As the 2024 presidential election approaches, a Newsweek exclusive claims that the FBI is targeting presidential candidate Donald Trump’s followers. As the agency believes that the election may elevate domestic terrorism among MAGA sympathizers.
The report indicates that the Bureau has silently fixated on the former president’s followers by creating a new category of “anti-government” extremism. Although the institution was set to be non-partisan, classified data obtained by Newsweek indicates a majority of the ongoing “anti-government” investigations are of Trump supporters.
An FBI official who requested anonymity claims that the agency is “in an almost impossible position” as the agency is set to deter a second January 6 breach of the Capitol.
The informant adds that the targeting is counterintuitive, as its fixation on Trump’s base may only accelerate the extremism that it is supposedly countering. “Especially at a time when the White House is facing congressional Republican opposition claiming that the Biden administration has ‘weaponized’ the Bureau against the right wing, it has to tread very carefully,” says the official.
–Juan P. Villasmil
On our radar
ABOVE THE LAW The Bergen Record uncovered that Michael Mordaga, former director of Hackensack Police and an ex-chief of detectives in the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, helped Robert Menendez’s future wife flee the scene after a deadly car crash.
HILLARY CALLS FOR ‘DEPROGRAMMING’ MAGA Yesterday, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton called for the “formal deprogramming” of “MAGA extremists” during an interview with CNN. “Something needs to happen,” Clinton said, suggesting that the government must intervene.
Fatal problems for the Problem Solvers?
The long-mocked Problem Solvers Caucus may be heading for a Matt Gaetz-induced break-up.
The evenly divided group of House Democrats and Republicans is at odds over every Democrat siding with Gaetz and just seven other Republicans to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy in favor of… chaos.
For years, electorally vulnerable Republicans and Democrats have used their membership in the group as a shield to say that they’re not like the others in their party, but as everyone struggles to figure out what comes next.
Even normally moderate, by temperament and voting record, Republicans, are spoiling for a fight, and even Democrats such as Josh Gottheimer are being scorched by former House Republican Morning Joe Scarborough for siding with Gaetz.
To no one’s surprise, Leader Hakeem Jeffries is now urging a bipartisan coalition of Democrats and Republicans to come together to… grant the minority party more power. Many wonder where that energy was just a few days ago, when Democrats could have prevented a foe of theirs like Jim Jordan from taking over the chamber.
–Matthew Foldi
Trump plumps for Jordan
To the chagrin of the dozens of regular C-SPAN viewers, Donald Trump is taking himself out of contention to be the next House speaker, instead throwing his support behind Ohio’s Jim Jordan.
There are risks and rewards to Jordan’s Trump endorsement; in order to clinch the gavel, he’ll need to reassure moderate House Republicans that he can both raise oodles of money as Kevin McCarthy did, and that he won’t jeopardize their elections next fall. His main opponent, Steve Scalise, has been racking up support of his own — but Trump’s endorsement has moved a bunch of previous undecideds into Jordan’s column.
Perhaps disappointingly for Trump, the news of his endorsement was blasted to the world by Representative Troy Nehls, who posted on X that the former president is endorsing Jordan for the top House job. Nehls himself had previously nominated Trump for speaker, before switching his support to Trump’s guy.
An aide of a McCarthy ally told Cockburn that the idea of Trump “being speaker himself was a bigger joke than Nancy Mace, and we know he likes to be a kingmaker. There is a ton of early momentum for Jordan, even from moderates.” Going in Jordan’s favor is how Jordan “can keep a handle on the fringe members in a way Scalise can’t, which is why moderates are warming up to him. Not to mention, Scalise making calls before McCarthy was even finished left a bad taste with a lot of us. No one is at 218 yet, but Jordan has impressed.”
While Trump won’t run himself, the speaker’s race is still a spectacle — Fox News is trying to seize on it by hosting a candidate forum next week, which some are already predicting will be canceled. Representative Carlos Gimenez, for example, called it a “horrible idea.”
We’ll see if the cameras roll next week, and if Trump ends up making his much-anticipated return.
– Cockburn
Matthew Foldi: Nancy Mace using software in violation of House rules
Nick Russo : Mocking murdered leftists is not based
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