Last week, the Justice Department’s inspector general released his long-awaited report on the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. Rather than exonerate the president and conclude the probe was launched as some kind of politically motivated witch hunt, Michael Horowitz wrote that the bureau had an “authorized purpose” when it opened its investigation, and that the conspiracy theories ranted about by Trump and his allies have no basis in reality. Horowitz did find that some FBI staffers made major mistakes in documents related to a wiretap, which director Christopher Wray responded to by ordering “more than 40 corrective steps” to address the errors. “We made a mistake and here are many ways we’re going to fix it,” though, was an approach that was never going to fly with Team Trump, which has tried to claim the errors somehow mean the investigation shouldn‘t have been launched in the first place, which of course, per the actual IG, they do not. On Tuesday, Trump lashed out at Wray, suggesting his days at the bureau were numbered. That turned out to be nothing compared to what he has in mind for ex-FBI director James Comey, late of being fired by the president for not halting the Russia probe.

In the hours after Comey told Fox News that he was “wrong” about the bureau’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Trump philosophized on Twitter: “So now Comey’s admitting he was wrong. Wow, but he’s only doing so because he got caught red handed. He was actually caught a long time ago. So what are the consequences for his unlawful conduct. Could it be years in jail? Where are the apologies to me and others, Jim?”

Later, as he is contractually obligated to do, Trump suggested that Horowitz probably would have told the world there was a vast conspiracy within the bureau to take him down if only that damn Barack Obama hadn’t stood in his way. “As bad as the I.G. Report is for the FBI and others, and it is really bad, remember that I.G. Horowitz was appointed by Obama,” he wrote. “There was tremendous bias and guilt exposed, so obvious, but Horowitz couldn’t get himself to say it. Big credibility loss. Obama knew everything!”

Luckily for the Donald, his attorney general and top footstool, William Barr, has been hard at work undermining Horowitz’s report. Last week, he claimed the findings proved that the FBI had “launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions” and that there was insufficient evidence “to justify the steps taken.” Later, during an interview with NBC News, he tried to make the case that Trump’s “civil liberties” were violated by the probe. And, of course, the coup de grâce, is the separate investigation into the Russia investigation Barr previously ordered up from John H. Durham, the United States attorney for the District of Connecticut, which appears to have been exclusively launched for the president’s benefit and will no doubt conclude that he has been treated worse than any president, nay American, in United States history and that anyone suggesting otherwise should get 10 to 20 in solitary confinement.

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