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“Fact-checks” and spin were nowhere to be found after Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt confronted NBC News’ Kristen Welker with examples of government weaponization.
“Everybody’s seen this…”
(Video Credit: NBC News)
The continued focus on President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominations provided ample opportunity for Missouri’s former attorney general to hammer home why it was Americans were clamoring for “accountability.”
During his Sunday appearance on “Meet the Press,” Schmitt deflected Welker’s repeated premises that centered around allegations and partisan negativity toward Trump’s selections, and instead drove home positives, particularly as it pertained to the GOP leader’s second top cop nominee, Florida’s former Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Juxtaposing past remarks from the nominee who vowed “prosecutors will be prosecuted” with the senator’s own assertion that the DOJ needed to get “back to fighting crime and not settling political scores,” the host asked, “How do you square those two different views?”
Including Bondi, Schmitt asserted, “Everybody’s seen this weaponization of the Justice Department over the last four years. It really is a tragedy for a once-respected agency that has gone after Catholics; it’s gone after parents who showed up to school board meetings under the auspices of the Patriot Act — this is in the United States of America; and then clearly weaponized that department, [President] Joe Biden did, and [Attorney General] Merrick Garland, to go after their chief political opponent. And I’ll tell you, Kristen, the arc of that story’s really terrifying if you care about the republic.”
“After the midterms, Joe Biden said that there was no way President Trump would ever be back in the White House,” the lawmaker continued. “After that speech, these zombie cases were resurrected. The number three person [Matthew Colangelo] from DOJ went to New York, and you had the Alvin Bragg case. The number two prosecutor in Atlanta [Nathan Wade] went to the White House and coordinated.”
“You saw all these cases resurrected. They all fell apart under the weight of the law,” noted Schmitt. “And so, I do think there needs to be accountability. I think that getting it back to crime-fighting is important, but there has to be accountability for these kinds of abuses.”
Known for her efforts to get the last word on a subject, Welker instead moved on without addressing any of the claims made and asked what accountability would look like during Trump’s second administration.
“I think accountability means, first and foremost, the people involved in this should be fired immediately. Anybody part of this effort to keep President Trump off the ballot and to throw him in jail for the rest of his life because they didn’t like his politics and to continue to cast him as a ‘threat to democracy’ was wrong. And so, we’ll see where that goes,” he added before the host turned to allegations against Pete Hegseth.
Advancing his point on social media, Schmitt shared the report that Special Counsel Jack Smith had requested to drop charges against Trump in the Jan. 6 case, leading the senator to comment, “Further confirmation that this case and others were simply attempts to jail their political opponent @realDonaldTrump and interfere with a Presidential election.”
Further confirmation that this case and others were simply attempts to jail their political opponent @realDonaldTrump and interfere with a Presidential election. https://t.co/SFBN9h4mgf
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) November 25, 2024
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