OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former Vice President Mike Pence appears to have come down on the side of the FBI following the raid in early August at the home of former President Donald Trump in Palm Beach.
In a speech to a group, Pence claimed that calls from some conservatives to defund the FBI are “just as wrong as calls to defund the police,” adding that he and his “fellow Republicans…can hold the Attorney General [Merrick Garland] accountable for the decision that he made without attacking rank and file law enforcement personnel at the FBI.”
“This unprecedented action does demand unprecedented transparency,” he added, according to a video clip of the event, which was held at Saint Anselm College.
“The Republican Party is the party of law and order,” Pence said. “Our party stands with the men and women who serve on the thin blue line at the federal and state and local level, and these attacks on the FBI must stop. Calls to defund the FBI are just as wrong as calls to defund the police. The truth of the matter is, we need to get to the bottom of what happened. We need to let the facts play out.
“But more than anything else, the American people need to be reassured in the integrity of our justice system, and the very appearance of a recurrence of politics playing a role in the decisions at the Justice Department demands transparency as never before, and I will continue to call on the Attorney General and the Justice Department to make that information available to the American people and do so now,” the former VP added.
Pence’s comments come as polling indicates Americans are on the side of Trump and not Biden’s Justice Department.
After admitting to signing off on the FBI’s raid, Attorney General Merrick Garland is in a bit of hot water.
During a press conference last month, Garland said he “personally approved” the matter against the former president. The FBI’s raid was allegedly tied to boxes of classified information that Trump had supposedly taken to his Florida estate.
In the wake of the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, a recent Politico poll found that Trump increased his popularity and enjoyed a 10-point bump in the poll as 57% of respondents said they’d support Trump if ran in 2024, up 4% from only a month ago.
These results follow a Rasmussen poll that suggests Garland is fairing relatively poorly following the raids. Interestingly, Garland’s “favorable” and “unfavorable” numbers increased, month-over-month.
While 36% of respondents said they viewed Garland favorably, up 6% from last month, 42% of respondents said they viewed him unfavorably, an increase of 3% from a month ago.
This means the raid, approved by Garland, played well with liberals and was not supported by conservatives, which is another indication that the move further divided the country.
According to a Harvard-CAPS Harris Poll, 51%, of voters believe the FBI raid was a politically motivated use of police force.
Respondents were asked if they believed the Justice Department was “really seeking just classified documents and presidential records, or was it using the warrant to carry out a fishing expedition.”
Forty-eight percent believe the operation was above board, while 52% believe the FBI was trying to find other materials to use against Trump.
A whopping 60% of respondents said they think the DOJ should have resolved matters in court as opposed to seizing documents using a warrant.
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul slammed the raid and called for an investigation into Garland.
“Without question, I think the order to allow the raid on Mar-a-Lago on Trump’s house has to be revealed,” Paul said. “It’s going to have to wait until November till there’s a full investigation.”
“And I’ve never been a fan of overusing impeachment, but I think there has to be an investigation. And if it warrants it, there’s going to have to be a look at whether or not the attorney general has misused his office for political purposes. Have they gone after a political opponent? I mean, this is beyond the pale.”
“No one would have ever imagined before that we would be using or one political party would be using the FBI to attack their political opponents,” Paul said. “This is really something that’s going to require an investigation. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the investigation leads to abuse of power that this could even lead to an impeachment of the attorney general.”
