Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, told Newsmax on Tuesday that the politicization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was nothing new and began under former President Barack Obama.
During an appearance on "The Chris Salcedo Show," Van Duyne explained how the FBI's raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence this month helped bring the agency's political influence to the surface.
"This was happening under the Obama administration as well," Van Duyne said. "You've just seen it in such a horrible fashion with this example of them being able to take a former president ... and totally raiding his personal home.
"It seems that this was just an opportunity, one to embarrass, two to try to find whatever they could to prevent him from running. But three, it was just such an overreaction of this administration using the FBI as their personal goon squad."
Van Duyne also said she believes the federal government's decision to search Trump’s South Florida property has likely "backfired on them."
"I think most Americans are looking at this and going, 'Wait, we don't live in a banana republic,'" she said. "This is acting like a banana republic, where you have a sitting leader now taking out his aggressions toward a former leader that he beat in a race."
Van Duyne, who is running for reelection in a safe red seat this November, indicated that Democrats will be affected by the involvement of Biden's Justice Department in the raid.
After months of Republicans leading, they currently trail Democrats by 0.3 percentage points in a FiveThirtyEight average of midterm generic ballot polls, 43.9% to 43.5%.
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