# Post x_1035868119884021760

- Post ID: `x_1035868119884021760`
- Platform: X (Twitter)
- Posted: 2018-09-01T12:32:59.000Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/x_1035868119884021760
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/x_1035868119884021760/analysis
- Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/x_1035868119884021760.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording)

## Post text

> ....of the DOJ & FBI are completely out to lunch in terms of exposing and holding those accountable who are responsible for that corruption.” @TomFitton @JudicialWatch

## Engagement

- Likes: 59,435
- Reposts: 15,523
- Replies: 0
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-01-31T23:43:13.398Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-03-15T23:13:40.145Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._

## Summary

This post is the concluding fragment of a two-tweet thread amplifying Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton in a sustained attack on DOJ and FBI leadership, published September 1, 2018 at 8:32 AM local time. Likely authentic based on thread-continuation structure, idiomatic register, and morning timing. Psychologically, it represents a preemptive attack response to the Mueller investigation: delegitimizing investigative institutions before they can produce adverse findings, so any future indictments are interpretable as products of the very corruption being named. Paranoid and narcissistic features are present at levels consistent with this period's baseline — no acute escalation in the post itself. The same-day Indiana rally, however, contextualizes the tweet as part of a deliberate escalation sequence: ideological preparation via tweets, then crowd mobilization with explicit threat to personally intervene in DOJ operations. The DARVO inversion is clinically notable — a president under active criminal investigation successfully reframes that investigation as the corrupt act. Fact-checkable claims are mostly false to half-true; FISA oversight did occur through classified judicial review. Danger is rated elevated not from this post alone, but from its documented coordination with same-day rally rhetoric threatening institutional intervention. No cognitive markers of concern relative to 2018 baseline.

## Psychological Analysis: September 1, 2018 — DOJ/FBI Corruption Quote Thread

### Contextual Note

This post is the **continuation fragment** of a two-tweet thread (the prior post in context begins "Report: There were no FISA hearings held..."). The full composite quote, attributed to Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, reads: *"...the DOJ & FBI are completely out to lunch in terms of exposing and holding those accountable who are responsible for that corruption."* This structural pattern — splitting a quote across tweets with ellipsis continuations — is characteristic authentic Trump behavior.

---

### Authorship Attribution

The post was published at **08:32 AM EDT** (UTC-4, Washington DC). Trump was at the White House on September 1, 2018. While this is morning rather than late-night, several indicators point toward **authentic authorship** rather than aide composition:

- The continuation ellipsis format (`....`) with lowercase opener is a hallmark Trump thread technique, matching dozens of documented authentic posts
- The tweet is embedded in a rapid-fire thread of six posts across a short window — characteristic of Trump's impulsive morning posting behavior
- The colloquial idiom "out to lunch" (informal, slightly dismissive) fits Trump's authentic register
- Tagging @TomFitton and @JudicialWatch is a Trump pattern of signal-boosting friendly validators
- Aide-composed posts in this period tend to be standalone, grammatically complete, and event-announcement oriented — this is neither

Confidence: **medium-high** for authentic authorship, with the caveat that the fragmented nature may have had minor staff polish.

---

### Level 1: Big Five Dispositional Traits

The most salient facets in this post:

- **Low Agreeableness**: institutional suspicion, aggressive framing of law enforcement as corrupt, zero trust in federal agencies
- **High Neuroticism (Angry Hostility)**: the thread as a whole is suffused with grievance; "completely out to lunch" carries contempt
- **Low Conscientiousness (deliberation)**: no nuance, no acknowledgment of countervailing evidence, black-and-white framing
- **High Extraversion (assertiveness)**: using public platform as both attack vehicle and rallying signal

---

### Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations — Goals and Motives

**Dominant motive: Agency / Power / Autonomy**

The core dynamic is a threatened authority figure attempting to neutralize the institutional bodies investigating him by delegitimizing them *before* they can act against him. This is textbook **preemptive attack** in narcissistic supply terms — rather than awaiting an adverse finding, the investigative institutions are preemptively branded as corrupt, making any future findings (against Trump) interpretable as products of that corruption.

