Matthew Whitaker, former U.S. acting Attorney General under former President Donald Trump, told Newsmax that, based on the way the FBI and Attorney General Merrick Garland interfered in an investigation into Hunter Biden, the agency "desperately needs" new leadership that will support its agents and bring accountability across all of federal law enforcement.
While appearing on "Eric Bolling The Balance" on Monday, Whitaker described how "extraordinary" it was for the FBI to warn Hunter Biden's attorneys in advance that they were going to raid his storage unit in Northern Virginia. "I wish — I don't wish, I fear that's not the only example of them tipping him off," he said.
"You know, when [the FBI] think they have evidence, and instead of executing a search warrant and treating it … I guess like all the rest of us, including President Trump … instead they call the defense lawyers and say, ‘Hey, we'd like to look at this storage unit in, like, 30 days. Is that okay?' What do you expect? I mean, you know exactly what's going to happen."
Host Eric Bolling asked Whitaker if a comment made Sunday by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — that the lower chamber may launch an impeachment inquiry into Garland after an IRS whistleblower claimed he had interfered with the investigation into President Joe Biden's son — had any legs. The former acting AG said, "I actually think it does."
"I think the first step is an impeachment inquiry, and it's to figure out what the facts are," he continued. "We have credible, sworn testimony from the two IRS whistleblowers that they believe that Merrick Garland and people at the Department of Justice interfered with the investigation. That they slow-rolled it, that they put their thumb on the scale of justice. I think that is worth Congress getting to the actual facts of what Merrick Garland knew and when he knew it."
Whitaker said he understands that even if an impeachment inquiry were to move forward, it would not be confirmed by the Democrat-led Senate. He also said that the Justice Department is not going to be reformed "without getting rid of Merrick Garland … the deputy attorney general [Lisa Monaco], and really all of the political appointees at the Department of Justice."
"The FBI desperately needs leadership that's willing to not only support the men and women that are doing the right thing every day," he added, "but also bring that fundamental institutional change and accountability that's just desperately needed across all of federal law enforcement currently."
Bolling asked Whitaker if, during his time in the Trump administration, he had ever seen the level of bias within the FBI that seems to exist now.
"I was there right in the middle of all of the Russia collusion hoax," he replied, "and, you know, I took over the Mueller investigation from my time as acting attorney general. The bottom line is the answers were not readily available, and it was very opaque. And the people that knew didn't want to tell because, obviously, we found out everything, from the inspector general's report, from the [former FBI Director Robert] Muller investigation, [to] the House Intelligence Committee.
"All of those reports point to one thing: It's that that investigation, together with so many others, were corrupted by political bias from the likes of [former FBI Deputy Director] Andy McCabe, [former FBI Counterintelligence Division Deputy Assistant Director] Peter Strzok, and so many others."
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