Intimidation seems to be the main, if not the only reason for the FBI’s outright assault on democracy Thursday night.
As MS Now tells it, FBI agents raided the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, described as a “pro-democracy organization that helps register voters in that state.”
In addition, agents “fanned out across the state, showing up at the homes of the group’s leaders and staff members, carrying some subpoenas and seeking information and electronic devices.”
A board member told MS Now that agents were “basically trying to fish for information,” even from some who had only performed basic volunteer work. “They had agents all across the state going to civil rights leaders’ and community leaders’ doors intimidating them, coming and demanding that they talk about literally anything they would ask,” board member Prentiss Haney said, “ask[ing] them if they’re committing voter fraud, just on their doors, in front of their houses with their children, and just following them to work and school … Just straight-up intimidation tactics.”
MS Now noted that, “According to its website, the Ohio Organizing Collaborative facilitates statewide voter registration through grassroots, community-led programs, including its Democracy Builders initiative. The group works in Ohio’s major metropolitan areas, such as Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, to help underrepresented communities register to vote, and provides other support.”
We can probably read that as helping to turn out voters of color, something that obviously terrifies MAGA world. It just so happens that Democrats are doing quite well in the gubernatorial and U.S. senate races in what has been a ruby red state with 28 years of Republican trifectas.
Rather than try to win over voters, Trump and his henchmen at the U.S. Department of Justice are working to keep them from voting.
On Friday, MS Now’s Deadline: White House show made a point of tying the raid to Trump’s other attacks on voting and democracy. Former FBI agent Michael Feinberg lamented that he was in the position of telling viewers not to feel compelled to answer FBI questions or allow them on your property without a warrant. Then he added:
“What we're seeing here can't just be taken in isolation as something that happened in Ohio. It has to be compared with and taken as a whole with what happened in Wayne County, Michigan, with what happened in Fulton County, Georgia, with the statements coming out of the Central District of California. And yes, with the attempt to overturn the election we saw in 2020 and 2021 that culminated in the events of January 6th.”
In other words, there will be more of these tactics and in other places.
