Close on the heels of FBI acknowledging its failure to act on a valuable tip that might have helped avert the Florida school massacre on Wednesday, President Donald Trump slammed the premier investigation agency, commenting that it was “spending too much time” on the Russia probe.
“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable,” Trump said in a late night tweet on Saturday, adding: “They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign — there is no collusion.”
“Get back to the basics and make us all proud!” Trump told the FBI, with which he has been at odds over the past year, during which he fired Director James Comey and replaced him by Christopher Wray, who recently tried in vain to get the President to block the release of a Republican memo accusing FBI of “bias” in the Russian probe.
The FBI apart, Trump also took aim at his National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster for telling an international conference that evidence of Russian meddling in US election was now “incontrovertible” with the US indictment of 13 Russian nationals, without pointing out that there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Russia.
“General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H (Hillary Clinton), the DNC (Democratic National Committee) and the Dems,” Trump said in a separate tweet.
Soon after the indictment of 13 Russian individuals and three companies on Friday, Trump had tweeted that their anti-US operation had begun in 2014, long before he decided to run for President, and that there was “no collusion” between his campaign and the Russians. Also, the Russian operation did not impact the election result, he asserted.
Trump also trained his guns on the “Fake News Media” for its coverage of the indictment. “Funny how the Fake News Media doesn’t want to say that the Russian group was formed in 2014, long before my run for President,” remarking sarcastically: “Maybe they knew I was going to run even though I didn’t know!”
In respect of the tip not acted upon by FBI, the agency itself acknowledged on Friday that the information it received about Florida shooter Nikolas Cruz on its tip line on January 5 should have been assessed as a potential threat to life and forwarded to the bureau’s Miami field office for investigation. “These protocols were not followed,” the FBI admitted.
The admission prompted Florida Governor Rick Scott to demand resignation of FBI Director Wray, while the Republican chairs of three powerful Congressional committees attacked the agency and demanded briefings by FBI on the failure. “The fact that the FBI is investigating this failure is not enough,” said Florida Senator Marco Rubio.