Why Trump Republicans want to destroy The FBI

Ever since Richard Nixon demanded "law and order" while overseeing what America later discovered to be an enormous criminal conspiracy, that Republican slogan has sounded ironic and faintly ridiculous.

Now, with their party firmly in the grip of former President Donald Trump -- a Nixon admirer, a convicted felon and soon to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee -- Republicans are actively undermining law enforcement and counterespionage while aiding drug cartels, human traffickers and hostile foreign powers.

House Speaker Mike Johnson vowed recently to punish the FBI, as did Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Judiciary Committee chair, because they are furious over Trump's conviction by a New York City jury in a case that did not involve the FBI at all. For many months following the FBI search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, where he had concealed national security documents that he refused to surrender, a growing chorus of Republican legislators has sought punitive action against the bureau, which suffered substantial cuts in the most recent federal budget.

"DEFUND THE FBI," tweeted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a theme that she has repeated countless times. "We must save America. We must destroy the FBI," echoed Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who may worry that the bureau maintains a bulging file on his Nazi-adjacent activities and open advocacy of violence. Greene and Gosar were simply following orders of their maximum leader Trump, who urged Congress to "DEFUND THE FBI AND THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT" after he was indicted for stealing classified documents and attempting a coup to overturn the 2020 election.

Listening to the Trump Republicans day after day, it's easy to become jaded about their insane rhetoric. They will literally say anything to excite their base, in hope that their deluded followers will ring up new donations to the cause. But that doesn't mean their destructive schemes will never come to fruition.

So what would happen if the Trump gang actually gained the ability to "defund" or "destroy" the FBI? It is already happening.

FBI Director Christopher Wray -- a Trump appointee and lifelong Republican whom the former president once described as "impeccable" -- has explained more than once the damaging impact of these GOP attacks on national security and on the effort to protect ordinary Americans from terrorists and other depraved criminals. When Congress slashed the FBI budget last spring --despite years of price inflation -- he warned that those cutbacks would "degrade" the agency's ability to thwart drug cartels, human trafficking, and crimes against children -- all supposedly matters of grave concern to Republicans.

At a Judiciary Committee hearing, Wray bluntly testified that the reductions will mean "hundreds more predators on the loose and hundreds more kids left at their mercy," as well as "scores of threats from China left unaddressed." (If he didn't mention Russia, which is launching active measures against this country every day, perhaps that was because he knows how much more loyal the House GOP caucus is to the Kremlin than the West.)

And yet inflicting cuts on the FBI was clearly the highest priority of the House Republicans in their budget negotiations with Democratic leaders and the White House. It is an attitude that benefits only Mexican gangsters, Russian spies, Iranian terrorists and Chinese saboteurs, not Americans. So why would Republicans elevate this noxious policy?

The only plausible answer is that the "law and order" party has become a haven for crooks and criminals, even more than during Nixon's misrule. The fish stinks from the head, as they say, but Trump's felony conviction only echoed the priors racked up by his associates. Tallying the convictions and indictments of the Trump entourage is a challenging task, with new entries appearing regularly.

Just this week, his former campaign manager and White House strategist Steve Bannon -- who refused a Congressional subpoena to testify about the Jan. 6 plot -- was ordered to report to prison on July 1. Bannon, an aspiring fascist gauleiter, will face a separate New York trial for fraud in September. He joins the long list of Trump aides and advisers, from Peter Navarro to Paul Manafort, who have spent time behind bars -- and those who belong there but got away because Trump pardoned them.

More troubling than the crimes they have already committed, however, are the crimes that they intend to carry out should they regain power in November. Like their demented boss, they shriek constantly about retribution and revenge. The rule of law -- and the agencies created to enforce it -- are only an obstacle to their sinister plans.