'Dangerous and unacceptable': MAGA loyalists slammed for 'sickening and reckless' attacks on FBI
In interviews with the Guardian, former Department of Justice officials singled out Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for their continuing attacks on the FBI and the DOJ as they attempt to protect Donald Trump who is under investigation.
As the DOJ pursues possible Espionage Act and obstruction charges against the former president after he was caught holding sensitive government documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort -- necessitating a search by FBI agents armed with a warrant -- the two senior Republicans, as well as Trump, have ramped up attacking government agents for doing their jobs.
That has some former DOJ officials fuming.
According to the Guardian's Peter Stone, "The unrelenting attacks by Trump and loyalists such as McCarthy, senator Lindsey Graham, Steve Bannon and false conspiracy theorist Alex Jones against law enforcement have continued despite strong evidence that Trump kept hundreds of classified documents illegally," adding, "Former law enforcement officials and scholars warn that using such conspiratorial rhetoric impugning the motives and actions of the justice department and the FBI runs the risk of inciting threats of violence and actual attacks, fears that have already been proven warranted."
Former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich launched a broadside against the attacks and singled out both Graham and McCarthy.
“I have been dealing with law enforcement and the criminal justice system for close to 40 years. I have never seen the type or virulence of attacks being made every day against the FBI, DoJ lawyers, and judges,” he stated.
Adding that it is "dangerous and unacceptable," he continued, "It’s one thing for professional rabble rousers, liars, and nihilists – such as Bannon and Jones – to attack law enforcement and DoJ in the way that they have since the search; it’s quite another for so-called respectable political figures such as McCarthy and Graham to do so. Their recent actions and words reflect that theirs is a politics detached from facts and principle.”
Former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg concurred, telling the Guardian, “The attacks on federal law enforcement are sickening and reckless.”
As the Guardian's Stone wrote, "Graham provoked heavy criticism for making the suggestion in a Fox News interview that the FBI raid and investigation would lead to 'riots in the street', if charges were filed against Trump," former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig also called out the South Carolina lawmaker by lumping him in with the indicted Steve Bannon.
"The risk is that predictions of violence can easily become threats of violence bordering on extortion,” he told the Guardian. “Explicitly calling for violence against the government can, in context, become criminal. When Trump loyalists like Bannon and Graham seem to cross that line, they are risking criminal prosecution.”
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