From the very first moments after news broke that the FBI had searched former president Donald Trump’s home in Florida, Trump and his allies cast the FBI, the Justice Department and anyone else believed to be involved as acting out of a dishonest, political motivation. Trump had spent years stoking distrust of the FBI in large part to distract from consideration of his own actions, and that effort rapidly bore fruit.
There’s a demonstrated risk to elevating the idea that Trump is the target of nefarious plotting by his opponents, however politically useful that narrative might be. We saw this on Jan. 6, 2021, certainly, when months of dishonest claims by Trump about an effort to block his reelection culminated in a furious mob storming the U.S. Capitol.
And, in the days since news of the FBI search emerged, there have been similar rumblings. Increased threats against Attorney General Merrick Garland. Against the FBI. Targeting the judge who signed the search warrant. More broadly, a flurry of violent discussion among pro-Trump groups online. Jan. 6 occurred because that anger was given a crystallizing time and place, but that doesn’t mean that isolated incidents of violence aren’t possible.
Yet when asked about the toxic climate the FBI is facing during a Fox News interview on Thursday morning, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) chose not to condemn it but to rationalize it.
Scalise was being interviewed by the hosts of “Fox & Friends,” a show that is not known...
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