When I watched this video, I thought, Damn! Did not see this coming. When Florida Gov.Ron DeSantis was asked if he knew about the raid, this is what he said:
“I knew there was an investigation ... It’s not a raid!
With due respect, what you said is editorializing!
… I’m not going to let you get away with it. These people did their job! They’ve been smeared as the Gestapo for doing their jobs!
They did a search warrant!!”
Oh wow, good for him!
But there’s just one problem.
Have a watch:
DeSantis, of course, is not talking about Donald Trump or the FBI agents searching Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8. He’s talking about the raid on Rebekah Jones’ house by Florida law enforcement agents, back in the summer of 2020.
Jones was a Florida data scientist tasked with creating the state’s dashboard for COVID-19, and she lost her job. Why? Because she refused demands to manipulate the data in order to make DeSantis look good as he eased COVID restrictions during the height of the pandemic. As NPR reported in June 2020:
Jones says a superior asked her to open up the data and alter the numbers so that the state's coronavirus positivity rating would change from 18% to 10% — and the state would appear to meet its target to reopen.
She says she refused to do that manipulation and others she was asked to, and she was fired on May 18.
The problem for DeSantis is that Jones did not go quietly. She told everyone what happened.
Incredibly, a search warrant was issued to seize her phone and computers immediately after she encouraged others to speak out. Jones posted video of the raid online, which showed agents with rifles and pistols drawn.
Rebekah Jones wasn’t charged with a crime, because she didn’t commit a crime. Trump, on the other hand, literally stole nuclear secrets. Afterwards, he hosted a foreign golf tournament where players were offered hundreds of millions to stain their reputations, while his usually useless son-in-law got $2 billion from Saudi Arabia for… something.
I should also point out that DeSantis is not the only gubernatorial candidate to engage in hypocrisy on this.
There’s also Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is currently running for governor of Arkansas. This is what she said a few years ago:
And in the aftermath of the search of Mar-a-Lago?
Unlike the raid at Rebekah Jones’ house, no guns were drawn at Mar-a-Lago. The FBI agents showed up in suits and casual wear, and treated the Mar-a-Lago crime scene with all the deferential tact they could muster. Trump responded by giving the names of the FBI agentsto Breitbart, who irresponsibly published them, just one day after a cultist tried to kill several FBI agents in Cincinnati.
I will remind Trump’s followers of this, and their hatred towards the Capitol Police, anytime they try to say they are all about “law and order.”
This is so frustrating. For the past year and a half, I had to listen to people defend insurrection; and now for the next year and a half, I’ll have to listen to them defend espionage.
I was a military cop back in the day. I always respect good cops who do their jobs, and professionals, like Merrick Garland, who take their oaths seriously. I hate cops who give my former profession a bad name, and people like Trump and DeSantis who never hesitate to weaponize agencies against their political enemies.
Sadly, as usual, Republicans are found to be committing the very crimes they accuse others of doing.
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