In announcing a FY 2024 budget proposal that would shrink the Department of Justice’s budget by 3%, the FBI’s by 6% and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ by 7%, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La, revealed last week his party’s intention to render ineffective certain institutions crucial to the rule of law, the Constitution and democracy. You could almost hear former President Donald Trump’s puppet master’s voice speaking through Johnson on March 6 as the speaker proposed budgetary cuts for the agencies Trump and his minions have vilified. This isn’t about fiscal responsibility. It’s about revenge and suppression.
You could almost hear former President Donald Trump’s puppet master’s voice speaking through Johnson.
The Justice Department is overseeing prosecutions of the violent extremists charged with breaching the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, brutally assaulting police officers, threatening threatening to kill then-Vice President Mike Pence and then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and to stop the certification of a valid election. Those prosecutions — and now, convictions — further expose the GOP’s incessant lies about a “rigged” election. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who leads the DOJ, appointed special counsel Jack Smith to oversee DOJ’s prosecutions of Trump in Washington, D.C., and Florida. It’s no wonder, then, that Trump’s henchmen in Congress want to incapacitate the institution they think stands between them and absolute power.
The FBI continues to gather evidence against the Jan. 6 defendants, the thugs Trump refers to as patriots and hostages. The FBI worked the cases that convicted top leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers for seditious conspiracy. The bureau also amassed volumes of evidence that led to the 91 federal charges against Trump.
If you think a 6% chunk of the FBI’s budget isn’t much, think again. It’s a $32 million hit. In a statement, the agency noted that…
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