House Republicans were once again attacking the FBI at a hearing today, but they got their heads handed to them by a Democrat on the committee who accused them of trying to destroy the agency.
Though the hearing was supposed to be about security threats posed by China, Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) took the debate into some uncomfortable territory for the GOP.
“So, why are my colleagues trying to undermine the FBI?” Goldman asked. “Why are they asking to defund the FBI? It is not because the FBI is not doing its job. It’s because the FBI is doing its job.”
The reason Republicans want to undercut the FBI, Goldman continued, is because the agency served a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August of last year as part of failed former president Donald Trump’s refusal to hand over classified documents he stole from the White House when he left office.
“And the problem they have is that the FBI is doing its job in investigating their dear leader Donald Trump. And if you can undermine the investigator, if you can undermine independent journalists doing investigative reporting, then you can undermine our entire system of democracy. That is the authoritarian playbook 101.”
The FBI is losing its credibility, Goldman concluded, as a direct result of what Republicans have been doing and saying since last August: “And that has to stop.”
Will it stop? That seems unlikely, if only because the GOP has to try and protect a man already under indictment in Manhattan who is also facing charges in Georgia and from the Justice Department.
It appears Republicans are willing to undermine U.S. national security for the purpose of shielding an insurrectionist scum from the consequences of his actions.