Trump supporters have gone to war with law enforcement — and ex-FBI analyst warns it's growing worse
After Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago golf club, where he lives, got a visit from the FBI this week looking for a set of classified documents that they thought the former president stole from the White House, his followers have waged war.
The day after the execution of a search warrant, Trump supporters were cataloged online, making threats against the judge who signed the search warrant. They revealed all of his personal information, called for information about his children, began attacking his place of worship and called for his death. That trend has continued as Trump supporters are now going after law enforcement.
Those who once chanted to "back the blue" are now demanding to defund federal law enforcement, doxing FBI agents, finding their children on social media sites. On Thursday, a Trump supporter who appeared at the Capitol on Jan. 6 went after the FBI headquarters in Cincinnati with an AR-15 and a nail gun which he thought would be able to shoot through bulletproof glass. Republican leaders have spent the past several days calling them "dangerous."
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) wrote on Twitter, “The FBI has proven time and again that it is corrupt to the core. At what point do we abolish the Bureau and start over?”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted “DEFUND THE FBI!” and is now selling t-shirts saying as much.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) agreed with the defunding language.
“The antidote has to be not one more damn penny for this administrative state that has been weaponized against our people in a very fascist way,” said Gaetz.
Friday the FBI and Department of Homeland Security released a bulletin that warned of Trump supporters seeking to bomb FBI headquarters around the country. They also explained that since the search warrant, there had been a dramatic increase in threats against the FBI.
“The FBI and DHS have observed an increase in threats to federal law enforcement and to a lesser extent other law enforcement and government officials following the FBI’s recent execution of a search warrant in Palm Beach, Florida," the bulletin said.
NBC News reported that the bulletin also says that the threats are happening online and they sent the note out after an abundance of caution
"It calls on authorities to be vigilant and to be aware of issues surrounding domestic violent extremists, past and present incidents, and past behaviors," said the piece.
Speaking to CNN, former FBI senior counter-intelligence analyst Phil Mudd revealed that he hasn't worked for the bureau for over a decade, but even he is being sent threats.
"I think there's a couple of things you need to think about," said Mudd. "The first would be threats to American citizens who happen to be FBI employees. If you look at what happened in Cincinnati and you've seen reports today, of armed individuals outside the office in Phoenix, this is a numbers game, Jim. If politicians start to encourage people to commit acts of violence against the FBI, even if you say, defund the FBI, there is a violent fringe that will say, I want to take action. There might be 100th of 1 percent of the fringe who say, that means I should commit an act of violence."
He went on to explain that the FBI offices are largely open and that they work with the public.
"If 0.001 percent of the population says, 'I need to commit an act of violence the FBI employees are under threat," he said.
See the interview below:
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