Rep. Dan Crenshaw responds to 'defund FBI' calls after Mar-a-Lago raid: Dems 'also want to defund the police'

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Rep. Dan Crenshaw responds to criticism of his FBI comments, calls for transparency at DOJ

Rep. Dan Crenshaw responded to criticism that he isn't fighting the FBI hard enough, and said Republicans shouldn't "agree with Democrats" by pushing to 'defund the FBI'

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, has been criticized for calling out Republicans who want to defund the FBI following the raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, but he said the reaction has been extreme and unfair. 

"If you're a troll on the internet, you might think I defended the FBI. But if you're a thinking person then you know, I didn't," Crenshaw told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview this week.

Crenshaw, who has faced criticism from some in the GOP for his stance on the FBI following the raid, says he has been clear that he believes the FBI's actions in the Trump raid, purportedly for classified documents, was unjust.

"This is clearly a political move. Clearly they could have asked Donald Trump for the documents if they wanted them so bad, but there's no evidence that they did. So that's what I've been saying over and over again. Now, that doesn't mean I want to defund the FBI and if you do want to defund the FBI, then I can point you to the Democrat Party because they also want to defund the police," Crenshaw said.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw during his interview with Fox News Digital. (Fox News)

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Crenshaw and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., have tussled over calls to "defund the FBI" following the raid, and he said he's tired of criticism that he has faced – which includes being called a RINO (Republican in name only) and compared to the late Republican Sen. John McCain, a frequent target of Trump's ire. 

"I'm sick of these extremes and this nonsense that gets told, the lies that get spread about me. It's all BS and we all know it," Crenshaw told Fox. "Don't agree with Democrats about defunding the police... You can hold them accountable and you can be, you can have righteous indignation, righteous anger. And what happened in Mar-a-Lago has actually united all aspects of the Republican Party because we all know that was unjust."

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Crenshaw said to restore faith in the FBI there must be transparency, which he and others hope to provide if the GOP wins control of the House in the midterm elections. 

"We're gonna hold a lot of oversights like [Republican Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy said – Merrick Garland, you better get your parking spot ready, better save all your documents, because there's gonna be a lot of oversight when we retake the House. That's exactly the right move."

The FBI entered Trump's home in Palm Beach, Florida, Aug. 8 with a search warrant to search Trump's records, and the subsequently released receipt for the seizures indicates there were classified and top secret documents among the boxes stored at the residence.

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The warrant, however, with the probable cause justification for the search has not been released, and Trump's lawyers plan to continue urging the courts to make it public.

Several Republican politicians have called to dismantle the FBI in the wake of the raid, which has virtually united the right in condemning the FBI's move as a political prosecution.