The establishment media has trashed President Donald Trump for questioning the integrity of the FBI, but Democrats waged their own war on the FBI when then-director James Comey reopened the Hillary Clinton email investigation in 2016.
WATCH:
President Trump and congressional Republicans have raised questions about whether top officials in the FBI, particularly ones working on the Russia investigation, were unfairly biased against Trump. Those concerns were heightened by the Strzok-Page text messages, wherein the agents discussed, among other things, an “insurance policy” to keep Trump out of the White House. (RELATED: ‘We Can’t Take That Risk’ — FBI Officials Discussed ‘Insurance Policy’ Against Trump Presidency)
Despite the evidence of bias, the media has attacked Trump and Republicans for going against the FBI.
“What we are witnessing before our eyes are the rudimentary beginnings of the destruction of a democracy,” MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski cried on January 24. “When should we be worried that this is happening?”
CNN’s Jake Tapper similarly called out Republicans in December for “impugning the integrity of Bob Mueller, and Justice Department officials, and the entire FBI.”
“Congratulations to all of those graduates out there of the FBI academy in Quantico, good luck out there,” he jested.
Despite the media’s moral posturing over criticism of the FBI, they seem to have forgotten that many Democrats lobbied many of the same attacks when then-FBI director James Comey reopened the Clinton email investigation shortly before the 2016 election.
Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, for example, accused the FBI of operating under a “double standard” and specifically questioned the agency’s “integrity.”
“Director Comey, when he came before our committee, he made it clear back in July that he did not want to and would not subject Hillary Clinton to a double standard,” Rep. Cummings said in late October of 2016. “And that is exactly what has happened here.”
“The integrity of the FBI is very important and the American people basically want fairness, but here it appears clear that there is a double standard,” he concluded.
Former Sen. Al Franken accused Comey of having “bad judgment,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Comey’s decision to send a letter about reopening the Clinton investigation “appalling” and members of the Clinton campaign demanded the FBI “explain” the letter.
Even then-President Barack Obama weighed in on how the FBI was handling the investigation.
“I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America’s national security was in danger,” Obama opined, despite the fact that the investigation was ongoing.