Republican Rep. Bob Good on Thursday called for the impeachment of Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray in response to the indictment of former President Donald Trump over his alleged mishandling and concealment of classified White House documents.
“We should impeach Merrick Garland. He’s clearly abusing the power of his position. We ought to impeach director Wray as well,” Good (R-Va.) told a CNN reporter on Thursday.
In his first public remarks since Trump’s second criminal indictment, Garland on Wednesday defended his role in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of the 77-year-old former president as “completely consistent with the regulations that set forth the responsibilities of the attorney general under the special counsel regulations.”
Numerous Republicans have accused Garland and the Justice Department of politicizing investigations into Trump and weaponizing the agency against the 45th president, who is also the 2024 GOP presidential primary front-runner.
“The FBI, the whole Justice Department needs to be looked at,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) said Thursday, adding that “certain parts” should be defunded in response to the Trump indictment.
On Monday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) vowed to introduce a measure that would defund Smith’s investigations into Trump, calling them a “weaponized government attempt to take down the top political enemy.”
The Georgia Republican has already filed articles of impeachment against Garland “for facilitating the weaponization and politicization of the United States justice system against the American people.”
The impeachment articles, introduced by Greene last month, further accuse the attorney general of failing “to uphold his oath” and “utilizing the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a federal police force to punish or intimidate anyone who questions or opposes the current regime.”
Not all Republicans are onboard with efforts to strip the DOJ of funding and impeaching the attorney general.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday, Former George W. Bush aide Karl Rove denounced calls to defund the FBI, likening cutting funding for the bureau as being “no different than scrapping the San Francisco Police Department.”
Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) also called GOP efforts to cut funding for the DOJ a “really bad idea” Thursday.
“You have to understand, we need a Justice Department,” Thune told CNN.
“Are we going to get rid of the Justice Department? No. I think defunding is a really bad idea,” he added.