"DEFUND THE FBI," tweeted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a theme that she has repeated countless times. "We must save America. We must destroy the FBI," echoed Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who may well worry that the bureau maintains a bulging file on his Nazi-adjacent activities and open advocacy of violence. Greene and Gosar were simply following the orders of their maximum leader Trump, who urged Congress to "DEFUND THE FBI AND THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT" after he was indicted for stealing classified documents and attempting a coup to overturn the 2020 election.

Listening to the Trump Republicans day after day, it's easy to become jaded about their insane rhetoric. They will literally say anything to excite their base, in hope that their deluded followers will ring up new donations to the cause. But that doesn't mean their destructive schemes will never come to fruition.

So what would happen if the Trump gang actually gained the ability to "defund" or "destroy" the FBI? It is already beginning to happen.

FBI Director Christopher Wray — a Trump appointee and lifelong Republican whom the former president once described as "impeccable" — has explained more than once the damaging impact of these GOP attacks on national security and on the effort to protect ordinary Americans from terrorists and other depraved criminals. When Congress slashed the FBI budget last spring —despite years of price inflation — Wray warned that those cutbacks would "degrade" the agency's ability to thwart drug cartels, human trafficking, and crimes against children — all supposedly matters of grave concern to Republicans.

At a Judiciary Committee hearing, the director bluntly predicted that the reductions will mean "hundreds more predators on the loose and hundreds more kids left at their mercy," as well as "scores of threats from China left unaddressed." (If he didn't mention Russia, which is launching active measures against this country every day, perhaps that was because he knows how much more loyal the House GOP caucus is to the Kremlin than the West.)

And yet inflicting cuts on the FBI was clearly the highest priority of the House Republicans in their budget negotiations with Democratic leaders and the White House. It is an attitude that benefits only Mexican gangsters, Russian spies, Iranian terrorists and Chinese saboteurs, not Americans. So why would Republicans elevate this noxious policy?

The only plausible answer is that the "law and order" party has become a haven for crooks and criminals, far more even than during Nixon's misrule. The fish stinks from the head, as they say, but Trump's felony conviction only echoed the priors racked up by his associates. Tallying the convictions and indictments of the Trump entourage is a challenging task, with new entries appearing regularly.

Just this week, his former campaign manager and White House strategist Steve Bannon — who refused a Congressional subpoena to testify about the January 6 coup plot — was ordered to report to prison on July 1. Bannon, an aspiring fascist gauleiter, will face a separate New York trial for fraud in September. He joins the long list of top Trump aides and advisers, including Peter Navarro, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Rick Gates, Allen Weisselberg, and Michael Flynn, some of whom have spent time behind bars — and some of whom belong there but escaped punishment because Trump delivered pardons to keep them quiet.

More troubling than the crimes the Trump crew have already committed, however, are the crimes that they intend to carry out should they regain power in November. Like their demented boss, they shriek constantly about retribution and revenge. The rule of law — and the agencies sworn to enforce it — are only an obstacle to their sinister plans.