Dissent is a good thing. Oppositional resistance is a good thing. Neither of those is what the GOP and Fox News has engaged in.
They have accused the FBI of planting evidence saying “they've done it before” with the Steele Dossier. They claim “Russia, Russia, Russia” was a hoax. They state that the FBI “let Hillary Clinton go” and that they have “Let Hunter Biden go.”
All of that is false. Robert Mueller found that Trump was “Not Exonerated” but was prevented from indicting Trump by OLC rules. Instead, he indicted 25 Russian operatives and successfully prosecuted almost a half-dozen Trump associates for lying under oath about their contacts with Russia. If there was “nothing to it” why did so many people lie under oath about their communications with Russians? Hillary Clinton was thoroughly investigated and then the investigation of her was again investigated by the Inspector General who completely cleared Peter Strozk and Lisa Page of any wrongdoing. In fact, the IG found that both of them had pushed hard to investigate Clinton even more thoroughly. John Durham's attempt to link the Clinton campaign to either the Steele Dossier or other reports given to the FBI ultimately crashed and burned ending in an acquittal for Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussman. Hunter Biden never worked for the U.S. Government, so how exactly could he have compromised the nation in any way?
All of this overheated rhetoric has of course generated the entirely predictable reaction. Violence.
Here you have Rep. Elise Stefanik attempting in rapid-fire to attack the FBI with accusation after accusation for their executing a search warrant on Mar-A-Lago, and then Steve Doocy -— Steve Fracking Doocy — immediately points out that it was Trump himself who appointed the current FBI Director.
“Russia, Russia, Russia.… Hillary.… Hunter.… planted evidence… blah blah blah.”
“Christopher Wray?”
We hear all the talking points, but you know what we don't hear? We don’t hear anyone denounce the doxxing and death threats against the Judge who signed the warrant.
Instead, we hear that the judge donated to Barack Obama's campaign, that he represented employees connected to Jeffrey Epstein, and that he also donated to Trump opponent Jeb Bush in 2016.
They ignore that he was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2018. And yet, less than two weeks after we had all the right-wing clamour over people protesting the Supreme Court over their overturning Roe V Wade, we have this.
The judge who signed the search warrant for the FBI to search Mar-a-Lago is facing violent threats from Donald Trump's supporters, Vice News reported on Wednesday.
“Let's find out if he has children... where they go to school, where they live... EVERYTHING,” wrote a person on a message board where the judge's address was posted.
Individuals have posted the judges name, address, phone number and members of his family. The information was then followed by violent threats
“This is the piece of sh*t judge who approved FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago. I see a rope around his neck," wrote a fan who posted on a a pro-Trump message board previously called TheDonald.
“Idgaf [I don’t give a f*ck] anymore. Name? Address? Put that shit all up on here,” someone else responded. Another person replied again with the judge's personal information.
We also don’t hear any acknowledgment that their rhetoric has directly contributed to an attack on the Cinnicinatti Field office of the FBI.
On Thursday, The Daily Beast reported that police have finished the standoff with the suspect behind the shooting at an FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio after he led them on a chase that culminated in hours in a cornfield.
"The gunman, who has not been identified, fled over 40 miles northeast with the Ohio State Patrol giving chase after he failed to breach the federal building around 9 a.m. As he fled, authorities say gunfire was exchanged between officers and the suspect, who took cover in a cornfield for more than five hours," reported Josh Fiallo. "While the standoff is over, authorities have not said whether the gunman was arrested or killed. The announcement to lift all lockdown recommendations came at 4:25 p.m. from Clinton County Emergency Management."
"As cops chased the gunman through the rural community of Wilmington, the county’s emergency management agency told residents within a one-mile radius to stay inside, lock their doors, and 'remain vigilant.' The gunman was described as armed, wearing a gray shirt and body armor," said the report. "Interstate 71 — an important artery that connects Cincinnati to the state’s capital, Columbus — was closed for several hours before being reopened around 2:30 p.m. as local authorities confirmed the gunman was 'contained,' despite not being arrested."
"Ohio State Patrol said that the gunman was surrounded in the cornfield, adding that no officers had been injured," the report continued. "It’s unclear if the suspect had been struck by cops’ return fire during the chase."
The motive for the suspect, who was reportedly armed with an AR-15 style rifle and a nail gun, is not currently known.
Well, we now have a motive. The shooter was a Trump supporter and a fan of Marjorie Taylor Greene who was at the January 6 attack.
The man wearing body armor and armed with an assault-style rifle who allegedly attempted to breach the Cincinnati FBI building may have Jan. 6 ties, according to The New York Times.
"Investigators are looking into whether the man who tried to breach the F.B.I.’s field office in Cincinnati on Thursday had ties to extremist groups, including one that participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the matter," the newspaper reported. "The suspect, identified by the officials as Ricky Shiffer, 42, seems to have appeared in a video posted on Facebook on Jan. 5, 2021, showing him attending a pro-Trump rally at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington the night before the Capitol was stormed."
The newspaper zeroed in on an unverified Twitter account that follows Donald Trump, Jr. and one other account. In a March 7 tweet, the account said, "I was there" in a discussion about Jan. 6.
That same day he responded to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) by apparently attempting to invoke America's Revolutionary War, but got his history wrong as to the year.
"Congresswoman Greene, they got away with fixing elections in plain sight. It's over. The next step is the one we used in 1775," the account wrote.
Later that night the account wrote, "Save ammunition, get in touch with the Proud Boys and learn how they did it in the Revolutionary War, because submitting to tyranny while lawfully protesting was never the American way. LEXINGTON."
To his credit, Rep. Eric Swalwell has called this bullshit out.
"From your perspective, when days like this happen, when you have a would-be terrorist attack the FBI office in Cincinnati after having a conversation with Marjorie Taylor Greene, how does it feel going back to work, how do you feel the next time you go back to Congress that you have colleagues who encourage violent terrorists?" asked anchor Jason Johnson.
"It's sickening where we have arrived, we is to say, somebody's going to get killed," said Swalwell. "Well, people died on January 6th. And today, when it's just most intolerable is in the last 48 hours since the FBI search Donald Trump's home, you can draw directly from what Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lindsey Graham all said, threats against law enforcement, the lies that they told about law enforcement and what these individuals foisted online before he took up arms against the FBI. And it's a little personal for me because I have two brothers who are law enforcement officers.
All law enforcement officers could be targets, argued Swalwell, not just the FBI — they might even go after local city cops on the street.
"We know these guys are not geniuses, they are targeting law enforcement, so they have a lot of people wearing the uniform who are sitting ducks right now," said Swalwell. "Someone is fired up and being told by Kevin McCarthy that these folks are going rogue are these folks are not like they're going to look for FBI agents, they will go after any law enforcement officer they see. So they are at risk. This party, by the way, who has told us for so long that they back the blue and Democrats want to defund the police — when you talk like this, it doesn't sound like you are pro-cop. It sounds like you are pro-coup."
So they lie about Robert Mueller. They lie about Hillary Clinton. They lie about Hunter Biden. They accuse the FBI of committing crimes and they completely ignore that a former White House resident may have been trading in Nuclear Secrets, probably with a foreign nation.
And then armed with these lies, they attack. This was certainly not the first attack of this type. We’ve had dozens of them, from Cesar Sayoc the MAGA Bomber to Steve Carillo the Boogaloo Boi who murdered a Federal Guard in Oakland to the various armed assaults on State Capitols, the plot to kidnap and murder Governor Whitmer to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. They all know damn well what’s going to happen as a result of the lies they spread, and yet — they spread them anyway.
All of that is exactly what it seems like, terrorism.
Friday, Aug 12, 2022 · 11:31:12 AM PDT · Frank Vyan Walton
I'm well aware that the right-wing has often used similar logic against Democrats attempting to connect them with the violence that broke out as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.
First of all, no elected Democrat called for lootings, arson or violence of any kind. Similarly, Republicans may be able to make a similar claim — although when they say that the fabric of nation has been split. When they say this is a “1776” moment, when they say that the U.S. has become “Venezuela”, “Cuba”, “Nazi Germany” and the “Soviet Union under Stalin” I think they’ve entered a fairly extreme level of rhetoric that can only lead to a fairly extreme response.
Secondly, the claim that the FBI is "corrupt” is based on a pack of lies. Did you know that James Comey was a Republican? Andrew McCabe is also a Republican. Peter Strozk is a Republican. Rod Rosenstein is a Republican. Jeff Sessions is a Republican. Bob Barr is a Republican. Robert Mueller is a Republican. Christopher Wray is a Republican.
Every Director of the FBI — going all the way back to Hoover — has been a Republican. How exactly are all these people ‘Anti-Republican?" How does that even work?
The GOP thinks the FBI is biased against them? After it was well documented that the FBI was Trumplandia?
Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.
Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.
“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent.
This atmosphere raises major questions about how Comey and the bureau he is slated to run for the next seven years can work with Clinton should she win the White House.
The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”
The agent called the bureau “Trumplandia”, with some colleagues openly discussing voting for a GOP nominee who has garnered unprecedented condemnation from the party’s national security wing and who has pledged to jail Clinton if elected.
That was where we started from. Rogue and former FBI were strategically leaking information intended to undermine the investigation of Hillary Clinton. If Comey hadn't released his letter announcing that they were re-opening the investigation — just 11 days before the election — in order to examine Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedine’s emails, they would have leaked it through Rudy Giuliani.
And they think these people are Anti-Trump? They politely asked for the data to be returned to the National Archives months ago, and yet, Trump didn’t give back everything. If that was you or me, with illegal code-word classified data in our possession we would have had guns in our face as they took that data back— no question.
