This Friday morning, President Donald Trump went on his long favored show Fox & Friends again, and the talk provided him a chance to spout even more belligerent egomania. Although he’d previously mockingly suggested on Twitter that there wouldn’t be much to talk about, he spent about a full hour addressing issues including past and current investigations of his team, all of which he roundly condemned despite the ample evidence implicating his team in corruption schemes. Still, he insisted that an inspector general report covering government surveillance of individuals in his orbit will be “historic” and that more recently, Democrats looked like “fools” during public impeachment hearings.
The Justice Department inspector general’s report in question is slated to come out December 9. Trump has alleged that the government “spied” on his campaign, but there’s no basis for that sweeping allegation. Authorities watched associates including a documented Russian espionage-tied foreign policy adviser — that’s all. Trump claimed, discussing the report:
‘The word is, it’s historic. That’s what I hear… They were spying on my campaign, and it went right to the top. Everybody knows it. And now we’re going to find out. This was an overthrow attempt at the presidency. I think this [report about a former FBI agent] is nothing compared to what you’ll see over the next couple of weeks.’
Watch:
In other words, Fox yet again gave Trump a platform to shout conspiracy theories at the world. The Trump-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray himself insisted he would not characterize the government’s actions as “spying,” and as for the report he discussed claiming a former FBI agent is under investigation for supposedly altering documents surrounding Trump team surveillance — no rogue error will erase the clear evidence implicating Trump’s team in plots from Russian collusion to a Ukraine quid pro quo. Trump simply again resorted to attacking the process.
It’s as if his main focus after a fire was outing who called the fire department. He also had harsh words for Democratic impeachment investigators, who this week brought out witness after witness confirming the alleged Ukraine plot. Trump claimed:
‘They’ve looked like fools over the last five days. And these were their witnesses — this was the best they’ve got.’
Remember — this is the president of the United States responding to a duly proceeding judicial investigation by calling his opponents fools.
To be clear: witness after witness have confirmed the Ukraine plot. On Wednesday, E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland bluntly insisted that yes, there was a quid pro quo and “everyone was in the loop.” How much more direct can you get? Just because Trump didn’t write on a piece of paper in big bold letters “HERE’S THE QUID PRO QUO,” that doesn’t mean the plot doesn’t exist.
In reality, the Trump team sought to tie the release of aid for Ukraine to them producing aid on the Bidens. In recent days, Trump has repeatedly touted the supposed evidence in his favor that he told Sondland that he didn’t want a quid pro quo. In other words, Trump would like us to ignore the evidence and believe he’s innocent just because he said so.