**Secondary motive: Validation / Supply-Seeking**

Quoting Fitton/Judicial Watch imports external "expert" validation for what are Trump's own grievances. The tagging serves as a loyalty-maintenance signal to the conservative media ecosystem and base: *I am fighting, I have allies, the institutions are the enemy.*

**Schema revealed:**
- **Self**: unfairly persecuted by a corrupt deep state
- **Others (DOJ/FBI leadership)**: corrupt, incompetent, politically weaponized
- **World**: a zero-sum arena where institutions serve partisan agendas, not law

---

### Level 3: Narrative Identity

**Protagonist role**: Victim-Warrior hybrid. The narrative construction here positions Trump as the *target* of institutional corruption ("targeting Donald Trump," from the prior post) while simultaneously positioning as *fighter* against that corruption — the only one naming it.

**Contamination sequence** in operation: the legitimate institutions of law enforcement (good) have been *contaminated* by corrupt leadership (bad), now operating against the rightful president.

**Identity claim**: *I am the one who sees the corruption clearly and names it.*

**Contrasting other**: DOJ/FBI leadership — not lower-level agents, but specifically *leadership*, allowing rank-and-file to remain a potential ally audience while the specific institutional threat (those who could indict him) is delegitimized.

---

### Level 4: Clinical Indicators

**Narcissistic Features (moderate-high, consistent with prior baseline)**:
- Grandiosity: framing the entire DOJ/FBI as "completely out to lunch" — institutions of tens of thousands serving no accountability function
- Entitlement: implicit claim that investigative scrutiny of his campaign constitutes institutional corruption
- Lack of empathy: zero acknowledgment that FISA oversight involves classified national security mechanisms with genuine complexity; purely self-referential framing

**Paranoid Features (moderate, consistent with baseline)**:
- "Spy warrants targeting Donald Trump" — the personalization of institutional action as personal targeting
- Bearing grudges: this is part of a months-long campaign against specific DOJ/FBI actors
- Quick to counterattack: the Indiana rally same day included a threat to personally "get involved" in DOJ operations — the tweets and rally are mutually reinforcing

**Antisocial Features (mild)**:
- Routine disregard for institutional legitimacy of federal law enforcement
- No evidence of remorse regarding institutional delegitimization

**Sadism (low in this specific post)**: The "out to lunch" phrase carries mild contempt but lacks the delight-in-cruelty quality seen in sharper attack posts.

---

### Defense Mechanisms

1. **Projection (Immature, primary)**: Attributes "corruption" entirely to investigators rather than engaging with the substance of what is being investigated. The accused becomes the accuser.

2. **Splitting (Immature)**: DOJ/FBI leadership is wholly corrupt; Judicial Watch and Fitton are wholly credible. No gradation, no complexity.

3. **Rationalization (Neurotic, secondary)**: Using Fitton's quote allows Trump to frame the attack as merely *reporting* what others say, providing a thin veneer of journalistic relay rather than personal accusation — though the intent is identical.

4. **Denial (Pathological undertone)**: The broader thread denies the legitimacy of FISA oversight of his campaign, characterizing the legal process itself as the corrupt act.

---

### Rhetorical & Propaganda Techniques

- **Appeal to authority (weaponized)**: Fitton/Judicial Watch are not neutral experts; they are advocacy organizations ideologically aligned with Trump. The "authority" is manufactured within the in-group.
- **Institutional delegitimization**: Characterizing federal law enforcement leadership as "completely out to lunch" — using colloquial dismissal rather than substantive critique, which avoids the need for evidence.
- **Quote relay as deniability**: The rhetorical move of putting the attack in someone else's mouth ("as so-and-so said...") while tagging them gives Trump amplification with thin semantic distance.
- **Fragmented delivery (thread technique)**: Splitting across two posts ensures each post shows up in feeds separately, doubling algorithmic reach of the same message. Pattern-consistent with deliberate amplification.
- **False dichotomy**: Either the DOJ/FBI leadership exposes the corruption (vindicating Trump) or they are themselves corrupt. No middle ground.

