In an interview with ABC Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, GOP Rep. Liz Cheney expressed her thoughts on the aftermath of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago saying she feels "disgusted."
"I was ashamed to hear Republicans immediately and reflexively attack the FBI agents who executed the search warrant," Cheney said in her exclusive interview with ABC News. "I was disgusted when I learned that President Trump had released the names of those agents, when he released the unredacted search warrant, and that has now caused violence."
Following the raid, which took place on August 8, 2022 and kicked off via a search warrant permitted by Attorney General Merrick Garland and approved by Judge Bruce Reinhart, Trump supporters have rallied to target most everyone involved who called into question the legality of Trump holding on to documents taken from the White House during his time as president. Since the raid, Reinhart himself, along with his family, have become targets in the backlash.
"We've seen threats of violence, the judge himself, his synagogue had to cancel services because of threats of violence. This is a really dangerous moment and to see the former President of the United States, my colleagues, stoking the flames of that instead of saying, 'We need to learn the facts. We need to learn the evidence. We need to learn the information about what happened …' I think that the American people see what hypocrisy that is and it's dangerous hypocrisy," Cheney said in her interview.
Last week a redacted version of the search warrant was made available and an unredacted version, thought to have been leaked by Trump himself, began circulating on sites like Breitbart. Judge Reinhart is being pushed by some to make the full document public, and chided by others for any contents already made visible. There's caution in regards to the search warrant fearing that it will ignite Trump's supporters to further lash out, and possibly interfere with further investigation into Trump's handling of documents.
According to ABC News, "The Justice Department had urged the judge, Bruce Reinhart, to keep the affidavit fully under seal, arguing that if it were to be made public it could 'cause significant and irreparable damage' to an ongoing criminal investigation involving highly classified materials related to national security."
"It sounds to me from watching the news reports that they're acting responsibly in terms of determining what has to be redacted and, and what can be released," Cheney said. "But it also seems to be the case that there were clearly ongoing efforts to get back wherever this information was, and that it was not presented, you know, that the former president was unwilling to give back these materials. Now, we will see, we'll learn more."
When asked "What does your defeat say about Trump's hold on the Republican Party?" Cheney replied "It says that people continue to believe the lie. They continue to believe what he's saying, which is very dangerous."
.@jonkarl: “What does your defeat say about Trump's hold on the Republican Party?”
— ABC News (@ABC) August 21, 2022
GOP Rep. Liz Cheney: “It says that people continue to believe the lie. They continue to believe what he's saying, which is very dangerous.” https://t.co/FdHMlaUNNL pic.twitter.com/IEek6Z358d
