Many Republican politicians have expressed concern about Monday’s FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s house in Mar-a-Lago.
Not only did Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney not share in these concerns, she also chastised other Republicans for even bringing them up.
“I have been ashamed to hear members of my party attacking the integrity of the FBI agents involved with the recent Mar-a-Lago search,” Cheney wrote in a tweet on Thursday. “These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk.”
I have been ashamed to hear members of my party attacking the integrity of the FBI agents involved with the recent Mar-a-Lago search. These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk.
— Rep. Liz Cheney (@RepLizCheney) August 11, 2022
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To be clear, any threats against FBI agents or other public officials are completely inappropriate and should be treated as such. However, questioning the motives and integrity of agents is not the same as threatening them.
There are plenty of reasons to question the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago. First, the FBI and the Department of Justice have yet to disclose the reason for the search warrant.
In a news conference on Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the government had filed a motion to unseal the search warrant.
Attorney General Merrick Garland on FBI’s search of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home: “I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.” pic.twitter.com/h3Ek1vCaAx
— CSPAN (@cspan) August 11, 2022
Are Republicans right to be asking questions about this raid?
If the warrant is unsealed and proves it was necessary for the FBI to raid Mar-a-Lago, Americans will be able to rest knowing the Department of Justice did not abuse its power. Until that happens, Americans will continue to ask questions.
This is especially true given the apparent inconsistency in the reports about the raid. During the news conference, Garland said he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.”
“The department does not take such a decision lightly,” Garland said. “Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken.”
This would imply the FBI decided it was necessary to raid Mar-a-Lago because other “less intrusive means” were not viable.
According to a report from the New York Post, the warrant focused on presidential records and “evidence of classified information” the FBI believed were at Mar-a-Lago.
Sources close to Trump told the Post that Evan Corcoran and other lawyers for the former president “had been cooperating fully with federal authorities on the return of the documents to the National Archives and Records Administration.”
If those sources were correct, it would seem the FBI had no need to raid Mar-a-Lago in order to retrieve the documents. This is just one of many unanswered questions regarding the raid.
Asking questions about the motivations of FBI agents is not akin to threatening them or saying they are undoubtedly corrupt. Instead, many Republicans are seeking answers about the raid and whether it was appropriate.
The suggestion from Cheney that Republicans must blindly trust the FBI without asking any questions is simply ridiculous. The case obviously brings up a multitude of questions, and Americans deserve answers.
Of course, this sort of rhetoric from Cheney is exactly why she is in grave danger of losing in the upcoming Wyoming primaries.
According to a poll conducted by the University of Wyoming between July 25 to August 6, 57 percent of likely Republican voters planned to support U.S. House candidate Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Cheney for the Republican nomination.
Meanwhile, just 28 percent planned to vote for Cheney. The poll received 562 responses and had a margin of error of plus or minus four percent.
