President Trump in an early morning tweet on Tuesday criticized FBI Director Christopher Wray, disagreeing with his characterization of a newly released Justice Department inspector general report.
“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,” Trump said, a day after the report’s release.
“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!” Trump added.
In the report, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz faulted the FBI for its handling of applications to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in 2016, finding they contained inaccuracies and that agents omitted certain important information.
The report also found that agents who worked on the original Russian interference investigation were not motivated by political bias — undercutting a key talking point of the president and his Republican allies.
Horowitz also said the investigation was adequately predicated.
Wray, whom Trump tapped to replace ousted FBI Director James Comey in 2017, reacted to the report in an interview with ABC News, saying it described actions he considered “unacceptable and unrepresentative of who we are as an institution.”
But Wray also said it was “important that the inspector general found that, in this particular instance, the investigation was opened with appropriate predication and authorization.”
Wray also sent a letter to the Justice Department inspector general in response to the report, saying he had ordered more than 40 “corrective steps” to address its recommendations.
“Accordingly, the FBI accepts the Report’s findings and embraces the need for thoughtful, meaningful remedial action,” Wray wrote.
“Because our credibility and brand are central to fulfilling our mission, we are also making improvements beyond those recommended,” he continued.
The FBI declined to comment on Trump’s tweet about Wray.
The report’s release touched off a partisan fight over its findings that is likely to intensify when Horowitz visits Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
Trump claimed Monday the report demonstrated that the FBI attempted an “overthrow of government” by investigating his presidential campaign in 2016.
“This was an overthrow of government, this was an attempted overthrow and a lot of people were in on it and they got caught, they got caught red-handed,” the president said at the White House during a roundtable on education.
Trump often targets officials — including ones he has appointed — who don’t share his views. The president publicly criticized Jeff Sessions, his first attorney general, over former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, for example.