June 15, 2018

Of Course Trump Is Using the Inspector General’s Report to Attack the Russia Probe

The president previews his new line of argument against Mueller’s investigation.

Yang Chenglin/ZUMA

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As widely expected, President Donald Trump seized upon a newly released report by the Justice Department’s inspector general to attack James Comey and commend his own decision to fire the former FBI director in May 2017. “Good instincts,” Trump wrote of himself Friday morning.

The self-admiration comes despite Trump having said in a television interview shortly after the explosive firing that he got rid of Comey because of “this Russia thing.” Trump reportedly followed up on the startling admission by telling Russian officials the dismissal had relieved pressure on the White House.

The president on Friday also blasted two FBI agents cited in Thursday’s much-anticipated report, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. The inspector general criticized anti-Trump text messages they exchanged, concluding they had “cast a cloud” over the bureau. But Trump failed to mention that the report did not find any evidence of political bias in the actions of Comey or the two FBI agents. Trump instead retweeted a string of Fox & Friends clips featuring Jason Chaffetz, in which the former Republican congressman from Utah claimed the report undermined special counsel Robert Mueller’s entire investigation.

“Anything Mueller is doing with his investigation is tainted by the fact that you had these people who had a political objective to take down Donald Trump,” Chaffetz claimed.

The president’s tweets, which are his first public response to Thursday’s report, preview what is expected to be the newest line of attack against the ongoing Russia probes. 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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