Tucker Carlson Guest Claims FBI Framed Trump, Senior Officials Committed Crimes

In an appearance on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Joe diGenova claimed that the FBI was out to get President Donald Trump in the 2016 election and even went as far as to frame the former reality TV star.

Via a clip posted by the liberal activist group Media Matters for America, diGenova claimed to not only believe these allegations but stated them as fact. Talking about the investigation into Trump's connections to Russia, Carlson asked diGenova, "What do we know?"

"We know that Hillary Clinton was illegally exonerated; we knew that a year ago," diGenova said Thursday. "We know that there was a substantial effort to frame the current president of the United States with crimes by infiltrating his campaign, and then his administration, with spies that the FBI had set upon them. We have learned that the crimes were committed by the FBI, senior members of the Department of Justice, John Brennan, Mr. Clapper, Mr. Comey and others associated with the Democratic Party, and that Donald Trump and his associates committed no crimes."

There's a lot to parse in that statement, but in general it promotes diGenova's theories as facts. The idea that there was an informant in the Trump campaign was also floated by former assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy. However, there is no proof that FBI officials tried to frame Trump for a crime.

Trump himself has promoted the idea that there was an "embedded spy" in his campaign that worked against him. "Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president," Trump tweeted Friday morning. "It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a 'hot' Fake News story. If true - all time biggest political scandal!"

The night prior on Fox News, diGenova claimed the FBI committed crimes to go after Trump and create a scandal of some sort. "Categorically and unequivocally, it has been proved that the FBI, in violation of all guidelines, all legislation—and I believe they committed crimes in doing so—purposely sent people into the Trump campaign to plant false information, then force that information to be forwarded back to CIA, and then funneled to the FBI, to be used as false information in FISA applications," he said. "Everybody involved in that process who knowingly participated committed a crime."

DiGenova, who reportedly was considered for a job on Trump's legal team, has long claimed that the president was framed by FBI and Department of Justice officials. The president regularly calls the investigation into Russian collusion a "witch hunt," and it appears that his message has worked on a good number of his supporters. A YouGov poll this month found that 61 percent of Republicans thought the FBI was framing Trump.