On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” Representative Jim Himes (D-CT) reacted to the firing of FBI agent Peter Strzok by stating that President Trump is “engineering a fear campaign within the FBI” against anyone who will stand up to him or might testify against him.
Host Rachel Maddow said Strzok’s lawyer “is suggesting that the reason he was removed was not because of FBI procedure, but because of politics.”
Himes responded, “Yeah, no question about it, Rachel. I mean, look at the fact pattern here. The internal disciplinary unit at the FBI recommended that Peter Strzok be demoted and suspended for 60 days. That was set aside to fire the man. Remember back to the firing of Andrew McCabe, who, the night before he was to qualify for his first pension, is fired. Remember that the president admitted that he fired Jim Comey because of the Russia pressure, as he put it. It is very clear that this president is engineering a fear campaign within the FBI, saying, anybody who is going to stand up against me, anybody who might testify against me, their career will suffer. … I don’t know if this is Director Wray who is coordinating this or the attorney general, and it’s even possible to imagine that they’re trying to appease the president in order to keep him from firing Bob Mueller, or in order to keep him from firing the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. But whatever is happening, it is pretty clear that this is a performance that has an audience of one, and that one individual sits in the Oval Office.”
Himes later added that Strzok deserved some form of punishment, and disagreed with Comey’s decision to discuss the Clinton investigation during the election.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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