{"id":1598899,"date":"2022-08-10T10:46:09","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T14:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1598899"},"modified":"2022-08-10T10:46:35","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T14:46:35","slug":"fbis-trump-raid-reinforces-deep-state-g-men-as-the-bad-guys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fbis-trump-raid-reinforces-deep-state-g-men-as-the-bad-guys\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI\u2019s Trump Raid Reinforces Deep-State G-Men As The Bad Guys"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffbis-trump-raid-reinforces-deep-state-g-men-as-the-bad-guys%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1598899&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The FBI\u2019s unprecedented raid of former president Donald Trump\u2019s home has angered Americans much beyond his loyalists. Nonetheless, watch for the bureau to exploit the backlash to target conservative organizations and to find some isolated extremists to entrap Whitmer-style.<\/p>\n<p>The raid at Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago residence on Monday raised the volume of voices on the right who have been criticizing the politicization of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigations for six-plus years. But the overreach seen in the search of the former president\u2019s home proved even too great for some Trump critics and even a few Democrats who joined the choir to condemn the raid. Notwithstanding the broad base of the pushback, however, conservatives should ready themselves for further moves by FBI headquarters to target the right, using outrage over the raid of Trump\u2019s home as an excuse.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>FBI headquarters has made clear its view of conservatives such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, which were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/video\/?522068-1\/fbi-director-wray-testifies-senate-judiciary-committee-oversight-hearing&#038;live\">exposed<\/a> last week when Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. During the three-hour-plus hearing that the FBI director cut short to catch a plane, Cruz marched through the most extreme examples of the FBI\u2019s targeting of conservatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Cruz began by displaying warped training materials used by the FBI that identified several historic, patriotic symbols often used by conservatives as symbols \u201cindicative of militia-violent extremism.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe simple words, things like the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazi Party, would be symbols\u201d of violent extremism, Cruz stressed, but the FBI training materials instead \u201cincluded astonishingly patriotic symbols of our nation and our history,\u201d such as \u201cthe Betsy Ross flag,\u201d even though Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden took their oath of office directly beneath the Betsy Ross flag.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Also included on the list of \u201csymbols of militia-violent extremism,\u201d Cruz continued, was the Gadsden flag, even though Virginia and several other states offer license plates displaying the bright yellow \u201cDon\u2019t Tread on Me\u201d image. The Gonzales \u201cCome and Take It\u201d flag likewise made an appearance on the FBI\u2019s list as indicative of a violent extremist militia, prompting the Texas senator to self-report since the Gonzales flag embosses the back of his boots.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wray claimed unfamiliarity with the training material but noted that the FBI attempts to caveat such \u201cintelligence products\u201d with a warning \u201cthat a symbol alone is not considered evidence of violent extremism.\u201d Yet, as Cruz countered, the FBI did not include Black Lives Matter or Antifa flags or symbols, just the ones displayed by those on the right.<\/p>\n<p>Cruz next highlighted the collaboration between the National Association of School Boards and Attorney General Merrick Garland. The school board association had requested that the attorney general investigate parents as domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act in response to angry parents challenging school mask policies and the teaching of racist critical race theory curriculum. Five days later, Cruz noted, the attorney general sent a memo to Wray asking the FBI to target parents, prompting the bureau to create \u201ca red tag \u2014 threat tag directed at parents.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The FBI director assured Cruz that in response to the memorandum, he told agents that they were not in the business of policing parents\u2019 speech, but the FBI would work with partner law enforcement organizations if threats needed investigating. That Wray believed he needed to address the constitutional right of parents to protest school board policies, however, confirmed the validity of Cruz\u2019s concern over Garland\u2019s memorandum.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With little time left, Cruz mentioned only in passing the FBI\u2019s outrageous targeting of Michigan protesters of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. A jury found that two of the four individuals tried for plotting to kidnap the governor had been entrapped by the FBI\u2019s paid informant who instigated or incited the planned violence. While the jury could not reach a verdict on charges brought against two other individuals, both of whom will be retried shortly, that even one protester was entrapped by government agents is one too many \u2014 just as one violent extremist is one too many.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement, however, should be the good guy. But there is nothing good, right, or just about presenting half of America as violent extremists because of their political views or targeting anti-woke parents or conservative protesters, especially while ignoring the violent protesters during the summer of rage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Yet with Monday\u2019s raid of Trump\u2019s Florida home, FBI headquarters has made clear it still sees Trump and conservatives as the enemy. Somewhat paradoxically, it is that very raid that woke up many more Americans to the fact that the deep-state G-men are the real bad guys.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Margot Cleveland is The Federalist&#8217;s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. <\/p>\n<p>Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize\u2014the law school\u2019s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. <\/p>\n<p>As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FBI\u2019s unprecedented raid of former president Donald Trump\u2019s home has angered Americans much beyond his loyalists. Nonetheless, watch for the bureau to exploit the backlash to target conservative organizations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1598899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1598899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1598899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1598899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1598899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}