Conservative broadcaster Dana Loesch took off on Mike Pence after the former vice president appeared to justify the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last week, which most Republicans viewed as intensely political.
Speaking to a crowd at a “Politics & Eggs” event in New Hampshire this week, Pence said that calls from some on the right 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.”
“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,” Pence added.
The facts? “Integrity in our justice system”? Is he kidding?
Pence knows ‘the facts’; that this raid was as political as it gets, the FBI and DOJ were politicized while he was in office against his boss; and the situation has only gotten worse under Joe Biden. How is that not obvious to a man who watched Trump be attacked mercilessly for four years and in the 18 months since he left office?
In any event, Pence’s obscene remarks led to a scathing Twitter response from Loesch.
Is Pence describing criticism as an "attack?" Where was this heat when parents were "attacked?" Where was this heat when norms protecting civil rights against politically-motivated surveillance were "attacked?"
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) August 17, 2022
“Excuse me? Buckle up,” she began.
“The agency that tagged school board parents as ‘domestic terrorists?’ That doctored emails, leaked to media, and otherwise weaponized authority for political targeting? ‘The attacks on the FBI must stop?’” she continued. “Pence thinks justifiable criticism is an attack?”
“Is Pence describing criticism as an ‘attack?’” she went on. “Where was this heat when parents were ‘attacked?’ Where was this heat when norms protecting civil rights against politically-motivated surveillance were ‘attacked?’”
She went on to say, correctly, that “law and order” were not factored into the examples she listed, adding that “Americans not only have a RIGHT to vociferously criticize this, we have an OBLIGATION.”
“I am so damn tired of people pretending that legitimate criticism of federal abuse is universal criticism of ‘law and order,’” she stated, noting: “That dog don’t hunt, folks.”
I am so damn tired of people pretending that legitimate criticism of federal abuse is universal criticism of “law and order.” That dog don't hunt, folks.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) August 17, 2022
“Stop conflating federal with local. Spending on federal law enforcement has skyrocketed over this years [sic] compared to state and local. Clearly reduced accountability of federal enforcement is now daily headline fodder,” she continued. “Those who want to abuse power are eager to delegitimize genuine and deserved criticism or attempt for accountability as some cry of the left. If only there was equal heat for the abuse and abusers who got us to this point.
Those who want to abuse power are eager to delegitimize genuine and deserved criticism or attempt for accountability as some cry of the left. If only there was equal heat for the abuse and abusers who got us to this point.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) August 17, 2022
“I thought Pence was a good VP for Trump as his personality was to enact POTUS’s agenda & fulfill his role as VP. Blaming Americans legitimately victimized by unaccountable bureaucracy is neither the smart nor effective way to go about this. You don’t want tea party 3.0” Loesch went on.
“We’re in for a stupidly annoying presidential primary cycle because all of these candidates want to lecture voters over justified outrage at egregious federal abuses as their way to set themselves apart from Trump.”
