Matt Gaetz suggested that FBI agents should be fired and prosecuted over the Durham Report, which concluded that the Bureau should never have investigated whether Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
Gaetz said the agency needs to be exposed and “defanged,” describing the agents’ actions as “ugly,” after Durham ruled there was not enough evidence to investigate Trump in the first place.
The Florida legislator said John Durham’s recommendation that only one person — a lawyer who lied to the FBI — be charged with wrongdoing was “insufficient.”
“This report is an insufficient follow-up to the crime and corruption we’ve seen here,” Gaetz said.
“It was an operation from start to finish to combine political opposition research from the DNC and the Clinton campaign with this intelligence process and this criminal process. And it’s a sad day in America.
“If that had been a Republican operation — an operation to help a Republican candidate — it wouldn’t have ended in a report: It would have ended with really significant charges.”
Matt Gaetz said Monday night that the release of the much-anticipated Durham report showed the FBI must be disbanded
The Durham Report is an absolutely DAMN treatise on the FBI’s arming against President Trump.
This should be a clarion call for legislative reform. We must disband and revoke government agencies that have turned to the just cause of defending our nation. pic.twitter.com/peaeMcVr6q
— Representative 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 unconfirmed intelligence.”
Trump seized on the report, accusing the FBI agents involved of plotting to overthrow his presidency. “Country Treason!” he wrote on Truth Social.
His allies Gaetz and Jim Jordan, an Ohio congressman who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said the report showed the FBI is dangerously biased.
Jordan said he had invited Durham to testify before his committee next week.
Gaetz told Newsmax Monday night that the FBI had become “the enforcement wing of the Democratic Party to insult 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 need to revoke, defang and defund many of these authorities and entities and various task forces that have turned the just and righteous act of protecting our country into a 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 charge Durham can cite here is the charge against Kevin Clinesmith,” Gaetz said.
“This was the FBI attorney altering evidence for a secret court.
‘Guess what? He is already back in the legal profession. He got his law degree back and is now a lawyer here in DC. Fail.’
Matt Gaetz poses with Donald Trump
Gaetz said the report was a sad indictment of the state of America.
“In a real world, Republicans and Democrats could work together on this,” he said.
Because it wasn’t that long ago that the FBI was a right-wing organization armed against civil rights leaders and others.
“And it was wrong then, and it is wrong now.”
Gaetz said the report, written by John Durham, the former US Attorney for Connecticut who was appointed special counsel in October 2020, was “a clarion call for any Republican.”
“We cannot continue to fund the FBI at the current level,” he said.
“And I think we should reclaim the $325 million that Nancy Pelosi donated for the new FBI headquarters in the DC area.
“That’s a bad thing for people’s civil liberties.
“There should be layoffs, and there should be reforms, and it should be twofold.”
Jordan told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity Monday night that there was “a double standard” for Republicans and Democrats, agreeing with Gaetz that the FBI’s funding should be cut.
Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the Durham report exposed double standards in how Republicans and Democrats were treated, and called on the FBI to cut its funding
“If conservatives were involved in something like that, they’d go after them nonstop — but the other way around, you never see them held accountable,” he said.
‘That is why we have to look at the strength of the stock market.
“We need to look at the credit process.”
The FBI released a statement apologizing for their mistakes and saying they had since made reforms.
“The behavior in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham investigated was the reason that the current FBI leadership has already taken dozens of corrective actions, which have been in effect for some time now,” the agency said.
If those reforms had taken place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been avoided.
“This report emphasizes the importance of ensuring that the FBI continues to do its job with the rigor, objectivity and professionalism that the American people deserve and rightly expect.”