FBI should have just asked for Trump documents, McCarthy says in Wake visit
If federal investigators wanted documents from former President Donald Trump, they didn't have to search his home; they should have just asked for them, the top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives said during a Wake County visit Tuesday.
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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was here for a campaign event with Bo Hines, the GOP nominee in the 13th Congressional District, which includes southern Wake County. They met near Fuquay-Varina, on one of the county’s largest farms for a brief tour and to discuss agriculture policy.
McCarthy reiterated his warning Tuesday, accusing the Department of Justice targeting Trump over politics. Garland oversees the department.
“Justice in America is not equal,” McCarthy said.
“Why wouldn’t they just ask the president if they had something there that they want?” he said. “He surely would have provided it to them. Why did they have to show up in the manner that they did?”
The National Archives, which takes possession of presidential documents after a president leaves office, and the Department of Justice have been back and forth with the former president for months over the whereabouts of certain documents, according to multiple media reports.
North Carolina attorney Kieran Shanahan, a former federal prosecutor under Republican administrations, said investigators could have had a judge issue a subpoena demanding documents, stopping short of searching the president’s Florida resort.
“I believe that there’s merit in the notion that what was done was unprecedented, unnecessary and, frankly, frightening,” Shanahan said.
Hines on immigration
Asked about this Tuesday, Hines said that wouldn’t include the H-2A visa program for temporary agricultural workers, which farms across the country rely on.
Asked about a bill protecting same sex marriage that the House passed last month, Hines said he “most likely would have been a 'no' vote.”
Hines faces Democratic state Sen. Wiley Nickel in the November elections, and the 13th Congressional District is North Carolina’s most competitive.
Nickel’s campaign manager, Abby May, said in a statement Tuesday that Hines is too extreme for North Carolina voters.
“From wanting to ban abortion with no exceptions to his extreme rhetoric attacking the integrity of the FBI, Bo Hines is far out of step,” she said.
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