Trump supporters denounce FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago: ‘This is Gestapo crap!’
On Twitter and on TV, right-wingers compare the raid to Nazism
Palm Beach police officers keep watch near the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago on Aug. 8, 2022 ,in Palm Beach, Florida. The FBI raided the home to retrieve classified White House documents. Photo by Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images
Trump supporters denounced the FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort as Nazism, comparing the agency’s search for documents Monday to tactics used by Hitler’s Gestapo and East Germany’s infamous secret police force, the Stasi.
Steve Bannon, who served as chief strategist in the Trump White House, said on Fox News that “the FBI right now is the Gestapo.”
U.S. Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, compared the FBI’s actions to the Gestapo, as well as the Soviet Union and dictatorships in Latin America in an interview Tuesday on Fox Business.
Rick Scott says the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago is like the Nazis and the Soviet Union and Latin American dictatorships pic.twitter.com/a0cFWl4kJM
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 9, 2022
Former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka, who served as a deputy assistant to the president in 2017, said on Newsmax TV that the raid was “a hatchet job that is Gestapo Stasi tactics.”
Here’s the video of Gorka’s Gestapo analogy ? pic.twitter.com/5w70TYvDPb
— Jacob Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) August 9, 2022
U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, the far-right Arizona Republican, called for “elimination of the democrat brown shirts known as the FBI.”
I will support a complete dismantling and elimination of the democrat brown shirts known as the FBI. This is too much for our republic to withstand @charliekirk11 @JackPosobiec @kelliwardaz @KariLake @andybiggs4az @GOPLeader @DonaldJTrumpJr
— Paul Gosar (@DrPaulGosar) August 8, 2022
In a video that she posted on Twitter, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, Republican from Colorado, called it “Gestapo crap.”
This #DepartmentOfInjustice must be held accountable.
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) August 9, 2022
It was President Trump today, but it’s you next if we don’t take a stand. pic.twitter.com/z9wqynaikg
Benny Johnson, conservative political columnist and host of “The Benny Report” on Newsmax TV, tweeted: “We live under a morally repugnant Gestapo regime.”
We live under a morally repugnant Gestapo regime.
— Benny Johnson ? (@bennyjohnson) August 8, 2022
Our Founders would puke.
This is NOT America.
Of course, the comparisons to Nazis didn’t fly with everyone. In response to Florida Republican Congressional candidate Lavern Spicer’s tweet comparing “Biden’s FBI” to “Hitler’s Gestapo,” someone responded: “Yep. Retrieving stolen classified documents is exactly like executing millions of Jews. Congratulations, you nailed the comparison.”
Biden’s FBI is no better than Hitler’s Gestapo at this point.
— Lavern Spicer ?? (@lavern_spicer) August 8, 2022
Political persecution!
Ironically, while Trump supporters denounced the FBI raid as being Nazi-like, a new book reveals that Trump wanted his military advisors to be more like “the German generals in World War II.” According to an excerpt in The New Yorker from the book “The Divider,” by Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, Trump was annoyed that his own generals were prone to push back on his orders rather than accept them with blind loyalty.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
