There should be a "purge" of the FBI to get rid of "deep state" officials working at the agency, Rep. Francis Rooney told MSNBC on Tuesday.
The Florida Republican emphasized he's "very concerned that the DOJ and FBI, whether you want to call it deep state or what, are off the rails" and that his confidence has been undermined and "that the agencies don't respect the Constitution and won't put the ends before the means."
He added that the American people have "very high standards for our government agencies," suggesting that the FBI is not living up to them.
Rooney cited as an example FBI agent Peter Strzok, who has been accused of softening criticism of Hillary Clinton, for partisan reasons, during the investigation of her use of a private email server as secretary of state.
Strzok was also a member of special counsel Robert Mueller's team looking into Russian meddling in the American presidential elections, but was removed this past summer over text messages he sent that were critical of President Donald Trump.
After being pressed during the interview of his criticism, as well as that of Trump and other Republicans, it was merely an attempt to discredit the Department of Justice. As Mueller's probe makes headway, Rooney said: "I don't want to discredit them. I would like to see the directors of those agencies purge it. And say look, we've got a lot of great agents, a lot of great lawyers here, those are the people that I want the American people to see and know the good works being done, not these people who are kind of the deep state."
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