Trump Lashes Out at FBI After NYT Report on Russian Probe

Jan 12 2019, 1:56 PMJan 12 2019, 3:00 PMJanuary 12 2019, 1:56 PMJanuary 12 2019, 3:00 PM

(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump lashed out on Saturday following a New York Times report that the FBI had opened a probe in 2017 to determine if the president had been working, knowingly or unknowingly, on behalf of Russia.

In four early-morning tweets Trump said that the agency had opened a probe “for no reason and with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze.” He termed former leaders of the agency “corrupt.”

Trump went on to describe the Federal Bureau of Investigation as having been “in complete turmoil” under Comey, whom he called a “Crooked Cop.” The president also slammed familiar targets including Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who’s investigating possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, and Democrat Hillary Clinton. He concluded by asserting that he’d been tougher on Russia than former U.S. presidents.

“The mere hint -- if true -- that the FBI had suspicions about Trump being a Russian agent is mind-boggling,” Greg Valliere, chief global strategist for Horizon Investments, said in a telephone interview. “You have to think that Trump is eager to keep the government shutdown in the limelight, because he knows the imminent Mueller report will be explosive.”

The federal government is now into the fourth week of a partial shutdown with no clear end in sight over Trump’s demand for funding for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump has suggested over the past week that he may declare a national emergency and redirect other funds to begun building the wall, but on Friday said he wasn’t rushing to use that option.

The New York Times reported late Friday that in the days after Trump fired Comey as FBI director in May 2017, the U.S. began investigating whether the president had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests. The paper cited law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation whom it didn’t identify.

U.S. counterintelligence investigators attempted to assess whether Trump’s actions constituted a possible threat to national security, and agents also tried to determine whether Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unknowingly come under Moscow’s influence, the Times reported.

Trump returned to Twitter with a fifth tweet, describing various former FBI officials as “just some of the losers that tried to do a number on your President.”