'Just the beginning': Ex-FBI official warns more assassins could be inspired by Trump
Former President Donald Trump's conspiracy theories and attacks on public officials involved in investigating and prosecuting him are escalating the risk for terrorist violence, warned former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi on MSNBC Wednesday.
This comes after FBI agents shot and killed a Utah man who made detailed, specific social media threats about assassinating President Joe Biden with a sniper rifle as the president was headed to an event in Salt Lake City — an incident that, Figliuzzi fears, could become only more common.
"I just want to get your thoughts," said anchor Alex Wagner. "Let's first talk about ... the mention of Soros in there. You hear that a lot. You hear that a lot in right-wing conspiracy circles. I mean, to state the obvious, but can you talk to me about the linkage between what is happening there, how that is feeding the most violent corners of the universe, and folks like apparently this alleged would-be assassin."
"Sure," said Figliuzzi, a former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI. "If you think you've seen this before, it's because you have. It is a common theme, this concept that somebody is controlling the globe, controlling elections, and politics. And it's all bad. They're vile, they're subhuman. And it's also something called stochastic terrorism, which is the concept that some leader figures are putting out people as less than human, dehumanizing them, they're evil, and therefore it becomes easier for people to respond to that ideology and act out violently."
"We certainly saw it in large numbers of people, a thousand arrested already, on January 6th," Figliuzzi continued. "We saw people willing to die, including Ashli Babbitt, who consumed these Trump conspiracy theories, wrapped up in a Trump campaign flag as she's breaching security at the Capitol. We saw it in Cincinnati where a man breached security, or tried to, at the FBI's Cincinnati field office. Ended up dying in the cornfield after hours of standoff."
"I'm afraid this is not in any way the end of this, but rather just the beginning, as we continue to see Trump and his cohorts, making vile accusations against people that are now prosecuting Trump, whether they are prosecutors or judges," added Figliuzzi. "So there is more of this coming. And law enforcement's challenge, of course, is to get out in front of this before the really bad thing happens."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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