Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard says it’s incumbent upon President Biden to reject calls for “KGB-style” tactics in the U.S. if the nation is to avoid a dark future.
The Hawaii Democrat told followers on social media that Americans will be in “great peril” if Mr. Biden doesn’t stand up to former CIA head John O. Brennan, Big Tech insiders, and others who make a moral equivalence between the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol rioters and organized terror groups overseas.
“The mob who stormed the Capitol to try to stop Congress from carrying out its constitutional responsibilities were behaving like domestic enemies of our country,” Ms. Gabbard said Tuesday. “But let us be clear, the John Brennans, Adam Schiffs and the oligarchs in Big Tech who are trying to undermine our constitutionally-protected rights and turn our country into a police state with KGB-style ’surveillance’ are also domestic enemies — and much more powerful, and therefore dangerous, than the mob which stormed the Capitol.”
Ms. Gabbard’s video then cut to a recent appearance of Mr. Brennan on MSNBC in which he likened pro-Trump supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 to “insurgency movements that we’ve seen overseas.”
“I know looking forward that the members of the Biden team who have been nominated or have been appointed are now moving in laser-like fashion to try and uncover as much as they can about what looks very similar to insurgency movements that we’ve seen overseas where they germinate in different parts of the country,” he said. “They gain strength and it brings together an unholy alliance, frequently, of religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians.”
The mob who stormed the capitol to try to stop Congress from carrying out its constitutional responsibilities were behaving like domestic enemies of our country. But let us be clear, the John Brennan’s, Adam Schiffs and the oligarchs in Big Tech who are… pic.twitter.com/Q3VssCiz5l
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) January 26, 2021
The ex-CIA director’s comments come against a political backdrop in which Rep. Eric Swalwell also likened Mr. Trump to the man who orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
“Well, Osama bin Laden did not enter U.S. soil on September 11, but it was widely acknowledged that he was responsible for inspiring the attack on our country and the president, with his words [Jan. 6 at the Capitol], using the word ’fight,’ with the speakers that he assembled that day who called [for] trial by combat … that is hate speech that inspired and radicalized people to storm the Capitol,” Mr. Swalwell, California Democrat, told “PBS NewsHour” on Jan. 13.
Ms. Gabbard, however, has rejected such rhetoric.
“President Biden, I call upon you and all of Congress from both parties to denounce efforts by Brennan and others to take away our civil liberties endowed to us by our Creator and guaranteed in our Constitution,” she said. “If you don’t stand up to them now, then our country will be in great peril.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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