Trump’s greatest ‘crime’ was ‘compromising confidence Americans have in federal law enforcement:’ MSNBC guest

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MSNBC guest blames Trump's rhetoric for eroding confidence in the FBI

MSNBC guest and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance accused Donald Trump of eroding Americans' confidence in federal authorities by attacking the FBI raid on his Florida home.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance blamed former President Donald Trump for the "appalling," great "crime" of Americans losing confidence in federal law enforcement Thursday.

Vance appeared on MSNBC's "Hallie Jackson Reports" to discuss Attorney General Merrick Garland's remarks on the FBI raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. Various Republicans, including Trump, have called out the federal agency as "authoritarian" for what appeared to some to be a political attack against the former president. 

Vance blasted these accusations as well as Trump's several grievances with federal agencies, insisting that career public servants like herself and FBI agents are "loyal to the Constitution and [] work on behalf of the American people." 

She lamented the "crime" of Trump sowing distrust in government "without having any basis for doing it."

Former President Donald Trump in New York City following the FBI raid at his Mar-a-Lago home.  (Felipe Ramales / Fox News Digital)

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"Our justice system like so much of our government can only be effective as long as Americans have confidence. And in perhaps one of the greatest, I’ll use the word crimes, although maybe not technically a crime that Donald Trump committed, was compromising the confidence that Americans have in federal law enforcement, in prosecutors, in agents, in the intelligence services, and doing that without having any basis for doing it. It’s appalling. It compromises the functioning of government," Vance argued.

Several federal agencies have been caught in scandals surrounding attempts to implicate the former president. In 2020, it was revealed that the Justice Department mishandled a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on former Trump aide Carter Page. The Senate Intelligence Committee also found that the FBI based part of its years-long investigation into Russian collusion based on the unverified Steele dossier.

Vance further praised Garland for filing a motion to unseal the search warrant and property receipt from the FBI raid after admitting that he personally approved of the search warrant in the first place. Vance continued to hold Garland as an example against Trump’s behavior.

Attorney General Merrick Garland revealed on Thursday that he "personally approved" of the search warrant used in the FBI raid at Donald Trump's Florida home. (AP/Susan Walsh)

"Merrick Garland is working as hard as he can to demonstrate through his actions that the public can trust the work that he is doing, that the career employees of the Justice Department are doing. Donald Trump is working as hard as he can to protect himself at the expense of some of the public servants of the FBI who are some of the finest people that I’ve ever worked with, and we have the unfortunate specter of elected Republican leadership who will not expose what the former president is doing and call it out for the travesty that it is. It is in many ways incumbent upon them to come forward," Vance said.

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Although the warrant has yet to be released, she predicted that "the embarrassment will be theirs when, as we are about to see, the contents of the search warrant begin to be unsealed and we learn just how dangerous the former president’s conduct was and how his Republican allies have supported him nonetheless." 

Several Republicans have condemned the FBI for what appeared to be a politicized attack against former President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)

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Various media pundits have praised the FBI and DOJ’s actions against Donald Trump on Monday and slammed Republicans’ criticisms. However, some have acknowledged that the DOJ’s previous silence on the raid and the search warrant behind it could be "harming" the department.