---

### Gaslighting & Reality Distortion

Present at moderate level:

- Reframing a legally obtained FISA warrant (reviewed by a federal court) as a "spy warrant" — inverts the legal reality where courts serve as oversight mechanism
- The claim there were "no FISA hearings" is technically ambiguous (FISA proceedings are classified and largely non-adversarial by design), but deployed as if it were damning evidence of process corruption
- Repeated characterization of an active criminal investigation as "corruption" serves to pre-contaminate any adverse findings — classic **DARVO** (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender): Trump is the real victim of DOJ/FBI's corrupt attack

---

### Epistemic Closure Indicators

**Yes** — the post assumes as established fact what are contested claims (FISA process illegitimacy, DOJ/FBI leadership corruption), with no opening for alternative interpretation. The in-group audience (Judicial Watch followers, rally attendees) is being trained to accept these premises as membership credentials.

---

### Cognitive Status Assessment

**No markers of cognitive concern in this specific post.** The sentence structure is coherent (for Trump baseline), the argument follows internally consistent — if factually contestable — logic. "Out to lunch" is an idiom deployed accurately. No word-finding difficulty, paraphasia, or confabulation detectable.

*Baseline note*: Trump's tweet language in 2018 is broadly consistent with his 2015-2017 baseline — high affect, low syntactic complexity, heavy reliance on quoted validators and superlatives. No marked deviation detectable in this post.

---

### Danger Assessment

**Elevated** (not high/critical, but above baseline threshold):

The post in isolation is standard institutional attack. However, the **same-day context raises the level**:
- Indiana rally: Trump explicitly threatened to personally intervene in DOJ operations ("get involved if they don't straighten out properly")
- Crowd chanting "lock her up" about Clinton — validated by Trump
- The tweet thread serves as *pre-rally ideological preparation*, softening the audience's fidelity to legal norms before the rally escalated the threat

The pattern of: (1) delegitimize institution → (2) declare its leaders corrupt → (3) imply personal intervention → (4) crowd mobilization toward target is a recognizable **stochastic terrorism precursor pattern**, though this specific post does not reach the eliminationist language threshold alone.

No dehumanizing language. No explicit calls to action. No violent imagery.

---

### Fact Verification

| Claim | Verdict | Evidence |
|-------|---------|----------|
| "FISA courts held no hearings over spy documents/warrants" | **Mostly False** | FISA proceedings are classified and non-adversarial by design, but the court does review applications. The Carter Page warrant was approved and renewed by federal judges. 'No hearings' conflates absence of public adversarial process with absence of judicial oversight. |
| "The FISA warrant is about the Trump Campaign, not Carter Page" | **Half True** | The warrant formally targeted Carter Page, who was a Trump campaign advisor. Communications with other campaign figures could potentially be captured. The characterization is a contested interpretive frame rather than established fact. |
| "There is corruption at the DOJ and FBI leadership" | **Mostly False** | The 2019 Horowitz IG Report found procedural errors and compliance failures in FISA application process but explicitly did not find evidence of political bias or coordinated conspiracy against Trump. The blanket corruption characterization is unsupported by subsequent investigations. |

Overall Veracity: 30%

## Authorship Analysis

**Self-Written** (score: 80%)

### Indicators

- Continuation ellipsis format ('....') is a documented authentic Trump thread technique
- Part of rapid-fire six-post thread across short morning window
- Colloquial idiom 'out to lunch' matches Trump's informal register
- Tagging @TomFitton and @JudicialWatch matches Trump's validator-amplification pattern
- 8:32 AM EDT — morning posting consistent with known Trump phone habits

## Psychological Profile

### State

**Mixed State**

**Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Exposure (Mueller investigation / FISA warrant targeting Trump campaign)

**Rage:** Intensity 55% targeting DOJ and FBI leadership
- Proportionality: 20%

Sentiment: -0.72

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 72%
- Antisocial: 38%
- Paranoid: 65%
- Sadism: 20%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- projection (immature)
- splitting (immature)
- rationalization (neurotic)
- denial (pathological)

