'Bogus,' 'ridiculous,' and 'made-up crap': DOJ veterans throw cold water on Trump's claim that he 'sent in the FBI' to help Ron DeSantis

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  • DOJ veterans shot down Trump's claim that he "sent in" the FBI to help Ron DeSantis win the 2018 Florida gubernatorial race.

  • One former official called Trump's statements "bogus," while others said they were "nonsense" and "made-up crap."

  • The feds are now investigating if "Stop The Steal" protests surrounding the 2018 Florida election served as a roadmap for the Capitol riot.

Seething from the rise of an emergent Republican rival, former President Donald Trump took to social media on Thursday to try to take credit for the first election of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

In Trumpian style, the string of posts on Truth Social gave the newly reelected Republican a nickname — "Ron DeSanctimonious" — and noted the former president's endorsement that elevated DeSantis from "desperate shape" to the governorship. But in another post, Trump went beyond simply relitigating the 2018 election to making a new, remarkable claim about his past support for DeSantis.

"After the Race, when votes were being stolen by the corrupt Election process in Broward County, and Ron was going down ten thousand votes a day, along with now-Senator Rick Scott," Trump wrote, "I sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys, and the ballot theft immediately ended, just prior to them running out of the votes necessary to win. I stopped his Election from being stolen.…"

For several former Justice Department officials, Trump's evidence-free assertions resulted in more than raised eyebrows. They prompted eye-rolling, and from some, public denials that the Justice Department and FBI ever investigated 2018 election fraud at Trump's behest.

"Never happened," tweeted Sarah Isgur Flores, who served as a top Justice Department spokesperson in 2018.

In interviews, four former FBI and Justice Department officials told Insider that Trump's claims were almost certainly false, calling them "bogus," "ridiculous," "complete nonsense," and "made-up crap."

"No possibility. Secondly, if it had happened, I cannot believe we wouldn't have heard about it long before now," a former senior FBI official, who asked for anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, told Insider. "It just looks like a rant."

In the 2018 election, Democrats retook the House majority but faltered in Florida, where Scott and DeSantis narrowly won their respective races. DeSantis prevailed over Andrew Gillum, then the Tallahassee mayor, by about 30,000 votes.

In Scott's race, his lead over Democratic opponent Bill Nelson was so slim that it led to a recount in several locations, including Broward County.

In the days after the election, Scott alleged without evidence that the slow pace of the recount allowed for illegally cast ballots to be counted. Trump and other high-profile Republicans also falsely suggested that Democrats were trying to steal the election.

On November 9, three days after Election Day 2018, scores of pro-Trump and pro-Scott demonstrators held a "Stop The Steal" demonstration in Broward County, demanding that election officials stop the recount. Scott eventually won his race by 10,000 votes.

Four years later, Trump appeared to be referring to that allegation with his Truth Social post asserting — similarly without evidence — that there was "ballot theft" and that the election was nearly "stolen."

But, as The Washington Post's Philip Bump pointed out, DeSantis' race was not as close as Scott's, and the aftermath of his election lacked the same drama. DeSantis' race had already been called by the evening of November 6 — Election Day in 2018.

So while Scott's victory was uncertain in the days after the election, there was no reason why DeSantis would not have had "the votes necessary to win," Bump noted.

That said, activities surrounding the 2018 Florida elections have attracted federal scrutiny — but not for the reasons the former president spouted off about on social media.

According to The New York Times, prosecutors are investigating if the Broward County "Stop The Steal" protest, and others in south Florida, served as a roadmap for the deadly Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

The Times reported that the Broward County protest in particular drew support from members of the far-right, including the Proud Boys, the longtime GOP strategist Roger Stone, and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Members of the Proud Boys are set to stand trial next month on charges stemming from the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. That proceeding, featuring a seditious conspiracy charge, will follow on the heels of the trial of Oath Keepers founder Elmert Stewart Rhodes and four other members of the far-right group, who face accusations they plotted to forcibly prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to then-President-elect Joe Biden.

Read the original article on Business Insider