Dem: How many floors of FBI will GOP burn to protect Trump?

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) knocked House Republicans on Thursday over reports that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) is leading a group of Republicans probing political bias at the Justice Department and FBI.

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Swalwell accused Republicans of trying to discredit law enforcement agents in order to protect President Trump.

“It seems that there is no end to my Republican colleagues’ efforts,” Swalwell, a member of the Intel panel, told CNN. “It makes you wonder, how many floors of the FBI building are they willing to burn down to protect the president?”

{mosads}Swalwell’s comments come a day after a Politico report revealed that Nunes and a group of House Republicans have quietly been investigating for weeks whether top officials at the FBI and Justice Department mishandled information found in a dossier of unverified material that alleges ties between Trump and Russia.

“We’re now encroaching on the rule of law in this country,” Swalwell said Thursday. “That they continue to attack and undermine to insulate this president from what is a quite lawful Russia investigation.”

“It’s disheartening from a democratic principles standpoint,” he added, “and it is certainly affecting just the high morale that’s always been at the FBI that’s now under attack.”

Swalwell’s comments come after Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Intel panel, also slammed House Republicans this week.

Schiff released a statement Wednesday saying that he wasn’t aware of the group’s investigation, but he condemned Republicans for trying to undermine the integrity of law enforcement.

“I think what we are seeing in our committee … is an effort to attack the Department of Justice, an effort to attack the FBI, to attack [special counsel] Bob Mueller, is an effort to undermine the investigations and these institutions out of fear of what they’ll find and try to discredit them in advance,” Schiff said. “It’s a pernicious thing to do that will ultimately inflict long-term damage on these institutions.”