Yesterday, Republican Congressman Francis Rooney made an appearance on MSNBC where he called for a purge of FBI agents on the Mueller investigation who are not pro-Trump. Today he sauntered over to CNN and made the same call, except this time he also called for low-level staffers to be included in the purge after examining their contribution records.

This is what fascists do. They call for purges based upon ideologies, assume people cannot do their jobs objectively, and are so afraid of what the facts might be that they lash out ahead of the conclusion.

The dossier seems to be of great concern to Rep. Rooney, as it probably should, given how much of it has been proven to be true. So far, the money trail has been precisely what was outlined in that dossier, as have the contacts between Trump officials and Russians. Just today, we have news that Special Counsel Mueller is looking into the relationship between the Trump campaign's data operation and the Russians, mostly because data director Brad Parscale did not deny contacts with foreign agents in his response letter.

So when Rep. Rooney says "it's very unsettling" to hear about the dossier in relation to Mueller, this is not much of a surprise. He should be unsettled, because he's tossed his lot in with a crime family.

But Rooney went one step farther, telling Brianna Keillar he wants "some of those people" - meaning FBI personnel -- in to to testify under oath about what they are doing with the dossier. Why is that?

Brianna Keillar reminded him that much of the dossier has been proven true. "The sweeping conclusion of the dossier which is that Russia mounted a large systemic effort to meddle with the election has been proven," she chided. "That's been proven independently. The DNI said that was the case in January of last year very publicly in a report that can be Googled."

She summed it up this way: "There are parts of the dossier not verified. But the overarching conclusion of it is very much true and has been backed up by the entire intelligence community."

After ducking that basic fact, they moved on to Robert Mueller, and whether Rooney trusted him. He found himself in a quandary, because Mueller's reputation is impeccable and also, unassailable.

But he still found fault.

"That's why it's so disheartening to see he picked a team that is 12 to 1 ratio of contributions to Hillary Clinton and Democrats versus Republicans," he groused. "I would have thought he could have found a few more Republicans and have it more balanced."

Apparently, today's Republican donors just aren't as competent as Democrats, Rep. Rooney. I do not think Robert Mueller hired his staff based upon their political donation history, and for good reason.

After acknowledging she couldn't fact-check Rooney on his claims, she pinned him down, asking, "Where is the evidence that you think his team is not being impartial when you look at the fact that as soon as he found out there were text messages between Peter Strzok and an FBI attorney that he pushed this guy off the investigation?"

"I think it's great that they pushed that guy off the investigation," Rooney huffed. "I think they probably ought to push him right out the door."

I don't know. Taking the Number 2 counterintelligence guy and busting him down to HR is pretty much pushing him out the door. Speaking strictly for me, I think I'd like to shove Rooney out the door too.

After some back and forth about his claims on the campaign contributions and how much of them went to Clinton versus Trump, Keillar tried to pin him down on it by pointing out that he was focused only on the 15 lawyers working for Mueller and not the staff.

Rooney perked right up. "That's a good point. We should look at the totality of all the paralegals and FBI people and investigators and find out exactly how many people as well as dollars. That's a point well taken."

"And why do you want to do that?"

"Well, i would just, if you're going to --"

"Because you don't trust the investigation. you don't trust the team?"

Here is the translation. A Republican representative who called for a "purge" of FBI personnel who are not loyal to Trump now wants to also fire staffers based upon whom they made contributions to in 2016.

Digby warns:

Exactly right. Rooney is engaging in fascistic behavior and ought not to be normalized or otherwise treated as even slightly reasonable.