additional reporting by Sarah Lynch; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Howard Goller