Saturday on Fox News Channel’s “Justice,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) suggested an investigation was needed to look into groups potentially fomenting violence in cities around the country, one of which was Black Lives Matter.
Paul raised the possibility to Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro of corporations giving money to “show the public that they’re not racist” and said some of that money might be going to Black Lives Matter and used for individuals to create “havoc” in cities.
Transcript as follows:
PIRRO: Senator, thanks for being with us. I understand that at least one person has been rested from the angry mob who attacked you and your lovely wife, Kelley. Do you have any confidence that there will be consequences for the people who are being arrested in these mobs?
PAUL: I think it’s the only way we can stop this as people who break the law have to be arrested. There has to be a punishment.
Unfortunately, the man that tried to get to us, who tried to knock the policeman down to get to us was arrested for punching the policeman and causing a cut that required stitches around the policeman’s eye.
But then he was released on his own recognizance, which means, I assume no bail and he’s just gone. In fact, I sort of sarcastically said on Twitter today, if you’re looking for him, you might try Kenosha.
But this is not funny. I mean, these protesters, we now have pictures of protesters who have been in Portland, Kenosha, Louisville, and D.C. The question is, who is financing this and who is flying them around?
It really is a federal crime to incite riot and to fly people around to instigate violence. And I think that’s what’s happening. And yes, we’ve got to get to the bottom of this one person at a time, and once we have suspicion or probable cause, we need to ask a judge for a warrant and they need to look at their financial records and see — for this.
PIRRO: Right. OK. But do you have an idea of who might be financing this?
PAUL: No and — but we do need to get to the bottom of this because there’s one or two possibilities, it could be nefarious rich individuals who want to foment violence in our cities, or it could be less sinister but still equally as bad.
Black Lives Matter is out there collecting corporation money from corporations who want to show the public that they’re not racist. But these corporations need to know if that money is going to Black Lives Matter and if Black Lives Matter is giving it to hooligans to cause and create havoc in cities.
Someone has to trace the money. I don’t know the answer yet. But I certainly think we need to know.
PIRRO: I believe Attorney General Bill Barr is doing that as we speak. But you know, what is happening in the Criminal Justice System is so different now.
I mean, the idea of the so-called bail reform, which means literally no bail, but now we’ve got prosecutors including a prosecutor from Contra Costa County in California who says that her prosecutors should consider whether looters who have been arrested for stealing — before charging them, they should consider the looters needs.
In other words, if the looter is poor and needed something that maybe they shouldn’t prosecute and in Manhattan, the DA, Cy Vance is telling his assistant DAs, you know, make sure that there isn’t police brutality and if you need to, get the arrestees, the looters to testify against the police.
I mean, how are we going to change this Criminal Justice System? Will it ever change?
PAUL: NPR had a woman on there talking about why looting was justified. Would that not violate Twitter’s policy basically? That you’re not supposed to be inciting violence. Is looting not violence?
You had a member of the Black Lives Matter from Chicago after all the storefronts were broken, running around saying, this is reparations, baby. And so really?
In a civilized world, we have people making an argument for looting. So this is a question I have for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. How come they won’t condemn these people who attacked my wife and I and the two other women that were with us? They can’t attack it.
All they do is they get on TV, they say, oh, yes, there’s violence. We don’t like violence, but it’s all Donald Trump’s fault.
Well, the cities that the violence is occurring in have been run by Democrats for 50 years. Law and order is largely the province of mayors and governors, not the federal Congress or Presidents.
And so really, the failure is coming from the cities and they need to own up to it because frankly, I think a lot of people are not going to be happy living in a country that looks like poor island.
PIRRO: And I think, Senator, what we’re seeing now is more and more people, more and more prosecutors being elected and having their elections funded by these left-wing organizations.
Senator Rand Paul, thanks so much for being with us this evening.
PAUL: Thank you.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor