Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., announcing his 2024 presidential run on Wednesday, May 24, 2023. (Video screenshot)
By Harold Hutchison
Daily Caller News Foundation
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed Wednesday to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray and to impose “real accountability” at the Justice Department following a series of scandals that have plagued federal law enforcement and the intelligence community.
“I would not keep Chris Wray as the director of the FBI, there would be a new one on day one, I think that’s very important,” DeSantis told Fox News host Trey Goudy. “In terms of an attorney general, you need someone that’s got a very strong backbone. You need somebody that knows that if you are going in there and you are taking care of business, The Washington Post is not going to like you, The New York Times is not going to like you, you are going to get attacked by CNN and you have to wear that as a badge of honor.”
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DeSantis announced his candidacy Wednesday in a glitch-filled Twitter Spaces event, which saw over 600,000 people initially try to listen to the announcement and follow-up questions.
WATCH:
The FBI has frequently been accused of becoming politicized in cases involving pro-life advocates and parents protesting at school board meetings, and was involved in censorship of social media, according to documents released in the Twitter Files.
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“I think the DOJ and FBI have lost their way, I think they have been weaponized against Americans who think like you and me and I think they have become very partisan,” DeSantis said. “Part of the reason that is happening is because Republican presidents have accepted the canard that the DOJ and FBI are ‘independent.’ They are not independent agencies, they are part of the executive branch, they answer to the elected president of the United States.”
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Garrett O’Boyle, Stephen Friend and Marcus Allen testified at a hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Thursday about retaliation they faced after they raised concerns about FBI activities, noting their security clearances had been suspended, resulting in them losing their pay and health benefits.
“If the FBI or DOJ, whatever collude with a tech company to try to censor information, everybody involved in that would be fired immediately if I were the president,” DeSantis said. “And right now, I think those agencies have been able to go without any real accountability and so guess what, when there is no accountability, the bad behavior is going to continue.”
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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