Showing their bias for anyone and anything anti-Trump, CNN’s At This Hour showed nothing but warm sympathy on Monday morning for Peter Strzok upon news he was fired by the FBI, repeatedly expressing hope that “he was treated fairly” and fretting that he was “a favorite punching bag” for President Trump and conservative media.

The Washington Post reported the firing (which took place Friday) following his anti-Trump text messages, affair with fellow FBI employee Lisa Page, and a truly unbelievable July 12 House hearing that CNN and the rest of the liberal media deemed a Joe McCarthy-like show trial by Republicans to benefit the Kremlin (see here, here, here, here, and here).

“But I will say, he’s certainly been a favorite punching bag for the President. I mean, the President’s tweeted about him, you know, day after day after day and has really elevated him and Lisa Page,” Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey told host Kate Bolduan, who agreed that Strzok was “one of his favorite punching bags of recent.”

Dawsey also couldn’t help but take a few swings at conservative media (click “expand” to see more):

He’s elevated him and Lisa Page, you know, to the forefront of conservative media, a lot of segments on Fox News, a lot of segments on Breitbart, The Daily Caller on the right. You know, Peter Strzok has really been a figure of particular derision. And during his testimony on Hill, he tried to explain his text messages. You know, he got in a tense debate with GOP members and some on the left tried to, you know, defend him. But it's clear that whatever happened in these text messages have been, you know, larger than life news story partially because of the President's, you know, propensity and ability to, you know, make it so with just nonstop posts and nonstop comments about it.

Former Obama National Security aide and CNN analyst Sam Vinograd used the occasion to assert that “the FBI is not partisan and the FBI has internal processes despite what Devin Nunes,” Trump, or “other conspiracy theorists and Russia like to say.”

Dawsey came back in and bemoaned how “[i]t's hard to imagine the President would not see this as a vindication, even if it is or not” even though “the facts are still coming in.”

“But it's hard to imagine the President won't cast this as a vindication everything I was saying, you know, look, I was, this guy was fired bad conduct and as we have seen the President often doesn't let facts get in the way of his argument of how he presents things and you have to imagine this was welcome news for him,” Dawsey added.

CNN legal analysts Jennifer Rodgers and Glenn Kirschner joined the discussion and both expressed sympathy toward Strzok as if we’re supposed to feel bad for him. Rodgers told Bolduan that “for Mueller and his team, it just kind of takes someone out of the way who was still a distraction” and “it’s too bad for Peter Strzok if he wasn’t treated fairly and he may work that out in civil litigation, but I think everyone else just needs to move on from this.”

Meanwhile, Kirschner stated that “I hope he was treated fairly by the FBI leadership, that they found a fireable offense and that they acted accordingly” despite his “horrendous decisions he made early on.”

Like a true mouthpiece for FBI partisans and allies like Fusion GPS, crime and justice reporter Shimon Prokupecz expressed sadness that Strzok’s supposed expertise could no longer keep America safe (click “expand” for more):

PROKUPECZ: But nonetheless, obviously, a significant development in this entire story and this entire investigation and what Peter Strzok meant to all of this politically and perhaps even legally in this investigation, now fired. And also I want to point out, Peter Strzok was a 20-year veteran and what he meant to the FBI in terms of his knowledge on counter-intelligence investigation, on Russia, also on China. I mean, he led these investigations for all these years and he’s now been fired. BOLDUAN: That’s an important perspective in all of this.

To see the relevant transcript from CNN’s At This Hour with Kate Bolduan on August 13, click “expand.”