Heidi M. Przybyla

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – President Trump wants the Justice Department and FBI to investigate Hillary Clinton’s campaign, in response to a newly published book excerpt from former acting Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile that says the Clinton campaign was improperly running the party during the 2016 primaries.

In a series of morning tweets, Trump seized on Brazile’s article that said the DNC became financially dependent on Clinton during the 2016 primary to the detriment of challenger Bernie Sanders.

“Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn’t looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems,” Trump tweeted. “At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!” he said in another tweet.

Trump's call for the Justice Department to investigate his former election rival not only violates a longstanding U.S. tradition of law enforcement agency independence from interference by the executive branch. There appears to be little basis for an investigation.

While Brazile’s accusations fuel a narrative that Clinton sought to elbow Sanders out of the nomination and are reviving feelings among his supporters that he was cheated out of the nomination, the fundraising agreement is not illegal.

An excerpt of Brazile’s book was published in Politico. In it, Brazile says that before Clinton became the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, her campaign signed a joint fundraising agreement with the DNC, in which her campaign would finance the DNC in exchange for oversight from the Clinton campaign. "It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations," Brazile wrote. Usually, the nominee only takes over the party’s fundraising apparatus after accepting the nomination or if he/she is an incumbent president and already head of the party..

More:President Trump calls Hillary Clinton 'Crooked H' in tweet after Donna Brazile story

More:Poll: Nearly half of Americans think Trump committed a crime related to Russian election meddling

DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa said in a statement there were fundraising agreements with both campaigns.

"The DNC must remain neutral in the presidential primary process, and there shouldn't even be a perception that the DNC is interfering in that process," said Hinojosa. "Joint fundraising committees were created between the DNC and both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in attempt to raise the general election funds needed to win in 2016. Clinton was the only candidate who raised money for the party through her joint fundraising committee with the DNC, which would benefit any candidate coming out of the presidential primary process."

Trump has been pushing investigations of the Clintons since the campaign. In an October 2016 debate, Trump told Clinton he would seek to imprison her if he were elected president. “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into” her missing emails from her time as secretary of state.

Yet, after winning the presidency, Trump backed off. “She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways, and I am not looking to hurt them (the Clintons) at all. The campaign was vicious," he told the New York Times.

With some of Trump's campaign officials now under criminal indictment or pleading guilty to criminal offenses, he’s once again taking aim at the Clintons. Mueller is seeking to determine whether Trump or his officials sought to collude with the Russians to tilt the election in his favor by flooding social media with anti-Clinton ads and fake news.

"The real story on Collusion is in Donna B's new book," wrote Trump.

In a series of tweets responding to Trump invoking the Clintons and a Justice Department investigation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called it a diversion tactic.

"You might think your tweets are cute, @realDonaldTrump, but they won't stop Mueller's investigation or keep your people out of jail," wrote Warren.