During Wednesday’s epic FBI hearings on Capitol Hill, Rep. Cori “Police for Me but not for Thee” Bush (D-Mo.) took some time to “aks” [sic] FBI Director Christopher Wray about the bureau’s involvement in allegedly targeting Black Lives Matter activists and George Floyd protesters.
Bush then turned Wray’s attention to the domestic terrorism that has been taking place in Atlanta in recent months, where violent activists tied to Antifa and Stacey Abrams have wreaked havoc on the city over a public safety training center that the city plans to build. In the exchange between Bush and Wray, the congresswoman revealed her ignorance about the situation in Atlanta.
“Isn’t it true that the FBI has been actively involved in the law enforcement response to people protesting the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a response that has included state charges of domestic terrorism against protesters?” Bush began. “Yes or no?”
“Well, our Atlanta division is working in support of our state and local partners when it comes to violence and threats of violence that occur amid the unrest that you’re referring to,” Wray replied.
“So the FBI is involved,” Bush summarized, but then she went to town:
“These are not isolated incidents, and they’re part of a long history of abuses by the FBI against black and brown communities and progressive movements,” she ranted. “These are the real oversight issues. They matter to my district where there is real and justified skepticism of whether the civil rights of black and brown people are adequately protected. I know this from personal experience in the Ferguson uprising and from other protest movements that I have been a part of.”
Related: Has Atlanta Seen the Light?
This is all well and good, but Bush demonstrated that she has no clue what’s going on in Atlanta. The domestic terrorists are mostly white, and the vast majority of them hail from outside of Georgia. The public safety training center has overwhelming support from the “black and brown communities” around it, which is why the city council approved the project. The city of Atlanta is looking to “protect” the “civil rights” of the “black and brown people” — and everybody else — by making sure that law enforcement and other first responders have proper training.
But Bush didn’t stop. She not only made it personal, but she also went on an attack against the GOP.
“That’s why I aksed [sic] you about the targeting of protesters the last time that you were before us, because they also included me,” she continued. “But what my district is not concerned about is the Republican conspiracy theories and selective targeting of law enforcement agencies who try to hold their twice-impeached, twice-indicted cult leader Donald Trump accountable.”
Oh yeah, she went there, but she didn’t stop.
“The insurrection caucus wants to use this hearing to score immediate political points,” she went on. “They want to invade oversight. They don’t want to conduct it, but we’re talking about real issues, real reform, that could actually save lives. So once again, I urge my Republican colleagues who claim to care about government overreach and weaponization to do the exact same.”
People like Bush who have sought to defund the police and stoke the flames of racial grievances can’t face the facts when they disrupt the narrative. Either she has no idea what’s been going on in Atlanta or she’s willfully ignoring it to score her own cheap political points.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member