Trump's focus on retribution distracts from the nation's real domestic enemies
It is no secret why President Trump forced out FBI Director Christopher Wray, his first-term pick to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer: Soon after the Jan. 6 insurrection, Wray told Congress that the Capitol siege was an act of “domestic terrorism.” And for the next four years, he oversaw the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history to bring the perpetrators to justice — including their instigator and cheerleader, Trump.
Even before Jan. 6, Wray repeatedly warned Congress that the problem of “domestic violent extremists” — DVEs, in bureau parlance — rivals or exceeds that of international terrorism. The threat “has been metastasizing across the country,” Wray testified in 2021, and “it’s not going away anytime soon.”
Trump, by his Day 1 blanket clemency for the Jan. 6 “DVEs,” has helped make sure of that. We’re all less safe as a consequence.
The president will have an ally in excusing right-wing extremism if the Republican-run Senate confirms the president’s choice to succeed Wray: provocateur Kash Patel, spreader of anti-FBI conspiracy theories and apologist for the Jan. 6 rioters. Patel’s confirmation hearing is set for Thursday.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-01-27/fbi-kash-patel-national-security-jan-6-pardons
It seems to me that the vast majority of reported DVEs favor Republicans. Curious.
= new reply since forum marked as read
