Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s Trump-endorsed primary challenger Kelly Tshibaka blasted the incumbent senator’s silence over the FBI’s unprecedented raid of a former president this week in an exclusive statement on Wednesday.
“Every American should condemn this gross abuse of power, because it means that there really are no limits on what federal agencies will do to citizens,” Tshibaka told The Federalist. “The fact that Lisa Murkowski can’t bring herself to call this what it is means she condones it. And that’s exactly what a D.C. insider who sides with Biden would do.”
More than 30 FBI agents scoured former President Donald Trump’s 128-room Florida mansion on Monday in a dramatic escalation of the Democrats’ weaponization of the Justice Department against the potential 2024 GOP front-runner. The search warrant was granted by a magistrate who donated to former President Barack Obama and has ties to Jeffrey Epstein. While ostensibly executed over potential violations of the Presidential Records Act, the 1978 law is rarely prosecuted. Trump had also been cooperative with federal officials regarding what documents would return to government custody, according to the New York Post, which revealed on Wednesday that FBI agents tried to turn the Mar-a-Lago security cameras off when they rummaged through Melania Trump’s wardrobe.
Murkowski did not immediately respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.
Tshibaka cited the FBI raid as a warning as Democrats plan to double the size of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as part of their latest colossal spending bill, which passed the Senate on Sunday.
“It’s clear that when the left is in charge, they weaponize government against their political adversaries, as with the FBI raid on President Trump and the hiring of 87,000 new IRS agents to terrorize citizens,” Tshibaka said. “Meanwhile, I don’t remember any reports of the FBI raiding Hunter Biden’s place.”
Tshibaka’s statement on Murkowski’s silence comes six days before voters in Alaska will cast their ballots to decide whether to re-nominate Murkowski for another term or seek an end to her two decades in the Senate. In 2010, Murkowski lost her primary but retained her seat in the upper chamber through a triumphant write-in campaign.
On Monday’s episode of “The Federalist Radio Hour” podcast, Tshibaka was unconcerned that a repeat of 2010 could happen this fall but said she was “confident” a two-way race will ensue with Murkowski in November. This year is the first that Alaska’s elections will be conducted by rank-choice voting, with the top four candidates advancing to the general.
“There’s only two candidates who’ve raised more than $50,000 in this election,” Tshibaka said. “Me and Senator Murkowski are in the millions and then there’s everybody else.”
According to public campaign finance data, Murkowski is funded primarily by out-of-state interests, while Tshibaka’s effort is reliant on Alaskan donors.
Murkowski joins more than a dozen other Republican members of the upper chamber who have remained quiet on the FBI’s raid of Trump. Murkowski was also one of seven Republican senators to vote for Trump’s conviction in the Democrats’ second impeachment following the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, and was the tie-breaking vote for Interior Secretary Deb Haaland last year.
