Rep. Liz Cheney on Thursday afternoon issued a strong statement against her fellow Republicans, and in defense of federal police, regarding the Monday FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
“I have been ashamed to hear members of my party attacking the integrity of the FBI agents involved with the recent Mar-a-Lago search,” Cheney wrote in a public post to Twitter on Thursday. “These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk.”
The FBI said it was searching for classified documents Trump kept after leaving office.
Cheney wasn’t addressing one individual or particular statement, according to a Thursday text to Cowboy State Daily from her spokesman Jeremy Adler. Rather, she was disputing “the overwhelming attacks and efforts by Republican members (of Congress) to question the motives of law enforcement,” Adler said.
The response among top Wyoming Republican leaders has been one of concern and inquiry.
U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming’s senior Republican senator, on Monday said “Raiding a former president’s home is unprecedented. The Justice Department needs to quickly and transparently tell the American people who approved this raid and why it occurred.”
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon issued a similar statement to Barrasso’s.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis displayed a portion of the Bill of Rights following the event.
She posted an image depicting the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” She also re-tweeted multiple prominent Republicans’ posts linking the FBI raid to concerns over the 87,000 agents the IRS is about to add under the Inflation Reduction Act.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland broke his own silence Thursday.
“Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy,” said the nation’s top government attorney. “Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly without fear or favor.”
“Under my watch, that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing,” he added.
The search was reportedly conducted following a warrant by federal magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhardt. The warrant remains sealed, that is, private. But within minutes of Garland’s speech, the Department of Justice entered a motion asking the court to unseal it.
Garland said that copies of both the warrant and the FBI property receipt “were provided on the day of the search to the former president’s counsel, who was on site during the search.”
