'He appointed them!': Ex-CIA official sounds off on Trump for attacking the attorney general he hired
Phil Mudd, a former senior intelligence adviser for the FBI and current CNN counterterrorism analyst, sounded off on President Donald Trump's latest unhinged Fox News interview earlier in which he made overt threats to the Justice Department.
"Give me a break," Mudd told CNN's Jake Tapper after he played a clip of the president's rant about the Department of Justice. "You're the general manager of a football team and say the team on the field is horrible. Who's responsible for that?"
"The president is saying he won't stay away from the Justice Department," he continued. "Who appointed the attorney general and the deputy attorney general? The attorney general has recused himself from the Russia investigation. The deputy attorney general has not only authorized the investigation but offered documentation to continue the investigation. Who nominated those people? The president is suggesting he doesn't have a responsibly for the team on the field. Excuse me — he appointed them!"
The president's continued attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein over the Russia investigation, the analyst insisted, communicate that he believes he's above the law.
"What the president is trying to suggest, as the man who is responsible for leading the bureaucracy is, we don't get treated equally," Mudd said. "If you're the president, [you] get to say 'you can't investigate me.'"
In Trump's eyes, the former intelligence official concluded, everyone else can "get screwed."
Watch below, via CNN: