Since the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, there’s been an increase in violent threats against the agency. An armed man was killed in a standoff with police after trying to breach an FBI office in Cincinnati. A Pennsylvania man faces charges for online threats against the FBI, including, “I am going to [expletive] slaughter you” and “My only goal is to kill more of them before I drop.”
Expect more of that, because Team Trump and the right-wing media are stoking the rage with lie after lie.
RELATED STORY: Cincinnati FBI attacker on Trump's Truth Social following Mar-a-Lago search: 'Be ready for combat'
Campaign Action
Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, went on Newsmax and said of the possibility of Trump facing criminal charges, “That would cause so much mayhem. That would be a monstrous mistake.” In that, she echoed her boss, who, saying the “temperature has to be brought down,” made a series of thinly veiled threats about what it would take to get him to “help” with that.
“There is tremendous anger, like I’ve never seen before, over all of the scams, and this new one—years of scams and witch hunts, and now this,” Trump said, also attacking the legitimacy of the FBI search (which has involved negotiations with his lawyers, a subpoena, and a warrant and search only after he failed to comply) as a “break in” and “sneak attack.”
According to Trump, there’s “tremendous anger in the country—at a level that has never been seen before, other than during very perilous times.” In translation, these are perilous times, and his supporters are righteous in their rage, and the FBI and Justice Department and Biden administration should be very nervous.
Fox News then repeatedly amplified those threats, because of course it did. In fact, Fox News coverage of these events has been so extreme that it’s drawn praise from Infowars.
“But there's also, for me when I see all the other mainstream media covering an event and Fox News nightly covering the Mar-a-Lago raid, with the best coverage I've seen on Fox News like ever, that takes the pressure off,” Infowars’ Owen Shroyer said in a conversation with a caller. “That's like a big pressure reliever that we don't have to show up and score the touchdown on that coverage because others are. I mean, every night on Fox News someone's calling to dismantle the FBI and it's just like, wow, talk about a pressure reliever.”
Case in point, Tucker Carlson is claiming there’s a coordinated Justice Department and FBI effort to take down Trump's associates, listing a series of people who’ve been what he calls “victims” of “the new authoritarians.” In this telling, it’s not that Trump and Rudy Giuliani have associated with a lot of sketchy people doing shady things, it’s that there’s an illegitimate government vendetta against them. In this telling, it was also the CIA, not the FBI, that searched Mar-a-Lago, so ...
CNN summed up the landscape in a newsletter: “Dan Bongino's banner on Fox over the weekend: ‘FIRE EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THE TRUMP RAID.’ Newsmax contributor/former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis on Twitter: ‘Democrats think you're the enemy.’ Charlie Kirk at a Turning Point Action event: ‘The raid at Mar-a-Lago only makes me like Donald Trump even more.’ One of Monday's Gateway Pundit headlines: ‘These People Are Lawless.’ The Federalist's current lead story: The ‘raid’ was ‘to get Donald Trump, not documents.’”
The Republican response to Donald Trump being under investigation for taking classified nuclear information and refusing to give it back has already spurred one violent attack on the FBI, along with many other threats of violence. And they’re not stopping. The message is a constant stream of claims that Trump and by extension his supporters are unfairly under attack, and it’s hitting home with the people who tried to block the peaceful transition of power in early 2021 with a bloody attack on the U.S. Capitol. Their threats aren’t idle.
Abortion rights, climate change, and gun safety are all on the ballot this fall. Click to start writing Postcards to Democratic-leaning voters in targeted House districts today.
RELATED STORIES:
Cincinnati FBI breach suspect is killed in shootout and identified as possible Jan. 6 participant
The complete guide to every excuse Republicans have made for Trump's theft of classified documents
Trump’s fanatical supporters ready to ‘lock and load’ for ‘civil war’ after Mar-a-Lago searched
