Seven years of debasement to the whims of Donald Trump have pretty much drained any remaining conservative principles from the Republican Party establishment. Which way did the Republican outrage turn when the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump’s resort at Mar-a-Lago and found 11 boxes of classified documents, all of which had been illegally transferred and kept at the private facility? Republicans called for defunding the FBI and preparing for armed clashes with federal agencies!
After Trump announced “my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents” on Aug. 8, US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was quick to fly off the hinge, tweeting:
“The FBI is raiding President Trump’s home in Maralago!
“This is the rogue behavior of communist countries, NOT the United States of America!!!”
Later in the day, Greene’s tone became threatening: “What is happening will NOT be tolerated!!!” she wrote. “We are coming.”
Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy vowed to investigate the Justice Department, should Republicans regain the majority in the House. “I’ve seen enough,” McCarthy tweeted, saying the search was the result of “weaponization” of the Department of Justice.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attacked the Mar-a-Lago search, calling it “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents” and adding a dig at Democrats for seeking to boost IRS enforcement to help pay for their domestic agenda, calling it “Banana Republic” in a tweet.
Former Vice President Mike Pence joined in the outrage: “I share the deep concern of millions of Americans over the unprecedented search of the personal residence of President Trump. No former President of the United States has ever been subject to a raid of their personal residence in American history.”
On social media, Trump cultists pledged violence and even civil war over the FBI’s actions. On Aug. 12, a man in body armor, armed with a nail gun and an assault rifle, was killed by police after he tried unsuccessfully to breach an FBI field office in Cincinnati and he fired on police who followed him. He left behind a trail of posts on Trump’s social media platform, including a “call to arms” issued shortly after Trump revealed the “raid.” “Be ready to kill the enemy,” the Trump cultist posted June 9. “Kill [the FBI] on sight.”
These hysterics started before the Department of Justice reported what they found on the former president’s property. Attorney General Merrick Garland disclosed in a public announcement Aug. 11 that he personally reviewed the warrant. Part of the reason Garland made the announcement, he said, was because of the disinformation that followed the search of Trump’s property.
According to the warrant, the search was predicated on the belief that Trump held documents at his Palm Beach, Florida, property in violation of 18 U.S.C. 793, the Espionage Act, referencing the willful or grossly negligent removal of information related to the national defense, as well as 18 U.S.C. 2071, the Presidential Records Act, relating to the concealment, removal, or mutilation of documents, and 18 U.S.C. 1519, the Obstruction of Justice code, relating to the destruction, alteration, or falsification of documents that are part of a federal investigation.
The search was executed on Aug. 8 after more than a year of negotiations between the National Archives and Records Administration, which has custody of official papers of former presidents, and Trump’s team over documents the archivists discovered were missing in the spring of 2021. The Archives asked for them back. But Trump stalled returning the documents until Jan. 17, when his team handed over 15 boxes at Mar-a-Lago for transport to a secure archive in Maryland. Archivists found some of the returned material was clearly classified, including highly sensitive “signals intelligence” — intercepted electronic communications such as emails and phone calls of foreign leaders. And they suspected classified records were still missing.
By February, Archives officials had referred the matter to the Justice Department, which was already engaged in the criminal investigation of the attack on the US Capital on Jan. 6, 2021, inspired by Trump’s unfounded claims that the election was stolen from him.
FBI agents interviewed Trump’s current and former aides about the boxes and the Justice Department slapped Trump with a grand jury subpoena in June.
Christina Bobb, a Trump lawyer, told the Washington Post Trump’s legal team embarked on a thorough review of all the presidential material still at Mar-a-Lago. She told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham that the lawyers had identified all the documents they believed could be considered government property. “We turned over everything that we found,” Babb said. She was, at best, mistaken, as law enforcement officials came to suspect Trump’s minions were not being truthful at times — and that, despite the months of conversations, Trump was still holding onto documents and other items that properly belonged with the Archives. So they finally resorted to the search warrant and — what do you know! — they found another 11 boxes of documents, including more than 150 labeled as “classified.”
Meanwhile, two days after the Mar-a-Lago search, Trump was questioned by the New York attorney general’s office about his finances. Trump pleaded the Fifth Amendment 440 times in the court-ordered sworn deposition, which Dick Polman noted far outpaced Mafia racketeer Vito Genovese, who invoked the Fifth Amendment 150 times during a 1958 Senate committee hearing. Polman recalled Trump’s statement in 2016:“Fifth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Fifth Amendment. Horrible, horrible. The mob pleads the Fifth Amendment. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”
Trump has a lot of experience with the Fifth Amendment. In 1990 divorce proceedings with Marla Maples, he was asked repeatedly about marriage infidelity. He took the Fifth in that case 97 times.
Ironically, the FBI search may help solidify Trump’s hold on his Big Lie Party. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted Aug. 13-16 found a majority of Americans (54%) approved of the FBI’s search, with Democrats overwhelmingly (86%) approving of the search, compared to just 21% of Republicans. While independents favor, rather than oppose, the FBI’s actions by a 10-point margin (47% to 37%), less than half outright support the search.
The controversy over the search may have exposed Trump as a potential felon for violation of the Presidential Records Act, for abuse of top-secret documents and obstruction of justice, as well as existing investigations into his incitement of the Jan. 6 rebellion and his attempt to browbeat Georgia officials to come up with enough votes to give him the state’s electoral votes. But his supporters say he’s where he wants to be, in a fight with the Washington establishment he says is out to get him, and he’s the odds-on favorite of the Big Lie Republicans heading into 2024. Meanwhile, Republicans are using the Big Lie to justify new laws making it harder to vote but easier for legislatures in Red states to reject votes they don’t like.
So we have to ask “grown-up” Republicans: Are you ashamed yet? — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2022
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