me how you think he s prioritizing. that s one of the ways we think he s trying to prioritize the donbas region. so the department has released its budget and now we re in budget season. you re going to the hill justifying what you want to do with the annual budget. and i m sure lawmakers will want to know what the department is doing vis-a-vis russia and this new reality of russia being in ukraine and being an acute threat. what would be the department s response to congress? how will it describe what it s doing to kind of counter this new reality with russia? i think if you look at the budget itself, and the reason why we wanted to do a national defense strategy in concert with the budget was to show that the budget is strategically aligned with what we re trying to do in this department. and of course china remains the pacing challenge, the number one concern for the department. there s no doubt about that. but as you said, we refer to russia as an acute threat.
looking out for how jim comey is going to come out of this thing. the fact that he would lecture hillary clinton while using his own private e-mail, the fact that october 5th he recommends not coming out with the russia the fact of the russian investigation for fear of it being an october surprise. but 23 days later he comes out and says, oh, by the way, remember that thing in july i talked about. well, now we are going to look into these e-mails on anthony weiner s computer. there is no protocol. right. the problem was, i remember that day. he said i m saying this. woe almost certainly will not be able to figure out what s in these before the election. on the saturday or sunday before the election he said never mind. but the damage was done. the tail is wagging the dog. he is responding to concerns
about hillary clinton and is using that as an excuse to undermine the investigation into russia is totally absurd. we re talking about apples and oranges here. a lot of harm was done in the election that was totally separate from a question of whether an investigation is required into what the president s campaign may have been doing vis-a-vis russia. here are the texts you say showed bias. trump is not ever going to become president, right, right? he said no. no, he won t. we ll stop it. who knows if that was wishful thinking. who knows? the idea that the trump administration has impugned much of the fbi because of these two people is unfortunate or you think fair? i do think it is fair. these are people at the top levels of the fbi. there s been plenty of honorable
donald trump won. he sure did. who do you think it hurt more? the ig investigation shows that donald trump was hurt more. but hold on. how was he hurt more? i think he was hurt more because i believe the tippy top of the if i can, that they were more interested in trying to peddle this russia story they talked only about hillary clinton s e-mail investigation, and she lost. this is my opinion. understand. how can you possibly think donald trump was hurt more? by what the fbi did? he could have won by more, alisyn. it was a little bit of a squeaker. can you give me that? okay. hillary clinton didn t even concede that night because it was that close. you re right.
clinton responding with this stinging tweet equipping, but my e-mails. director comey felt entitled to go in front of the country, unauthorized, and lecture secretary clinton about her use when it turns out he was doing the same thing. reporter: it is critical of peter strzok and lisa page, who exchanged a number of texts criticizing mr. trump, including this from august 2016. page texts, trump is never going to become president, right? right? peter strzok replies, no, no, he s not. we ll stop it. the inspector germ says while the text implies taking action to impact trump s electoral process, he found no evidence that bias impacted the russia investigation. the ig adding, the conduct by these employees casts a cloud over the entire fbi investigation and goes to the heart of the fbi s reputation for neutral fact finding and political independence. fbi director christopher wray vowing to hold employees accountable but defending the