Since the weekend, a number of officials and media personalities, including Fox News hosts, have called on former President Donald Trump to call for an “end to the violent rhetoric” expressed against the FBI. (RELATED: Gunman Killed After Trying to Enter FBI Building)
On Monday morning’s episode of “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy said Trump, “a great supporter of law enforcement” should help tamp down on the rhetoric “against the FBI because the FBI was simply doing what the DOJ asked them to do.”
Co-hosts Brian Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt called out the FBI, echoing the widely held belief about the Bureau’s current political biases, but they also condemned any violence and threats of violence with Earhardt saying “no one is for the violence of FBI agents.”
Doocy in turn recommended that people frustrated by alleged hypocrisy between the treatment of Republicans and Democrats by federal law enforcement recognize that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was the man behind the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. (RELATED: Judge Unseals Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant – Trump Under Criminal Investigation)
Hours after the “Fox & Friends” trio issued a call for cooler heads to prevail, former President Trump told Fox News’ Brooke Singman he “will do whatever” he can to “help the country” and bring the temperature down or “terrible things are going to happen.”
The Daily Wire reports:
“People are so angry at what is taking place,” Trump told Fox News Digital. “Whatever we can do to help—because the temperature has to be brought down in the country. If it isn’t, terrible things are going to happen.”
Trump referenced the “years of fake witch hunts and phony Russia, Russia, Russia schemes and scams,” emphasizing that “nothing happens to those people who perpetuate that—nothing happens with them.”
He added: “And then they break into a president’s house—a sneak attack where it was totally—no one ever thought a thing like this would happen.”
Trump also said he told the DOJ he would do whatever he could to help. It is not immediately clear what kind of help Trump offered the DOJ, and the former president’s team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Before the DOJ’s warrant was unsealed, Trump used an intermediary to deliver a similar message to Attorney General Garland, saying according to a person with firsthand knowledge that “The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?”
According to Business Insider, it’s unclear if the message ever reached Garland.
The attempt to deliver the message preceded Garland’s Thursday press conference where he announced DOJ’s decision to unseal the search warrant. Trump had previously demanded the search warrant be released, even though he had a copy of it and the ability to do so himself.
Around the same time as Garland’s speech, but hours before DOJ unsealed the records, Breitbart published a leaked version of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant — including the names of the FBI agents who signed their names on the property receipts.
The version released by DOJ had all of the same information but redacted the agents’ names. The FBI is currently grappling with an “unprecedented” number of threats made against its agents.
The identity of the leaker to Breitbart, a media outlet long managed by Steve Bannon, remains unknown. Breitbart was roundly criticized for its decision to doxx the agents.
Hours later, Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, sent a push alert to its members with the article that included the unredacted search warrant.
A day later, police killed a man armed with an AR-15 and a nail gun who attempted to breach an FBI office in Cincinnati shortly after posting “Kill [the FBI] on sight” on Truth Social.
The post has since been removed by moderators.
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