In the aftermath of the FBI executing a search warrant at former President Donald Trump’s residence at the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, right-wing media have been straining to portray the recent actions of the Department of Justice as a shift away from the “traditional FBI,” making the organization now comparable to the Stasi, the Gestapo, the Bolsheviks, and any other corrupt regime they can think of.  

On August 8, the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump’s residence, reportedly in connection to his handling of classified documents that may have been stored at Mar-a-Lago. Earlier this year, the National Archives and Records Administration reportedly recovered 15 boxes of White House records from the Florida property. The day after the search, Trump ally Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) said FBI agents approached him while he was traveling and seized his phone. 

In the latest instance of conservative media attacking the FBI as a corrupt and politicized institution that seeks to persecute Republicans, right-wing media have decried the Mar-a-Lago search as proof of the federal agency’s supposed vendetta against high-profile Republicans. After initially fearmongering that the search shows the average American is now facing political persecution, right-wing media are comparing the Department of Justice’s recent actions to those of secret police and security forces under corrupt regimes, including the former East Germany, "Third World” countries, and banana republics. 

Comparing the DOJ to the Stasi and the Gestapo

• Conservative radio host Buck Sexton compared the FBI search in Mar-a-Lago to a “preemptive coup,” Caesar crossing the Rubicon, and the Stasi in East Germany. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/8/22]
• During an appearance on The Ingraham Angle, Hoover Institute fellow Victor Davis Hanson advocated for breaking up the FBI, comparing the bureau in 2022 to the “East German Stasi in the Cold War.” Hanson also claimed that the FBI is “a danger to democracy.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/8/22] 
• Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich likened the FBI to former East Germany’s secret police, calling the agency “the American Stasi,” and lamenting the loss of the “traditional FBI.” [Real America’s Voice, The Charlie Kirk Show, 8/9/22]
• Christina Bobb, Trump PAC attorney and a former One America News host, said the FBI search is “Gestapo-style” oppression of political opponents. Bobb went on to say that the federal law enforcement’s actions are “un-American,” calling the FBI’s actions “authoritarianism.” [OAN, One America News, 8/9/22] 
• OAN guest Mike Puglise complained about the downfall of the FBI and the DOJ, saying, “It's a shame to see what has happened. And now the DOJ has become somewhat of a Gestapo.” Puglise further claimed that the agencies want to enforce and carry out “the radical left agenda” and go “after the people in the red states." [OAN, Tipping Point with Kara McKinney, 8/9/22]
• Former Trump adviser and podcast host Steve Bannon questioned if it was “a coincidence that the FBI, the jackbooted American Gestapo, essentially kicked down the doors at Mar-a-Lago” on the anniversary of the day President Richard Nixon announced his resignation in 1974. [Real America’s Voice, War Room: Pandemic, 8/9/22]
• TPUSA’s Jack Posobiec: Trump’s “personal residence was raided, yesterday, by the American Stasi, the FBI.” Posobiec theorized that Attorney General Merrick Garland is “seeking an indictment” of Trump because he is “working out some deep-seated revenge fantasies that he has because he views the right in general as being the ones that blocked him from getting what he always wanted,” referring to Garland’s blocked Supreme Court nomination. [Turning Point USA, Human Events Daily, 8/9/22]

Framing the FBI and DOJ’s actions as those of a banana republic 

• Fox host and former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany appeared on Hannity to fearmonger that federal agencies are going after Trump allies, saying that the FBI and the DOJ have gone “beyond” a “banana republic.” McEnany said it was an “understatement” to compare the situation to a banana republic. [Fox News, Hannity, 8/8/22] 
• Conservative author Lee Smith: “This is clearly Third World regime security services stuff.” Smith also told Ingraham that it’s “pretty clear that we’re living now in a banana republic.” Ingraham responded, “This is about as low as it could get.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/8/22]
• Conservative radio host Clay Travis called the warrant “Third World banana republic-like” and “an attempt to take out” a political opponent. Travis asked viewers to imagine what would have happened if Trump asked the FBI to raid the homes of President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden in 2020. He went as far as to call President Biden “far more of a dictator than Trump ever dreamed he could be.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/10/22]
• On his radio show, Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani said that the FBI has never done a search of a former president at this scale because “we don’t want to look like a banana republic.” He said the “fascist-type raid” of Mar-a-Lago reminded him of China, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany. Giuliani went on to compare the news story to undemocratic regimes with dictators who “eliminate” opposing voices. [WABC, The Rudy Giuliani Show, 8/9/22]

Likening the DOJ and the FBI to communist regimes and undemocratic societies

• Fox News host Mark Levin: The FBI search warrant is “the gravest attack on our republic in modern history.” Levin called the Democratic Party “an evil force” in the country because “whether it's free speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, due process, the Takings Clause, federalism, they object to it all.” He went on to call the FBI’s search at Mar-a-Lago “the gravest attack on our republic in modern times.” [Fox News, Hannity, 8/9/22]
• On the same edition of Hannity, Levin also called the search warrant “a Stalinist hunt.” Levin told Hannity that the FBI agents who were at Mar-a-Lago were told to “grab all they can” in the “Stalinist hunt” against Trump. [Fox News, Hannity, 8/9/22]
• Fox host Laura Ingraham: The FBI search reminds me of “the days I lived in the Soviet Union”: After the FBI seized the phone of Rep. Scott Perry, Ingraham said it “reminds me of, you know, the days I lived in the Soviet Union as a student. You didn’t know what they were going to take from you at any minute of the day.” Gingrich responded that the FBI is “more Bolshevists than fascists.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/9/22]
• Ingraham: “It feels like Venezuela here in Washington tonight.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/8/22]
• Gingrich: There is a “Third World mentality dominating the American government.” Gingrich said the search warrant is a signal from the deep state that “we can do this to you too, so stay out of it. Your job is to go and hide while we run the country, loot the taxpayers, pay off our allies, and engage in whatever corrupt behavior we want to.” He went on to say the country has a “Venezuela, Zimbabwe quality, Third World mentality dominating the American government.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 8/9/22]  
• Newsmax guest Bernard Kerik: The warrant “is no different than what happens in Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, and countries like that.” Kerik insisted the country needs to “question the authority and the motives of the FBI, the Department of Justice,” and President Biden. [Newsmax, Eric Bolling: The Balance, 8/8/22]      
• Right-wing radio host Jesse Kelly said that federal law enforcement searched Mar-a-Lago “because the FBI is full of committed communist activists.” He went on to say that the DOJ and Garland are “committed communist activists” as well. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Jesse Kelly Show, 8/9/22]
• Fox’s Will Cain compared the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago to the “Bolsheviks.” While guest hosting for Tucker Carlson, Cain claimed the FBI is only interested in getting rid of political enemies and, “as with the Bolsheviks, they use pretext to get what they want.” Cain went on to say there are other ways to rectify mishandled classified documents, and the search warrant was meant to “keep Donald Trump from running for president.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/9/22]