(LifeSiteNews) — The politicization and weaponization of the Department of Justice (DOJ) against conservatives would be a major focal point of Ron DeSantis’ presidency, the candidate told reporters this week.
The Florida governor’s plan includes consolidating offices within the FBI, moving some personnel out of Washington, D.C. and making it easier to fire government workers, according to media reports.
DeSantis “wants to physically remove large swathes of the DOJ from the District of Columbia, including FBI headquarters,” RealClearPolitics reported on Tuesday,
Gov. DeSantis specifically mentioned the targeting of pro-life activists and parents who spoke out at school board meetings as areas of abuse under President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice.
RealClearPolitics reported:
‘We’ve seen throughout this country that the DOJ and the FBI are controlled by one faction of our society,’ DeSantis said on the call, pointing to how those agencies were ‘going after pro-life activists,’ wrongfully investigating parents at school board meetings ‘who are concerned about things like critical race theory, and forcing kids to wear masks,’ and ‘colluding with tech companies to censor information such as what they did with the 2020 election.’
DeSantis’ advisors include libertarian Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky and conservative scholar Victor Davis Hanson. Texas Republican Chip Roy is also in DeSantis’ inner circle.
The Heritage Foundation’s Steve Bradbury is also advising DeSantis on how to use executive power to dismantle the Deep State.
“A key feature of the emerging plan: move fast. Don’t wait on Congress,” RealClearPolitics reported.
Bradbury is a former assistant attorney general who told DeSantis that “not only could he ‘relocate the FBI headquarters’ without legislation from Congress, but he could also eliminate and then consolidate the bureau’s general counsel, public affairs, and government relations offices with existing divisions in the DOJ,” RCP reported.
DeSantis has already shown his willingness to take action against law enforcement who decide to put their personal politics over the law. He suspended a liberal Florida prosecutor who said he would refuse to enforce laws against abortion and the mutilation of gender-confused children.
The news of DeSantis’ strategy comes as Trump faces 37 charges from the DOJ for his handling of classified documents.
READ: Donald Trump pleads ‘not guilty’ to 37 charges brought by Biden DOJ
The indictment alleged that Trump took home boxes of classified materials, including documents pertaining to U.S. nuclear programs and military vulnerabilities, without authorization, as LifeSiteNews previously reported. The indictment also accused the former president of failing to turn all of the documents over to the National Archives when requested and conspiring to obstruct federal law enforcement from retrieving them.
Biden administration has long history of targeting conservatives
Biden and Garland have continued to face criticism for the ongoing weaponization and politicization of federal law enforcement.
The DOJ carried out an unprecedented raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida in August 2022 under the pretext of seizing classified documents, only for it to be unveiled several months later that Biden himself had been storing classified documents related to his time in the Senate and as a vice president in various residences and offices.
In October 2021, Garland ordered federal authorities to be ready to prosecute parents and other citizens who spoke out against COVID regulations and the framing of sex and race discussion in classrooms.
The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government concluded there was “no legitimate basis” for this targeting.
The FBI and the national security apparatus keep getting caught targeting parents and pro-life activists.
For example, the Richmond, Virginia, field office of the FBI put out an intelligence bulleting that labeled Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass as potential threats, relying on information from the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center. The memo was signed off on by a top FBI attorney in Richmond.
The DOJ also brought up an old state charge that had already been tossed out against Mark Houck after an erratic pro-abortion activist harassed Houck and his son. Houck later beat the federal charge, but only after his family had to endure an early morning armed raid on his home.
Houck’s case should not be confused with a separate federal raid on another pro-life father several weeks later.
In October 2022, the FBI raided the home of pro-life advocate Paul Vaughn in front of his children and arrested him, charging him with “conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act, and committing FACE Act violations,” as previously reported by LifeSiteNews.
Vaughn, the married father of 11 children, told the Daily Signal that the FBI came to his home in Centerville, Tennessee, with “guns pointed at the door, banging on the house, yelling and screaming, ‘Open up. FBI.’”
In May, a national security document from the Department Homeland Security was discovered that shows pro-life Christian women to be depicted as a threat to the country.