Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) took aim at former President Donald Trump for his unsubstantiated claim that the FBI may have planted incriminating materials during its recent raid of his Mar-a-Lago estate as part of an investigation into his alleged mishandling of presidential records, arguing that the suggestion is “another insidious lie” that could provoke political violence.
Cheney — who has been a leading critic of the former president and lost her primary election to a Trump-backed candidate Tuesday — blasted attempts to discredit the FBI agents who carried out the search for classified documents asserting that the spread of conspiracies has led to threats against law enforcement. The Wyoming Republican argued that remarks of that nature could lead to similar instances to what was seen during the Jan. 6 siege at the Capitol, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the building in an effort to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election results.
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“Last week, you must also believe that 30 career FBI agents who have spent their lives working to serve our country, abandoned their honor and their oaths and went to Mar-a-Lago, not to perform a lawful search or address a national security threat, but instead with a secret plan to plant fake incriminating documents in the boxes they seized. This is yet another insidious lie,” Cheney said during her concession speech in Jackson, Wyo., on Tuesday.
She continued: “Donald Trump knows that voicing these conspiracies will provoke violence and threats of violence. This happened on January 6, and it’s now happening again. It is entirely foreseeable that the violence will escalate further, yet he and others continue purposely to feed the danger.”
Cheney, who serves as vice chairwoman on the Jan. 6 committee, said threats have increased against law enforcement following an ex-Trump aide and right-wing Breitbart News first exposing the names of FBI agents involved in the raid.
“Today, our federal law enforcement has been threatened. A federal judge is being threatened. Fresh threats of violence are rising everywhere and despite knowing all of this, Donald Trump recently released the names of the FBI agents involved in the search, that was purposeful and malicious,” she continued.
“No patriotic Americans should excuse these threats or be intimidated by them. Our great nation must not be ruled by a mob provoked over social media,” Cheney said.
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Following the FBI executing the search warrant, Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, where he floated the unsubstantiated claim that evidence may have been planted in the 128-room home.
“Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be alone,” he wrote, “without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, ‘planting.’”
Trump-allied Republican lawmakers have been highly critical of the raid, alleging that the Biden administration is misusing federal agencies to take aim at a political opponent.
Multiple House committee ranking members have vowed to open investigations into the search if the GOP takes back the majority next fall.
