Trump attacks FBI for not helping him overturn election result: ‘They just move on’

Donald Trump has lashed out at the FBI for not supporting his election fraud claims, complaining that “some have served many presidents” and saying he was disappointed that they have not “nabbed” anyone.

“Why isn't the FBI all over the place?” he said on Sunday morning, in his first televised interview since the election.

“They are not. They are not, and it's a terrible thing.”

The president told Fox News presenter Maria Bartiromo that he felt the FBI was “missing in action.”

He added: “Can't tell you where they are. I ask if they are looking at it, everyone says yes they are.”

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Mr Trump speculated that some within the FBI were working against him.

“I know FBI and it's great at the level we talk about,” he said. 

"It's inconceivable. You'd think this is the biggest thing they could look at. They just move on. They've been there a long time. Some have served many presidents. 

"All I can say is - no one has come to me and said the FBI has nabbed ... the FBI is looking at Dominion."

The president has a particularly contentious relationship with the current FBI chief Christopher Wray, who he appointed to replace James Comey in June 2017.

At the time, Mr Trump called Mr Wray “an impeccably qualified individual,” citing his role in major fraud investigations and antiterrorism efforts at the justice department after the 9/11 attacks.

“I know that he will again serve his country as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity once the Senate confirms him to lead the FBI,” said Mr Trump in the statement.

Yet he has been angered by Mr Wray’s fierce independence, and his refusal to do Mr Trump’s bidding - in particular his failure to investigate Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe and Hunter Biden.

Mr Trump considers Mr Wray one of his worst personnel picks, sources told The Washington Post last month, amid mounting speculation that he would soon be fired. 

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, has also sharply criticised Mr Wray in internal discussions, as has another top Trump adviser, Dan Scavino, the paper reported.

Respected Republican legal minds - among them Theodore Olson and Ben Ginsberg, who both successfully served as George W Bush’s lawyers during the Florida recount - are urging the president to abandon his wild claims of fraud, pointing out that they have not provided any evidence.

Even Tucker Carlson, the most-watched Fox News host, gave Mr Trump’s then-lawyer Sidney Powell short shrift, attacking her for refusing to appear on his show and provide him with any proof to support her claims. She was removed from the legal team, meaning it is now only Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis.

They are hoping that the Supreme Court will take up their case, after a Pennsylvania judge - appointed by Mr Trump - delivered a damning dismissal of their efforts.

Mr Trump on Sunday morning ran through his usual litany of complaints, without the host Maria Bartiromo ever pressing him for proof.

He claimed they had “hundreds of thousands of votes” in “every swing state” which should have been counted for him, and said that thousands of dead people had voted.

The president also repeated his claim that poll watchers were forced out of the building by “thugs” - something that not even Mr Giuliani claims - and that the voting machines deliberately switched votes to Mr Biden, which the company says is physically impossible.

“I was called by the biggest people, the biggest political people, they said congratulations,” he said.

“Then it went away.”