The Atlantic

How Trumpworld Is Spinning the FBI Report

The president and his allies have seized on newly revealed text messages between two agents to justify their war on federal investigators.
Source: Yuri Gripas / Reuters

In a long-awaited report, the Justice Department’s inspector general concluded that the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation was not influenced by political bias, and that any hostility certain officials may have felt toward then-candidate Donald Trump didn’t affect their handling of that probe.

But for Trump and his allies, that may not matter: While the overarching report undercut key parts of their conspiracy theories around the email probe, they’ve seized on one finding to fuel unfounded suspicions of a “deep state” scheme to undermine Trump’s candidacy. By focusing on this one aspect of the report, they’re able to keep arguing that the FBI has had it in for Trump from the start—no matter

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was
The Atlantic4 min read
When Private Equity Comes for a Public Good
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. In some states, public funds are being poured into t
The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking

Related Books & Audiobooks