Nature abhors a vacuum. The GOP is filling the silence.
They followed Trump into a trap.
According to the Republican message, the FBI didn't do a search, it was a raid.
Maybe they planted evidence.
Maybe they planted listening devices.
The FBI is dangerously corrupt.
The FBI are agents of Democrats out to imprison political opponents.
We are a banana republic.
I received lots of good comments yesterday from reasonable people telling me I was wrong. I had written here that the FBI and Justice Department needed to explain why it searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence. They told me the FBI and Justice Department have good, honorable, legally and procedurally sound reasons for not discussing ongoing investigations. It protects the person being investigated. It protects the integrity of a potential future prosecution. It is fair, because we have a presumption of innocence.
The problem with this is a mismatch of dramatic narrative and intensity. The people saying the search is wrong are outraged. Democrats generally are saying nothing. Merrick Garland is saying nothing. Yet, I am beginning to get my wish and recommendation. Better than the Democrats saying something reasonable is Republicans saying something extreme that they will regret. The FBI is speaking up, and the target is the least defensible part of the GOP attack: Its social media megaphone.
Christopher Wray is a Trump appointee in a FBI that is intended to be independent of political influence. Recall that Trump had hesitated to fire the previous director, James Comey, lest it appear he was putting a heavy-handed political stamp on the FBI. Trump went ahead. He appointed Wray, a member of the Federalist Society. Wray has perfect credentials as a block on Biden administration political influence, but Trump defines scrutiny of himself or his administration as per se illegitimate. Most GOP officeholders are going along.
Wray focused on the least defensible portions of the GOP outrage, the social media calls for the assassination of federal officials. Wray is shaping this as a GOP attack on law enforcement.
I’m always concerned about threats to law enforcement. Violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter who you’re upset with.
Examples of comments on social media were this, on Gab:
All it takes is one call. And millions will arm up and take back this country. It will be over in less than 2 weeks.
And this:
Lets get this started! This unelected, illegitimate regime crossed the line with their GESTAPO raid! It is long past time the lib socialist filth were cleansed from American society!"
Many Republicans have fully committed to an attack on the FBI. It was a trap they will likely regret. Their attack is parallel to the BLM "defund the police" message Democrats fell into two years ago. Few Democrats said it but all Democrats were affected by it. "Defund the police" is memorable. So is abolish the FBI. The brand will not be shaped by the measured tones of the cautious. It is being defined by the loud, outraged voices, and Trump is leading them. Disagreeing with Trump, or tempering the message risks being termed a RINO. As we saw with Democrats two years ago, soft opposition to "defund the police" is understood as consent. The GOP brand is being reshaped and hardened this week. It is a party which--if it gets power--will make dramatic changes to the FBI and Department of Justice, all in service to Trump.
Officeholders seem unbothered by the risk. Even senior GOP officeholders with presidential ambitions are committed to the "defund the FBI Gestapo" narrative. The complexion of the 2022 midterms is changed by this new branding--especially when combined with the excesses of red state legislatures unleashed by the Supreme Court.
The GOP looks extreme, out of control, and powerful. No one forced GOP leaders in this direction, but they followed Trump.
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8 comments:
When Trump became the GOP candidate in 2016, Lindsey Graham exclaimed, "My party's gone batshit crazy!" It still is.
Following up on Mike's comment yesterday about Texas seceding, according to their recently approved platform, the Texas GOP wants a referendum about this issue on the state's general election ballot in 2023.
On a side note, do readers know that Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is an attorney and former prosecutor, is the former wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom? As his wife, she was the First Lady of San Francisco when he was mayor of that city. They were married from 2001 until 2006. (Information from Wikipedia)
I was aware that Gavin Newsom dodged a bullet when he shed himself of shrieking harridan Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Agree completely that MAGA yahoos and even establishment political figures are getting way out ahead of their skis with perfervid speculation about listening devices and a New Gestapo. There may be plenty of meat on their the bone simply from arguable partisan--or perhaps just Bad Trump--FBI/DOJ overkill, if all we have was a concern that additional boxes should have been included in the negotiated transfer a couple of months ago.
Let the Democrats shuck and jive defensively. The most amusing (because legally irrelevant) example is already referenced here, and we've seen differences even on the Left: "raid" versus "search". The former is not a legal term, and here bespeaks political optics only. Stephen Colbert crowed about the "Raid". Now various partisan CNN and MSNBC hacks, sorry, experts, are falling all over themselves to disavow "raid".
