Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein blasted President Donald Trump's teardown of the FBI, arguing what's "really been tainted… is the Trump presidency."
In an interview with CNN's Jim Sciutto, the legendary investigative reporter decried Trump's declaration Tuesday that the agency is "tainted."
"The key word . . . that he keeps using is 'tainted.' There's really only one institution that has really been tainted through these months and that is the Trump presidency," Bernstein said.
"It's tainted by the president's lies, by his disrespect for American institutions operating under the law with traditional American democracy and the instruments thereof."
"He's contemptuous of those instruments," Bernstein added.
Bernstein argued the president should welcome moves from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigative team if he believes he'll be exonerated.
"If the president is as confident as he says, if this investigation is going to end very soon with him being exonerated, he ought to welcome all of this instead of attacking constantly," Bernstein said. "He's doing a grave disservice to our democracy."
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