**Cognitive Complexity:**
- Complexity: 31%

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Signal-boosting allied validators (Fitton/Judicial Watch) as proxy authority
- Tagging accounts to mobilize their audiences toward shared grievance
- Implied insider knowledge ('it's about the Trump Campaign, not Carter Page')

## Danger Assessment

**ELEVATED**

### Indicators

- Same-day Indiana rally included explicit threat to personally intervene in DOJ operations ('get involved if they don't straighten out')
- Tweet thread serves as pre-rally ideological preparation: delegitimize institution → declare leadership corrupt → imply personal intervention → crowd mobilization
- Pattern matches stochastic terrorism precursor: identified institutional targets, articulated grievances, implied consequence — rally crowd provided the mobilization component
- Crowd chanting 'lock her up' validated by Trump at same-day rally — tweet framing and rally escalation are mutually reinforcing
- Sustained multi-post saturation of corruption narrative on single day signals coordinated escalation rather than spontaneous expression

### Gaslighting

- Reframing a court-approved FISA warrant as a 'spy warrant' — inverts legal reality where courts serve as oversight
- DARVO inversion: subject of active criminal investigation characterizes the investigation itself as the corrupt act
- Characterizing legally obtained judicial orders as evidence of institutional corruption rather than legal process
- Pre-contaminating future adverse findings by establishing 'corruption' narrative before findings are released

## Fact Checks (3)

_The model's verdicts from 2026-03-15._

> FISA courts held no hearings over spy documents/warrants

**MOSTLY FALSE**

FISA proceedings are classified and non-adversarial by design, but the court does review applications. The Carter Page warrant was approved and renewed by federal judges. 'No hearings' conflates absence of public adversarial process with absence of judicial oversight.

Sources: DOJ Inspector General Report (December 2019); Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court records (classified)

> The FISA warrant is about the Trump Campaign, not Carter Page

**HALF TRUE**

The warrant formally targeted Carter Page, who was a Trump campaign advisor. Communications with other campaign figures could potentially be captured. The characterization is a contested interpretive frame rather than established fact.

Sources: House Intelligence Committee Memo (February 2018); DOJ IG Report 2019

> There is corruption at the DOJ and FBI leadership

**MOSTLY FALSE**

The 2019 Horowitz IG Report found procedural errors and compliance failures in FISA application process but explicitly did not find evidence of political bias or coordinated conspiracy against Trump. The blanket corruption characterization is unsupported by subsequent investigations.

Sources: DOJ Inspector General Report on Crossfire Hurricane (December 2019)

Overall Veracity: 30%

## Tags

- DOJ-FBI-attack (95%)
- FISA-narrative (88%)
- Judicial-Watch-amplification (82%)
- Mueller-probe-response (85%)
- DARVO (78%)
- preemptive-attack (80%)
- thread-continuation (75%)
- deep-state-narrative (72%)

## That day

_From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._

**Shut Out of McCain's Funeral, Trump Floods the Feed with NAFTA Threats and Deep State Conspiracies**

On the day of John McCain's nationally televised funeral — from which Trump had been explicitly excluded — he posted prolifically about trade threats against Canada and conspiracy theories about the FBI, never once mentioning the ceremony. The mood swung between chest-thumping dominance on NAFTA, where he threatened to terminate the deal entirely and warned Congress not to interfere, and wounded grievance over the Russia investigation. A middle-of-the-night post at 3 AM stood out as evidence of disrupted sleep, and the same NAFTA threat was reposted multiple times with only minor edits, suggesting fixation. The day reads as one long displacement exercise — looking busy and combative while the nation's attention was elsewhere.

Full digest for 2018-09-01: https://trump.fm/date/2018-09-01/analysis

## Citation

- APA: Trump, D. J. (2018, September 1). ....of the DOJ & FBI are completely out to... [Social media post]. X (Twitter). trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/x_1035868119884021760
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "....of the DOJ & FBI are completely out to lunch in..." X (Twitter), 1 Sep. 2018. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/x_1035868119884021760. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "....of the DOJ & FBI are completely out to lunch in...," X (Twitter), September 1, 2018, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/x_1035868119884021760.

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