Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he trusts rank-and-file FBI agents to do their jobs as they probe the apparent shooting attempts on former President Trump’s life but said it’s reasonable to be suspicious of the agency’s leadership in light of its “history.”
In an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” moderator Margaret Brennan pressed Rubio on whether he can assure the American public that he trusts the FBI and that the agency is investigating the assassination attempts, despite claims from Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), that they’re not taking them seriously.
“I trust rank-and-file, on-the-field FBI agents to do their job. I don’t know what their leadership in some of these agencies and the mid-level will do with it,” Rubio said about the probes when asked for the second time, “because you’ve seen a history in the past of their being biased.”
“I hope that’s not true,” he added.
When first asked about Vance’s comments questioning the trustworthiness of Vice President “Harris’s Department of Justice” and whether he trusts law enforcement to conduct “a full and impartial investigation,” Rubio said he’s confident that “people on the ground in law enforcement want to do so.”
He noted, however, that there is a “lack of trust in institutions” that makes it critical for law enforcement officials to make information related to the probe available to the public as much and as quickly as possible.
“Look, multiple people in the Federal Bureau of Investigation faced charges or were fired for misconduct in the way they handled issues about Donald Trump just eight years ago,” Rubio said. “So, I think people are rightful to be suspicious and distrusting.”
He pointed to a letter a few years ago from dozens of former intelligence officials who erroneously dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop stories as Russian disinformation, calling that episode “so damaging” to people’s trust.
“This is an example of how these agencies and our institutions work against candidates they don’t like.”
“It undermines people’s trust in our institutions, and that lack of trust is eroded in government, in the media, in our agencies within government,” Rubio said. “That’s why disclosure and openness with regards to these investigations is so critical, not just because we want to know. It’s because it’s important to preserve trust in our institutions. And we’re not getting that. More on the second than the first, but you know, but we’re not seeing it.”