The FBI found itself the target of some pretty extreme criticism from Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) over its conduct as it carried out the recent raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
While speaking out during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” this past Sunday, Crenshaw stated that the FBI took some overtly extreme measures to try and pull out classified documents from the Florida estate of former President Donald Trump at the start of this month.
Crenshaw remarked that the raid on the Florida mansion was entirely unwarranted, especially so given that Trump had been going along with federal officials for quite some time. He also outright dismissed the possibility that Trump was holding onto classified documents in relation to nuclear weaponry in the boxes of papers taken out by the FBI.
“I’m not one to withhold criticism and even make my own side mad,” Crenshaw started. “I want to get to the truth. But I will be honest with you here, this– it’s hard to justify what the Department of Justice did here, in my opinion.”
“Here’s what it really boils down to,” he went on. “It’s not a question that it’s bad to have classified material in a non-SCIF [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility] environment. That’s a non-secret compartmentalized infrastructure there. That’s wrong. But there’s ways to mitigate that, there’s ways to resolve that issue. And I still haven’t seen any evidence that Trump was even asked to give these documents back.”
“He’s been cooperating with them on these issues for a while now, for months. And so, why take it to extreme extent? And I think that’s why you’re seeing so much backlash from Republicans. You’re seeing everyone coalesce. It doesn’t matter what side of the issue they’re on with Trump, we’ve seen a lot coalesce around this one because it does seem unjust and there does seem to be a long history of loss of credibility at the Department of Justice at the hands of Democrats. And I think people are rightful rightfully frustrated about that.”
“This is a very unprecedented measure,” exclaimed Crenshaw. “And you know that when you are going after an ex-president who may run again, this is automatically political. You cannot separate the legal aspects of this from the political aspects of it. You can’t. And it doesn’t seem to me they’ve acted responsibly as a result of that.”
Tapper continued to ask Crenshaw, pointing out that one of Trump’s legal team had signed a document claiming to the Department of Justice saying all classified materials had been sent back to the federal archives.
“Lawyers did sign that document that they have nothing left,” Crenshaw answered. “Now, that’s either a huge mistake on the lawyers, but even if it’s nefarious, then why not say ‘Hey we don’t believe you, now let us come back, let’s go through these boxes again’ … Do any of us really believe Donald Trump is reading nuclear secrets at his bedside at night?”
