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- Martin Hyde, a candidate for the US House, criticized the FBI Mar-a-Lago search in a campaign video.
- “I wish they’d turn up at my home,” Hyde said. “Because they’d have gone home in a body bag.”
- Hyde is the second Florida GOP candidate this week to advocate for violence against FBI agents.
A Florida candidate for the US House of Representatives said in a new campaign video that he’d have killed FBI agents if they tried to search his home as they did former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.
In the video, Martin Hyde, who is running to represent Florida’s 16th district, said the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago on August 8 was an “assault on democracy” and “an assault on every one of the 75 million people that voted for Donald Trump.”
“I wish they’d turn up at my home,” Hyde said, referring to federal agents. “Because they’d have gone home in a body bag.”
The candidate’s campaign, despite being endorsed by Trump allies such as Roger Stone, has faced repeated controversy.
Hyde was caught on bodycam video in February threatening a police officer’s career after she pulled him over for speeding. He later acknowledged he’d “tried to bully” the officer and apologized, though he told Tucker Carlson it “wasn’t the first time” he’d behaved in such a way. Hyde also appeared in a viral video in 2019 in a confrontation with young Puerto Rican tennis players and was accused of making racist remarks towards them.
Hyde’s recent comments are the second made by a GOP candidate in Florida this week that advocate for violence against federal agents. On Friday, Florida state house candidate Luis Miguel was banned on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook after saying he would legalize shooting federal agents “on sight.”
Calls for violence against federal agents have been increasing online since a search warrant was executed on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, with one former CIA analyst arguing the increase in violent rhetoric could be a signal of another “catastrophic event” like the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Online, mentions of a “civil war” doubled in extremist online spaces following the search of Mar-a-Lago, extremism experts said.
The FBI searched the Mar-a-Lago residence as part of an investigation into the handling of government documents. Officers recovered 11 sets of classified materials from the Florida country club, according to court records.
The Hyde campaign did not immediately return Insider’s request for comment.
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