'Radical MAGA Republicans' call for major DOJ and FBI cuts if Trump faces federal indictment: report

The number of Republicans challenging former President Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary grew in early June when former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum formally entered the race. But polls continue to show Trump as the clear frontrunner.

Supporters of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis see him as the GOP's best chance to move on from Trump in 2024, but a Morning Consult poll released on June 6 showed Ron DeSantis trailing Trump by 34 percent in the primary.

Trump's legal problems are not hurting him among Republican primary voters. If anything, they are inspiring Republicans to rally around the former president.

In addition to a 34-count criminal prosecution from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr., Trump is facing two federal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith and a probe by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis.

With one or two federal indictments looking like a strong possibility, some GOP lawmakers are calling for Congress to defund the DOJ and the FBI — including Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), a Trump ally who supported his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Hawley told The Hill, "Maybe we need to break them up. I do want law enforcement available to do law enforcement tasks. My concern with the FBI is they don't seem very concerned about law enforcement; they seem focused on these political witch hunts…. I think Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee, I really do."

The far-right Missouri Republican also called for Congress to "zero out" U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland's salary.

In an article published on June 8, The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) is calling Republicans out for wanting to slash DOJ/FBI funding.

Durbin told The Hill, "Honest to God, they run a campaign against Democrats saying we want to defund the police, and then they turn around and want to defund the FBI and Department of Justice. It just shows how radical the MAGA Republicans can be."