Former FBI agent Peter Strzok claimed former President Donald Trump used his Saturday speech at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference to “instill fear.”
“In my view when Trump says things like ‘I am your retribution,’ he’s not talking about November 2024. He’s talking about right now, March 2023,” Peter Strzok told “Deadline: White House” host Nicolle Wallace. “He is talking to every single Republican leader who might be trying to consider whether or not they’re going to say something about him to, you know, take up arms that Charlie and you suggested that when is somebody going to do something?”
Trump, who announced his 2024 presidential bid Nov. 15, delivered a speech that lasted more than an hour and a half that criticized Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other Republicans over the war in Ukraine and efforts to rein in Social Security and Medicare spending, the Washington Examiner reported.
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Trump won the CPAC straw poll with 62% of the vote, followed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida with 20%.
“In 2016, I declared: I am your voice,” Trump said to CPAC attendees. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.”
“They’re not because Trump is trying to scare them with retribution right now. He is talking to Fani Willis. He is talking to New York prosecutors. He is talking to Jack Smith and all of his investigators right now, instilling fear, riling up his base, encouraging violence,” Strzok continued, referencing investigations into the former President’s business dealings and efforts to dispute the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
The FBI fired Strzok on Aug. 13, 2018, over texts to FBI attorney Lisa Page, with whom Strzok had an affair, in which Strzok disparaged then-presidential candidate Donald Trump while investigating alleged collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
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“In my 23 years in the FBI, I have not seen a more impactful series of missteps which called into question the entire organization and more thoroughly damaged the reputation of the entire organization,” then-FBI Deputy Director David Bowditch wrote in a draft of the termination letter, according to the Washington Examiner.
A CNN reporter fretted Monday about former President Donald Trump’s fiery declaration that his 2024 campaign was “retribution” during a Saturday speech at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
“The fact that Donald Trump ran away with the poll. The fact that he’s leading with that message of retribution — we need to keep our eye on that ball,” CNN reporter John Avlon said to “CNN This Morning” co-hosts Kaitlan Collins and Don Lemon.
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Trump won the CPAC straw poll with 62% of the vote, followed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida with 20%. Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he was offered a second-place finish in the CPAC straw poll if he paid a consultant “a few hundred thousand dollars.”
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