A professor who researches US militia groups has warned that any indictment against former President Donald Trump stemming from a search of his Florida home would cause “a fire”.
Criminologist Brian Levin told CNN’s Kim Brunhuber on Friday that people could act on the rhetoric surrounding the attack at Mar-a-Lago and appeared to criticize some of the former president’s allies for his recent comments.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and argued that the search of his Palm Beach home was politically motivated. He has also suggested that FBI agents involved in the search may have been “planting” evidence.
No one has been charged with any crimes stemming from the probe into the handling of White House documents, but the warrant authorizing the search, unsealed Friday, cited potential violations of three federal statutes that carry potential prison sentences, including the Espionage Law.
“This particular instance feels like a rallying call to me,” Levin said. “And then as this heats up, where there’s a certain fact, an indictment — we’re not saying it’s happening — but if it does, that’s going to make that fire burn more.”
He added: “The ignition is already out there and we’re quite concerned that this sort of thing is going to heat up and get more focused as we go down this road in terms of what’s going to happen with respect to a possible prosecution of the former president.”
Levin is director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism and his comments come after a gunman was shot and killed after opening fire on an FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio with a nail gun. The man had reportedly been at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Brunhuber asked Levin about “correct politicians and media figures” and asked him if he thought those figures “don’t care about the consequences of fueling political violence.”
“I don’t think they care,” Levin said. “And we had a lot of data showing that both hate crimes, and extremist plots and homicides included, go down around that kind of rhetoric.”
“What it does is label certain groups and individuals as legitimate targets of aggression,” he continued. “But sometimes that aggression manifests itself as what we’re seeing online in this hose of insults, epithets and conspiracy theories.”
“But for some, they will act on it individually or in a more organized way,” Levin warned. He added that according to FBI data, “the worst day for hate crimes” was when Trump’s impeachment was announced in 2019.
“So we see it over and over again with the downstream effects of everything that’s seeping into this swamp of grievances, where that gets distributed to people ranging from Antifa to BLM to the FBI,” he said.
The FBI issued a statement to Newsweek on Saturday: “The FBI is always concerned about violence and threats of violence against law enforcement, including the men and women of the FBI. We work closely with our partners of the police to assess and respond to these threats, which are reprehensible and dangerous.
“As always, we would like to remind the public that if they observe anything suspicious, report it to law enforcement immediately.”
Update 8/13/22 10:35 AM ET: This article has been updated to include a statement from the FBI.
Supporters of former US President Donald Trump gather near his residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida on August 9, 2022. Inside, former US President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower to meet with New York Attorney General Letitia James GIORGIO VIERA/GETTY