Former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele said President Trump should “cut the crap” when it comes to accusations about his involvement in the firing of FBI officials and prosecutors involved in his criminal proceedings.
“The reality of it is Trump said that, oh, I had no idea about these firings. I didn’t request any of these firings. Can we just cut the crap,” Steele asked during a Saturday morning appearance on MSNBC’s “The Weekend.”
“Because the FBI is not going to fire anybody at that scale without the White House knowing about it.”
NBC New’s Ryan Reilly chimed in agreeing with the Steele’s disbelief.
“This was not like an individualized assessment of their conduct. This was just anybody who worked on January 6th cases who they could fire, they did. And that basically they focused on those people who were in these term positions,” Reilly said on air.
“Basically, there was an authorization for these term positions, which were supposed to be sort of two years. The expectation was that a lot of these people would continue on.”
Top officials braced for a hit amid the transition between two vastly different administrations including demotions but were shocked by a wave of dismissals.
Trump previously told reporters that he thought the agency’s decision to fire individuals was a good idea but didn’t take credit for the move.
“They came after a lot of people like me, but they came after a lot of people. No, I wasn’t involved in that,” the president told reporters on Friday.
“If they fired some people over there, that’s a good thing, because they were very bad,” Trump later added.
However, some lawmakers aren’t buying his claim, saying it’s “alarming” and keeping a close watch on further changes under the Republican.
“It is deeply alarming that the Trump administration appears to be purging dozens of the most experienced agents who are our nation’s first line of defense,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said.