Democrats were correct to complain about police and prosecutor malfeasance. They were correct to complain that the local DA in the George Floyd case didn't even try to investigate anything and dropped it. It took State Attorney General Keith Ellison to take the case to court. The local DA in the Armaud Arbery case dropped the ball and protected the perpetrators because the father of the shooter used to work for her. Again, someone else had to take up the issue. The local prosecutor in the Breonna Taylor case didn't even ask his grand jury to consider the issue of her being shot to death during a no-knock search warrant, instead, he asked them instead indict an officer on reckless endangerment charges for shooting through her neighbor's all, then he lost that case. Now the case has gone Federal and it's being prosecuted now that they know that the officers falsified their reports and conspired to cover their tracks.
These were legitimate complaints. The protests that resulted were also legitimate. No one wants to endorse violence, but at the same time, no one should turn a blind eye to violence either.
It's fair to say that Republicans haven’t, for the most part, directly endorsed the attacks on the Judge or the attack on the Cincinnati FBI office - but then again, they haven’t denounced either set of attacks either.
To this very day, the GOP continues to endorse, support, rationalize and justify the January 6 attack on the Capitol. To this very day, they call the Capitol Police who have testified about being injured “Crisis Actors," and they call the people who have been specifically held in custody due to their violent actions that day “martyrs" and “political prisoners." They are NOT making a distinction between those who protested peacefully without entering the Capitol ( even though simply entering the block was illegal since the entire block was fenced-in and closed off) they are claiming that even those who carried weapons into the building, and even those who fought and injured police — are “innocent."
They've not only failed to denounce this - they’ve also endorsed and supported it. That’s the difference.
Friday, Aug 12, 2022 · 6:56:58 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Here Majorie Taylor Greene defends the most violent of the Capitol Rioters complaining that they're "being abused”, complains that Trump's request for 10,000 troops was "denied" (It wasn't) and "Who killed Ashlii Babbit?” even though she illegally entered the Speaker's Lounge while members of congress were present and at risk.
Friday, Aug 12, 2022 · 7:10:41 PM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
More GOP Violence incitement:
Since FBI agents descended on the former president's Florida home at the direction of Attorney General Merrick Garland, Republican Party lawmakers have been raising a fuss that has included calls to "defund the FBI" as well as calling for investigations and purging of DOJ officials if the GOP takes control of the House in November.
With that in mind, the Washington Post reports that Larry Cosme issued a statement stating the GOP lawmakers making threats about "coming for you" is far beyond the pale.
While noting a Cincinnati man attacked an FBI field office -- and subsequently died -- Thursday afternoon with the assault directly attributed to the violent rhetoric against the department due to the Mar-a-Lago investigation, Cosme stated, "The rank-and-file officers on the street and agents, they are career employees that … cherish the Constitution like the average American."
He added, "So for them to be attacked by these individuals that believe something else — or they’re believing, you know, someone’s rhetoric that’s uncalled for — to me, it’s shameful and disgusting.”
The Post report adds that Republican National Committee head Ronna Romney McDaniel is also at fault, pointing out that she inflamed conservatives with an op-ed for Fox News insisting, "Trump targeted by Biden administration, and they can do it to you, too.”
The report adds, "The FBI is not the only target of such rhetoric: Republicans this week have also been warning Americans that an army of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents is 'coming' for them, as Democrats seek to boost the tax agency’s funding and ability to pursue tax dodgers. Many in the GOP have zeroed in on the fact that certain special agents carry guns, casting them as a threat or falsely suggesting the IRS is arming tens of thousands of new employees. Treasury Department officials have said the proposed funding is meant to target high-income tax evasion."
Saturday, Aug 13, 2022 · 1:03:58 AM +00:00
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Frank Vyan Walton
Shifting their strategy slightly the House GOP continues attacking the FBI, but they have instead shifted their criticism away from the Rank and File to being largely about the gun attack against the Congressional Baseball Game from 5 years ago — the one time they can find that an attack happened against the GOP.
They criticize the “7th Floor” of the FBI, arguing that they have “become politicized” connecting the investigation of that shooting to Andrew McCabe who was acting FBI Director at the time and saying that they determined that it was “Suicide by Cop” rather than a “Domestic Terrorist Event.”
They don't talk about all the other attacks against Democrats and the Left, including Charlottesville, the assault on the Tree of Life Synagogue or the shooting at the Walmart in El Paso — all of which were inspired by right-wing “Replacement" theory — or the attack this week in Cincinnati. Nope, they don't talk about any of that, they dig back five years to talk about the baseball field and they pledge that if the GOP takes the House they will “vigorously investigate” what happened with Hillary Clinton's investigation, the Russia investigation and the Baseball shooting. Great. Thanks for the warning.
