Republican Party of Texas Chairman Matt Rinaldi sat down with Texas Scorecard last week on The Headline to discuss the unprecedented Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate.
Earlier this month, the FBI executed a search warrant for classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club estate in Palm Beach, Florida. According to the property receipt, FBI agents seized 20 boxes of documents and other items from the former president’s home, including some marked “top secret.” Trump disputed this statement and claimed all recovered documents were declassified.
Rinaldi blamed the Biden administration for allowing the search and condemned the FBI’s intrusive actions, calling the operation something from a “third-world country.”
“We shouldn’t be surprised at the lows to which the Biden administration sinks, but this was a crossing of the Rubicon as it comes to the rule of law in America,” said Rinaldi. “We’re not Cuba. We’re not Venezuela. We don’t jail our former rulers. They could have issued a subpoena if they wanted documents from the president. They didn’t have to raid his home. The FBI is an organization that is completely unhinged, it is a threat to the rule of law in our country, and it needs to be stopped.”
To replace the FBI, Rinaldi suggested a decentralized organization that places more power on U.S. attorneys instead of federal authorities. Currently, the FBI handles all federal crimes not under the jurisdiction of any other national agency.
“The FBI needs to be abolished; it’s a completely irredeemable organization that’s corrupt to the core,” said Rinaldi. “Let the U.S. attorneys … investigate their own prosecutions, or replace it with an investigatory organization that’s accountable on a regional level to an individual U.S. attorney. But this FBI is corrupt; it needs to be completely disbanded. We survived many years at the start of our country before the FBI was formed. We do not need an organization like that right now, especially such a corrupt one.”
In addition to energizing Republicans in the upcoming campaign season, Rinaldi expects the FBI raid to push typically independent voters toward more conservative candidates. He also called on Republican lawmakers to take action following this November’s midterm elections.
“I think Independents were shocked at this and repulsed by it. … I think it’ll energize our base at the midterms and in the next election,” said Rinaldi. “But let me be clear: If we elect a Republican Congress in the midterms, this has to be more than statements. They have to fight, and they have to show results, because we’re sick of Republicans getting into office and just stopping at words.”
To close out his interview, Rinaldi implored Texans to pay attention to upcoming elections, stressing their importance for the country’s future.
“We’ve got to fight because we’re in a war right now—a political war for our country,” said Rinaldi. “Biden made that clear.”
The Headline is available at Texas Scorecard on Fridays at 12:00 p.m.
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