COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. -- Southwest Florida's congressman is getting national attention after calling for a purge of the FBI and Department of Justice.
Congressman Francis Rooney's comments were so controversial Tuesday he was trending on Twitter. So Four in Your Corner asked him in a videochat what exactly he means when he calls for a purge of these agencies.
During an interview this week on MSNBC, the Republican congressman from Naples calls for a purge of the FBI and Department of Justice. "I would like to see the directors of those agencies purge it."
He recognizes there are a lot of "great agents, and great lawyers" within those agencies, but calls the top FBI officials politically biased. "I think Mr. Strzok could be purged, sure."
Top FBI investigator Peter Strzok was assigned to investigate Russia's involvement in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. It was later revealed Strzok and another investigator exchanged text messages referring to President Trump as an idiot.
Strzok was removed from the investigation when his comments came to light.
Rooney mentioned FBI Deputy Director McCabe, among others. "They're partisan. They're overtly partisan. It's certainly discomforting," said Rooney. "It would be a good idea to make sure we don't have too many people like this."
Fox 4 asked what does a purge of the FBI look like? "Going through there and finding out who else might have been actively taking sides, despite serving in the FBI during the last election and after the election," said Rooney.
He tells Fox 4 that the Trump-Russia investigation is "off the rails" and "unalterably compromised."
"The people on that investigation need to be lily white -- nonpartisan, honest, decent and fair."
And after calling on these agencies to clean house, we had to ask if he trusts the FBI. "Oh, I trust the FBI. I think there's so many agents and so many people in the Department of Justice that are just good hardworking public servants. But here we have a few examples that are egregious enough to make you stand back and say ‘I wonder how many of them there are, and certainly should they be involved in an investigation of the president.’"
Tuesday, President Trump criticized the FBI, calling them “tainted” in a tweet to Fox and Friends.
