Matt Gaetz has suggested FBI agents be fired and prosecuted over the Durham Report, which concluded the Bureau should never have launched the investigation into whether Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
Gaetz said the agency should be funded and “defeated”, describing the agents’ actions as “ugly”, after Durham ruled there was not enough evidence to probe Trump in the first place.
Florida lawmakers said John Durham’s recommendation that just one person – a lawyer who lied to the FBI – be charged with wrongdoing was “insufficient”.
“This report is insufficient consequence for the malfeasance and corruption that we have seen here,” Gaetz said.
“It was a start-to-finish operation to merge the DNC’s political opposition research and the Clinton campaign with this intelligence process and this criminal process. “And it’s a sad day in America.
“If this had been a Republican operation – an operation to help a Republican candidate – it wouldn’t have ended in a report: it would have ended in real, meaningful indictments.”
Matt Gaetz said on Monday evening that the release of the long-awaited Durham report showed the need to withdraw funding from the FBI
The Durham Report is an absolutely DAMNING treatise on the weaponization of the FBI against President Trump.
This should be a clear call for legislative reform. We must withdraw funding and rescind the authorization of government entities that deviate from the just cause of defending our nation¿ pic.twitter.com/peaeMcVr6q
— Rep Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) May 16, 2023
The 300-page report, released Monday at the end of a four-year investigation, found the FBI relied too heavily on “raw, unanalyzed and unsubstantiated intelligence.”
Trump seized on the report, accusing the FBI agents involved of a plot to overthrow his presidency. ‘Treason!’ he wrote on Truth Social.
His allies Gaetz and Jim Jordan, a congressman from Ohio who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said the report showed the FBI was dangerously partisan.
Jordan said he invited Durham to testify before his committee next week.
Gaetz told Newsmax Monday night that the FBI has become “the enforcement wing of the Democratic Party to attack Trump.”
He called on the FBI to cut its funding.
“It’s very ugly for our country and it’s very ugly for the future of a democracy where the people make the choices – not law enforcement and intelligence officers,” Gaetz said.
“I think we must rescind the authorization, defang and funding of many of these authorities and entities and different working groups who have in fact converted the just and virtuous act of protecting our country with the desire to win or lose a particular political candidate.”
He also said more people should have been prosecuted as a result of Durham’s investigation.
“The only indictment that Durham is able to cite here is Kevin Clinesmith’s indictment,” Gaetz said.
“It was the FBI attorney who changed the evidence in secret court.
‘And guess what? He has already returned to the practice of law. He got his law degree back and is practicing law here in DC now. Insufficient.’
Matt Gaetz strikes a pose with Donald Trump
Gaetz said the report was a sad indictment of the state of America.
“In a proper world, Republicans and Democrats could work together on this,” he said.
“Because not so long ago the FBI was a right-wing organization, armed against civil rights leaders and others.
“And it was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.”
Gaetz said the report, written by John Durham, the former U.S. attorney from Connecticut who was named special counsel in October 2020, was “a clarion call to every Republican.”
“We cannot continue to fund the FBI at its current level,” he said.
“And I think we should get back the $325 million that Nancy Pelosi had offered for the new FBI headquarters in the DC area.
“It’s a bad thing for people’s civil liberties.
“There should be layoffs, and there should be reform, and it should be bipartisan.”
Jordan told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity Monday night that there was “a double standard” for Republicans and Democrats, and agreed with Gaetz that FBI funding should be cut.
Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the Durham report revealed double standards in how Republicans and Democrats were treated, and called on the FBI to cut its funding.
“If the Tories were involved in something like this, they’d be chasing them all the time – but the other way around you never really see them being held accountable,” he said.
“That’s why we need to look at the power of the stock market.
“We need to look at the credit allocation process.”
The FBI issued a statement apologizing for its mistakes and saying it had since instituted reform.
“The conduct in 2016 and 2017 reviewed by Special Counsel Durham was the reason current FBI management had already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time,” the statement said. agency.
“Had these reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been avoided.
“This report reinforces the importance of ensuring that the FBI continues to do its job with the thoroughness, objectivity, and professionalism that the American people rightly deserve and expect.”
