ASSOCIATED PRESS Donald Trump called the special counsel team a “National Disgrace” and Robert Mueller a “conflicted prosecutor gone rogue” before recently saying that Mueller had acted honorably.

Brower, who was elected to the Nevada legislature as a Republican and served as Nevada’s top federal prosecutor under George W. Bush, said the FBI was generally a conservative organization “with a very small ‘c’” and that attempts to characterize the bureau as Republican or Democratic were “very misplaced, potentially very misleading, and just not accurate at all in my experience.” Trump’s attacks on the FBI “never made sense,” even for Trump’s own interests, Brower said. Had Trump taken the normal political approach to the Mueller probe ― saying two years ago that he welcomed the investigation, that he’s confident there was no inappropriate conduct, and that he looked forward to the investigation’s conclusion ― then he could now be credibly touting the Mueller report’s conclusions, he added. “He just took the wrong approach in every possible way, in my view, but mostly because of the deeply offensive, false accusations and characterizations of Bob Mueller,” Brower said. “It was beneath the dignity of the president. It was shocking.” Brower said he worried about the real-world impact of the president’s attacks when FBI agents testify in court. Even in places with a high level of skepticism of the federal government, judges and juries often take the word of FBI witnesses seriously, he said. “I’m afraid that, whereas FBI agents are able to ignore the background noise and do their jobs, ordinary people ― especially people that support the president ― have been unfortunately sucked into this view as propagated by the president that maybe the FBI can’t be trusted,” Brower said. “That is a very, very negative, destructive thing for the system.” Brower said his own friends and family members have questioned him about the FBI, ranging from “polite questioning” to “flat-out assumptions of the worst” about the bureau’s work. “There’s just so much information, so many erroneous assumptions. Unfortunately, people who watch Fox News, they’ve taken those erroneous assumptions and false facts as true, and it becomes a reality,” Brower said. “It’s a challenge.”

[Trump] just took the wrong approach in every possible way, in my view, but mostly because of the deeply offensive, false accusations and characterizations of Bob Mueller. It was beneath the dignity of the president. It was shocking. Greg Brower, former FBI congressional liaison