Raid and search are far from mutually exclusive. Raid is simply a description of certain measures taken associated with a search or an arrest. "Raid" is indeed apt when dozens of law enforcement arrive without notice openly sporting automatic weapons to secure a scene. It's a claim that this target, unlike good and wholesome white collar targets, may not respond well to specific requests for cooperation, even unto violence.
Without a pretty good explanation still to come, the FBI/DOJ may have grossly overreached in their methods, and for reasons of partisan optics and favoritism. Let them dangle, until they untangle.
Peter - The cry of the GOP and Trumpers would have been as shrill and focused on the FBI as a tool Biden and the Democrats regardless of an AG explanation. We know what the Democrats did when when Bill was "hounded" over the lying to the FBI and was charged with perjury. That charge was borne out to be true when the blue dress was entered into evidence. Bill Clinton was impeached and the Democrats mobilized around Bill. To that end, he was reelected, but down ticket lost, loosing the House.
Obama had a similar fate. The birther lie hounded him. His actions were suspect as he was portrayed as an angry Black man and Black revolutionary on the cover of The New Yorker depicting Barack and Michelle in Afros and Black revolutionary garb, fist bumping. Democrats cried foul. Still, many Fox News followers believe his was an illegitimate President that set back America, regardless of what the world saw.
As Secretary of State Hillary was cautious to a fault, suspecting the probing of the the far right-wing conservative conspiracy. The use of personal email server and a personal cell phone morphed into a Big Federal Crime added by Trump in an attempt to "Lock Her Up". When the attack on Libya spiraled into chaos and the ambassador's death in a safe house, Trey Goudy began his relentless hearings into the Secretary's direct involvement and culpability, suspicion of Hillary was front and center when FBI Director Comey said he had reopened the investigation into her emails, that was cited in her defeat for President. Democrats cried foul as did CNN and MSNBC. Support in the Red States held and the rest is history.
Why should we expect this situation to be any different? A Red wave is coming in the midterms and Biden is tarnished because it is his DoJ. It's all politics, a Witch Hunt, that will have no resolution before the 2022 Midterms.
Merrick Garland spoke briefly this afternoon, confirming that he signed off on this search and seizing of several boxes of documents. The Justice Department asked a judge to unseal the search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, raising the prospect that details of the extraordinary search could soon become public. He further commented that he could not say anything more at this time, and he did not take any questions.
Separately, in a Wall Street Journal story, they wrote that the FBI was at Mar-a-Lago in early June for documents; here is a brief excerpt:
"...on June 3, a senior Justice Department national security supervisor and three FBI agents arrived at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to discuss boxes with government records sitting in a basement storage room along with suits, sweaters and golf shoes."
"A few days later, the FBI sent a note asking that a stronger lock be installed on the storage room door, signing off: “Thank you. Very truly yours, Jay Bratt, chief of counterintelligence and export control section.”"
You can read more at the WSJ.
Republicans are angry that the DOJ is following protocol and not divulging information about their investigation. If the DOJ broke protocol and divulged it, they’d be angry about that.
This is the anniversary of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville. The people at that rally and at the one on Jan. 6th are Trump’s base, and by extension the GOP’s. Anger is their MO. Nothing is likely to pacify them short of putting their erstwhile dictator back in power.
Whether you call it a raid or a search, the question isn’t whether it was justified, but which of Trump’s criminal investigations it was related to. Sounds like it’s about mishandling documents, which Trump made a felony.
M2inFLA (by way of general agreement)—
Thanks for that: the WSJ is behind a paywall for me. Reads all the more to me like the superheated response to additional boxes and the negotiated adequacy of a padlock to protect what was long known to and recently seen by federal authorities could well be nothing more than a pretext. We shall see, thought not so soon, I suspect. Even if/when the sealed search warrant is unsealed, that adds little compared to the initiating affidavit which might not be released, for the protection of that unimpeachable (pun intended) confidential source.
If you have a sense, how would you characterize the mood on the ground in Florida beyond partisan diehards? Florida is America writ small. We learned little or nothing from AG Garland’s five minutes of truisms EXCEPT that him coming out at all for that makeweight purpose only establishes that, contrary to his schtick, this is manifestly NOT just a case of equal treatment for the equally situated. Ceaselessly diverting though to see so many old-school liberals now eating DOJ/FBI pabulum from a spoon like doe-eyed, trusting bougies.
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