National security experts have growing concerns about the safety of Americans in the new world of Donald Trump's presidency and what he intends to do to top law enforcement agencies.
Speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, Frank Figliuzzi, who served as the served as assistant director for counterintelligence for the FBI, sounded the alarm at how MAGA views federal law enforcement.
Wallace showed a clip of Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY), who beat Rep. Liz Cheney, citing a false claim that the Justice Department was used to go after religious people and conservatives. Her comments twisted a report about people threatening local officials, from school boards to election workers.
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Figliuzzi said it's impossible to convince the right these things didn't happen.
"Trump and his minions have spent years laying the groundwork for where we are right now. That is, when you try to talk sensibly and civilly with someone in the MAGA movement about this perception of a deep state, you hit the wall almost immediately," he said. "They have totally swallowed the pill with regard to the Russia investigation, the mistreatment of January 6th defendants, and on and on."
He said that Trump is on track to be the only president in history to fire two FBI directors, one of which is his own appointee.
"The cardinal sins for Christopher Wray, I think, are two," Figliuzzi continued. "First, he had the audacity to speak the truth on Capitol Hill and call January 6th what it is: domestic terrorism. And he has refused to bend or break the attorney general guidelines with regard to opening cases simply because a group or a person is an enemy of Donald Trump."
He said many in the FBI are concerned about reducing resources that have been part of an effort to protect against domestic terrorism. Wray testified that the most lethal form of domestic terrorism comes from "the far-right" and "hate-based terror."
"The problem with that is I've yet to see the actual legal predication in a far-left organization," he said. "It's not to say we didn't see violence and riots that we didn't see people that might call themselves Antifa doing violent things. But to the full-blown cases — investigation — I've not seen that on a solid organizational structure."
That means, "You have to fabricate the predication," he warned. "I wouldn't put it past the nominees for AG and [FBI] director to do just that."
See the video below or at the link here.