Donald Trump hasn't even been sworn into office yet, but he's already targeting the media and leakers for making him look bad, since NBC News was alerted to the intelligence report which states Russia was involved in hacking the US presidential election.
Usually the Justice Department is tasked with this issue, but since Republicans used their congressional powers to investigate Democrats nine ways to Sunday, Trump thinks this is Rep. Chaffetz's main function.
Here's a thought
Maybe Trump should attend his daily intelligence briefing every day so he'd know about vital information before the media did.
And if he's really concerned with leaks, why not call for investigations into the many FBI agents who leaked information to Rudy Giuliani during the run-up to the general election?
On CNN's Reliable Sources, host Brian Stelter told The NY Times' David Sanger journalists are already worried Trump will relentlessly attack the media over leaked information and said, "My inbox is full of e-mails from journalists worried about the chilling effects of Trump's tweet, given that he hasn't taken office yet and he's already calling for this investigation."
Since Donald Trump said he would love to change the libel laws so the media could be sued, his tweet attacking NBC News is just the beginning of a non-stop assault on the freedom of the press.
And his surrogates are experts at attacking the press at every turn, so expect this assault on the free press to be one continuous loop of media-bashing.
Sanger stated correctly that President Obama, as well as every administration before, has tried to quell leaks as much as possible, even calling for investigations, but not because the media got ahead of him on an intelligence report.
And no other president-elect made media-bashing one of his prime election talking points than Trump.
Not only that, Trump hates not appearing to be the smartest man in every room, in his mind anyway. So hold onto your hats, journos.
Trump supporters will believe that Trump is the first president to have information leaked against him so it may get very ugly, as they take to social media to attack the journalists and media outlets.
