Travis Gettys is a senior editor for Raw Story based in northern Kentucky. He previously worked as a web editor for WLWT-TV and a contributing writer for the Kentucky Enquirer, and he also wrote for the award-winning Sadly, No! blog. He has covered national, state and local politics, breaking news, criminal investigations and trials, sports and a variety of community issues, with a special emphasis on racial justice, right-wing extremism and gun safety.
Fox News host Steve Doocy continued his defense of the FBI against attacks by Republican lawmakers by pushing back against Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Thursday.
The "Fox & Friends" host has consistently defended the work of FBI agents following the execution of a search warrant at Donald Trump's private Mar-A-Lago resort, which Paul suggested was politically motivated and improper.
"This is part of the same people who are still running the FBI," Paul said. "They have a different understanding, maybe, of what they think the FBI can and cannot do and how it should be used on Americans, but I'm going to require proof that there was actually some sort of probable cause of a crime, and I'm suspicious that there was not."
Doocy agreed that Congress had oversight authority on the Department of Justice and its investigators, but he warned Paul that baseless attacks had imperiled the lives of federal employees.
"The problem is, over the last week or so there has been so much violent rhetoric directed at the FBI, and I heard somebody printed that it stands for 'Fascist Bureau of Investigation; or something like that. Unfortunately now the people who work at the FBI headquarters, there are death threats and all sorts of stuff. I heard from a staff member there who was talking to a colleague at the FBI, a colleague realized, 'Oh, look, I'm wearing the wrong shoes today to work,' because if somebody attacks the building and they've got to run, can't run in those heels, so they are caught in the crosshairs."
Paul agreed those threats were inappropriate, but he then justified the anger toward federal investigators and said he had experienced worse.
"I think the death threats are inappropriate and not the way to go about it," Paul said. "There's the political process. The problem is that the people in charge of Congress, the Democrats, have not been interested in or curious in investigating anything. We have a million people who died from Covid, and I haven't had one hearing on the origin. We finally did a couple weeks ago. I insisted on hearing, and the Democrats didn't come to my hearing. The thing is there's been a lack of curiosity on the part of investigation, but there's no excuse for threats to the FBI, and the thing is, look, and they're not the only one getting threats. I've had probably over 50 threats this year. Sometimes I can have a dozen in a week. We have my address posted online, we have people who are wishing me ill will, injury, all the time."