GOP's FBI talk on Texas sparks firestorm with Democrats
Claims by Texas Republicans that the FBI is getting involved in efforts to track down and possibly detain Democratic state lawmakers who fled Texas to stop a partisan redistricting effort is getting strong pushback from Democrats in Congress.
Democratic lawmakers are investigating how involved the FBI is in the Texas redistricting battle, but lawmakers who have weighed in on the matter say that FBI intervention would be an egregious politicization of the nation’s top law enforcement agency.
Claims that FBI Director Kash Patel is helping to track down state-level Texas Democrats come after Senate Democrats received information that the Justice Department ordered 1,000 FBI personnel to come through 100,000 Jeffrey Epstein-related documents in March to flag mentions of President Trump.
Democrats say that if Patel is taking sides in the Texas redistricting fight, it would be a misuse and politicization of the FBI — something they warned about during Patel’s Senate confirmation proceedings earlier this year.
“Shouldn’t the FBI be tracking down terrorists, drug traffickers and child predators? The Trump administration continues to weaponize law enforcement to target political adversaries,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) said in a statement on social media.
Responding to a claim by Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) that the FB I will help find Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled the Lone Star State, Jeffries said: “These extremists don’t give a damn about public safety.”
“We will not be intimidated,” he declared.
Jeffries said in a Thursday interview with ABC News Live that the FBI lacks the legal authority to intervene in a state-level political dispute.
“There would be no authority for the FBI to target Democrats from the Texas legislature in connection with an act that Democrats have taken........
© The Hill
