Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday he would axe FBI Director Christopher Wray and impose “real accountability” at the Justice Department following a series of scandals that have plagued federal law enforcement and the intelligence community.
“I would not keep Chris Wray as the director of the FBI, there would be a new one on day one, I think that’s very important,” DeSantis told Fox News host Trey Goudy. “In terms of an attorney general, you need someone that’s got a very strong backbone. You need somebody that knows that if you are going in there and you are taking care of business, The Washington Post is not going to like you, The New York Times is not going to like you, you are going to get attacked by CNN and you have to wear that as a badge of honor.”
DeSantis announced his candidacy Wednesday night alongside Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
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“You can’t try to please polite society, because, otherwise, you will just get captured by the institution itself. And I think the DOJ and FBI have lost their way. I think that they have been weaponized against Americans who think like me and you,” said DeSantis.
On Monday, Rep. Matt Gaetz reiterated that Congress must cut funding for the FBI if there will be any serious attempt to get the nation’s leading law enforcement agency back to its main purpose: protecting, instead of persecuting, the American people.
“The exact same people and task forces that have been weaponized against our fellow Americans were the ones set up to go after terrorists in the caves of Central Asia,” said Gaetz.
Now, instead, they hunt down pro-life Catholics and parents protesting local school board meetings, he added.
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“Those people are less focused now on the terrorism threat because [FBI Director] Christopher Wray wants you to believe that every neighbor with a MAGA flag, or even an American flag if it’s the Betsy Ross flag, that they’re all terrorists and dangerous,” said Gaetz.
“I have a far higher view of our fellow Americans. I think the American people are, for the most part, loving, kind, patriotic. It’s our government that is trying to sow this discord.”
The FBI has frequently been accused of becoming politicized in cases involving pro-life advocates and parents protesting at school board meetings, and was involved in censorship of social media, according to documents released in the Twitter Files.
“If the FBI or DOJ, whatever collude with a tech company to try to censor information, everybody involved in that would be fired immediately if I were the president,” DeSantis said. “And right now, I think those agencies have been able to go without any real accountability and so guess what, when there is no accountability, the bad behavior is going to continue.”
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