Trump blasts FBI, other federal law enforcement agencies as 'totally weaponized'

Former President Donald Trump on Monday decried the rampant politicization and weaponization of federal law enforcement institutions such as the FBI.

"It's totally been weaponized with these prosecutors," Trump said Monday on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "They've been going after me for years  — prosecutors and the Democrats on the radical left. By the way, the higher my poll numbers go, the harder they come at me."

Public backlash has been growing against the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal law enforcement agencies for perceived politicization and abuse of power. Examples include collusion with social media platforms to censor user content, cooperation with demands to monitor parents sounding off at school board meetings as potential domestic terrorists, and referring to Catholics that go to Latin mass as "extremist threats."

The former president also railed against what he views as federal law enforcement double standards regarding retention and storage of classified records.

Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate was raided by the FBI last year in a search for classified documents sought in an official records dispute with the National Archives.

In recent months, it has emerged that President Biden had retained classified documents from the Obama administration and stored them in a garage at his Wilmington, Del. home and at his former office at the Penn Biden Center. Federal authorities worked collaboratively with Biden's lawyers to identify and collect such records without resorting to heavy-handed enforcement tactics.

"Looking at the document hoax — it's a hoax," Trump said. "Obama took documents all over the place. And you know, if you take a look at Obama and Biden, and you take a look at all of them, including Jimmy Carter — and we wish him well — everybody took documents."

Trump vowed to continue to fight the politicization of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

"It's a disgrace what's going on," he concluded. "But I've been fighting it for years, and I'll continue to fight it. We've been doing very well."