Republican Florida Representative Francis Rooney called for a "purge" of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, warning of "deep state" figures within the agency. During an interview on MSNBC on Tuesday, Rooney said that the American people have a high standard that the FBI does not meet.
"I would like to see the directors of those agencies purge it."
When pressed on whether he is trying to discredit the Department of Justice amidst special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Rooney had this to say:
I don't want to discredit them. I would like to see the directors of those agencies purge it.
He continued:
And say, look, we've got a lot of great agents, a lot of great lawyers here, those are the people that I want the American people to see and know the good works being done, not these people who are kind of the deep state.
Rooney did specifically mention Peter Strzok, a top FBI agent who worked on the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of State, and who had been a member of Mueller's team until he was removed this summer over text messages he sent that were critical of President Trump.
Representative Rooney echoes President Donald Trump attacks on the FBI.
Over the holiday weekend, Trump attacked FBI leadership via Twitter, going after Deputy Director Andrew McCabe over donations that Democrats made to his wife’s political campaign. Trump's attack on Saturday came after a report that McCabe is retiring from the FBI amid mounting criticism from Republicans in Congress.
The people of Twitter are not fooled.
What Rooney really means is that he wants to remove anyone investigating anything related to Trump.
You all remember the Trump loyalty pledge, right?
A slippery slope.
What happened to the media doing their job of criticizing what politicians say?
And is anyone else concerned about the language politicians are using?
"This is fascist talk."
Rooney's rhetoric is dangerous fear-mongering.
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h/t: The Hill, Twitter
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