Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Sunday chastised fellow Republicans for attacking the FBI after its seizure of classified material from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Mr. Hogan, who hails from a family of FBI agents, decried as hypocritical and “dangerous” GOP rhetoric against federal law enforcement and calls for the agency to be defunded in the wake of an armed man who tried to breach the Cincinnati FBI field office being fatally shot last week.
“It’s very concerning to me. It’s outrageous rhetoric,” Mr. Hogan said on ABC’s “This Week.” “First, we had the left talking about defunding the police and attacking police officers, and now we have the right saying defund these federal law enforcement officers. It’s absurd. It’s dangerous because we saw the one incident already, but there are threats all over the place.”
Far-right members of Congress, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, have called for the FBI to be defunded the agency in response to its search of the former president’s home.
An unsealed warrant showed that the FBI recovered 11 sets of highly classified materials and is investigating Mr. Trump for potential violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice, and the removal or destruction of records.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who heads Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, has compared the search to the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.
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“Losing faith in our federal law enforcement officers and our justice system is a really serious problem for the county,” Mr. Hogan said Sunday.
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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