The difference in stories between a Texas rabbi who was held hostage this past Saturday and the FBI is yet another reason why Americans are losing trust in federal law enforcement officials, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Newsmax Wednesday.
"God bless the rabbi for his heroic efforts," Paxton said on Newsmax's "John Bachman Now."
Paxton added, "I have a lot of admiration for his courage, so thankfully, he acted quickly and thoughtfully and saved those lives."
Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker told CBS News that during the last hour of the standoff this past Saturday at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, he and the two remaining hostages were terrified, but then he saw an opportunity to act.
"I made sure that the two gentlemen who are still with me that they were ready to go," Cytron-Walker said. "That exit wasn't too far away. I told them to go. I threw a chair at the gunman and I headed for the door. All three of us were able to get out without even a shot being fired."
He also said he knew what to do because of courses he'd taken over the years with the FBI, the Colleyville Police Department, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Secure Communities Network.
However, the Colleyville police said that an FBI hostage rescue team moved into the synagogue and rescued the three hostages, and the suspect, British national Malik Faisal Akram, was left dead, reports NPR. It has not been confirmed who shot Akram, or if he had killed himself.
"The FBI was an institution that all of us trusted for decades and decades growing up," said Paxton. "They were revered, but something has happened to them over the last 5-6-7 years. I think during the Obama administration somehow they've been corrupted, and so now the truth is not with them. They tend to be more political and law enforcement is all about politics rather than doing the right thing."
He added that he hopes the FBI will find a way to "start doing the right thing and focus on law enforcement rather than politics."
Meanwhile, the suspect, who said he was holding the hostages while trying to get a female terrorist who has been sentenced to more than 80 years in federal prison released, had been known to British intelligence agencies.
However, he got past U.S. security, with the Biden administration saying that U.S. agencies had no derogatory information against him, and Paxton said that's because the FBI has the "wrong focus."
"They're missing the things that they should be focusing on," said Paxton. "Instead, they're focusing on prosecuting or investigating parents who are speaking at school board meetings. "When you divert your resources to political efforts as opposed to real efforts, you're going to miss things."
Then, which such information is missed, "you start lying about what you missed," said Paxton.
"You would think they would be smart to know eventually we're going to know what happened … it's not even very smart lies. But this is a position they've left themselves, and I think unless they change leadership and change their focus, we're going to see more of this, and this is a very sad thing for the country because it means that people are going to be harmed and people are going to die."
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