President Donald Trump addressed a graduation at the FBI National Academy on Friday in Quantico, Virginia, which is for state, local and international law enforcement trainees.
“I am here not only to congratulate you, but to honor you for your courage and for your devotion and I want you to know that with me as your president, America’s police will have a true friend and loyal champion in the White House, more loyal than anyone else can be,” Trump said.
“The President of the United States has your back, 100%,” he added.
Earlier Friday, Trump slammed another group of law enforcement — the FBI — for what he called “very, very disgraceful” actions.
As FBI agents under special counsel Robert Mueller investigate possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russian operatives, Trump has demeaned the bureau and criticized it as a once great body that he fallen on hard times. Trump has said the FBI is in “tatters” and has urged FBI Director Christopher Wray to “clean house.”
Trump’s comments reflect a growing sense among right-wing media and conservative lawmakers that Mueller’s investigation is a biased attempt to attack Trump. Those calls grew louder earlier this week then anti-Trump text messages between top FBI employees were released to lawmakers and reporters earlier this week.
Speaking with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House on Friday, Trump echoed those past statements.
“It’s a shame what happened with the FBI but we’re going to rebuild the FBI, it’ll be bigger and better than ever,” Trump said. “It is very sad when you look at those documents and how they’ve done that is very, very disgraceful and you have a lot of angry people that are seeing it. It’s a very sad thing to watch, I will tell you that.”
He added that he was visiting the FBI academy on behalf of the FBI, but that “the level of anger at what they’ve been witnessing with respect to the FBI is certainly very sad.”