‘Deeply And Profoundly Troubling’: Chuck Rosenberg Reacts To Tucker Attacking FBI Over Trump-Russia Bombshell
Appearing on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, former acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration Chuck Rosenberg responded to Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s advice to viewers following a bombshell New York Times story reporting the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation on President Donald Trump after he fired FBI Director James Comey. Carlson said the investigation was the reason why you shouldn’t criticize the FBI as they’ll open an inquiry into those who do.
TRANSCRIPT
BRIAN WILLIAMS (MSNBC HOST): Chuck Rosenberg, one for you. Every night here, I try to watch all the cables. CNN, Fox News, part of the job and tonight, watching Fox News, they seem to devote most of their coverage to illegal immigration, various discussions of that and then there came a time they did report this New York Times story and Tucker Carlson said the following into the camera that may give us an indication of an early defense strategy. We’ll play that and talk about it on the other side.
TUCKER CARLSON (FOX NEWS HOST): If you’re keeping track at home and get a pen and paper because worth remembering, this is why you should never criticize the FBI. You think it’s your birthright as an American. You can do it. I wouldn’t try it though. They might open an investigation into you without your knowledge into something appalling, maybe your wife or dealing fentanyl to kids or betraying your country. You don’t need to have done it but once they investigate you, they can always leak, I don’t know, two years later they were investigating you for this crime that you didn’t commit or at least they found no evidence you committed. At least never charged it for you, but it doesn’t matter because you’re instantly discredited. Don’t criticize the FBI. Very unwise.
WILLIAMS: Chuck Rosenberg, your response.
ROSENBERG: That’s a deeply and profoundly troubling statement, Brian. Here’s why. It’s not just because I work there and I know the ethos of the place and the men and women who care deeply about the rule of law. Remember too that the FBI and its work is overseen by the Congress and the department of justice, by the executive branch through, you know, the foreign intelligence advisory board and the privacy and civil liberties oversight board and lots of people, oh, and by the way, federal judges too, will oversee the work of the FBI.
So it’s a deeply and profoundly troubling statement. It completely misapprehends what the FBI is and who the men and women are who work there. It is really, really a bad thing to feed to the American people. It begins to erode the trust in government, including at the FBI, including at times like this.
Watch the clip above, via MSNBC.
