Rep. Ron DeSantis fought back against Rep. Trey Gowdy’s comments supporting the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning.
“Well, the way the FBI and potentially other agencies did that was not trying to protect then-candidate Donald Trump,” DeSantis said. “If you had a problem with somebody on the periphery of the campaign, the obvious thing to do is to go brief the campaign and brief Donald Trump. And guess what Donald Trump would have done? If it was some tangential figure, he would say, ‘Okay, we will not have them involved in the campaign.'” (RELATED: Gowdy Defends FBI From ‘Spygate’ Accusations)
He then added, “So, when you are deploying surveillance powers — counterintelligence powers — against an opposition party’s campaign, that is not normal. And I think that is not what Americans want the FBI to be doing.”
The president has taken to Twitter to express his dismay with the behavior of the FBI dating back to before the 2016 election, but the agency has said it was trying to mitigate Russian interference.
“I mean, they really looked at the campaign, and you have to also ask yourself, Brian, why — for months and months — have they stonewalled Congress about the answer?” DeSantis asked. “If in fact, the FBI was doing what every American would want them to do. Wouldn’t they want to be glad to tell that story to Congress so the American people had all the facts?”
“I think one of the best things about the Trump administration is you have cleared out people like Brennan and Clapper and you have much more competent people in charge,” DeSantis stated.