On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Breitbart News senior contributor and Government Accountability Institute president Peter Schweizer stated that at the same time that there’s a “defund the police movement,” “we see the arming of bureaucrats.”
Schweizer said, “[I]t’s happening with all of these government agencies that you wouldn’t think would need it. And what’s happening here, Sean, is, we see, on the one hand, this sort of defund the police movement, but at the same time, we see the arming of bureaucrats. … So, what you’re seeing is an expanding role for these government agencies as it relates to, not only their ability to use firearms, but they are also being given arrest capabilities. And I think that’s a dangerous trend, especially when you look at an agency like the IRS or the EPA, where all kinds of things can and do go wrong when these confrontations take place.”
He added, “And the other thing that’s happening is, increasingly, these agencies are using force or showing power, that is showing guns to ordinary Americans. There was an incident a few years ago in a town in Alaska, a town called Chicken, [Alaska], there are 17 full-time residents there, there was a dispute about whether somebody was violating the Clean Water Act. The EPA showed up with eight agents with flat jackets, heavily armed. You know, what should be happening in these circumstances, the EPA should be showing up and local law enforcement will be happy to be there with them. Local law enforcement often knows who these people are, they know the situation, and you also, with local law enforcement, you have an independent arbitrator who, if something bad happens, you’ve now got an independent party explaining what happened.”
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