'Cut their funding in half': Tom Fitton urges GOP to tame 'out of control' DOJ, FBI

The Department of Justice and the FBI should be held accountable for their ongoing misconduct by having their funding slashed by half, said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. 

"[T]he Justice Department's been a disaster for a number of years," Fitton told the John Solomon Reports podcast. "The FBI has been out of control. There's been zero accountability for the misconduct that we've been talking about for years now. 

"So it's no surprise that you have politicized prosecutions that we're seeing tied to January 6, the targeting of Tucker Carlson, the FBI thinking they can ... go in and, you know, take your banking records without permission."

Tucker Carlson recently alleged that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on him. The NSA released a statement saying Carlson is not an intelligence target, but Carlson insisted they had read his emails. 

"[S]o long as no one is prosecuted for these abuses, the abuses will continue," Fitton remarked. 

Fitton urged Republicans to make deep cuts to the DOJ and FBI budgets, if they win back Congress in 2022. 

"I would decimate the funding of Justice Department and the FBI," he said. "They're not going to turn over the documents, then what do you do? You cut their funding in half. And I say that not knowing exactly what the numbers are. But I'm trying to make the point is that these agencies are burgeoning, but out of control, and they don't have any respect for the rule of law at the leadership level.

"And frankly, the FBI is a mess through and through its structure ... you've got too many agents who think they don't have to follow the rules, because the bosses don't follow the rules. And there's this attitude that, you know, 'We’re the FBI, we can do no wrong, and we can do what we want.'

"... and the Justice Department is run by partisan Democrats, left-wing activists, and their money just increases year after year. And we wonder why it is we get further and further behind in terms of accountability and we see more and more abuse out of the agencies."

Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records from the FBI regarding whether the bureau was spying on Americans through their financial records to determine if they were part of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. 

Fitton mentioned Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) being on the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, adding that Schiff recently argued that Congress can secretly subpoena and publish records of Americans. 

"These are dangerous times we're living in terms of having the government being at war with constitutional liberties," Fitton said.