The Mar-a-Lago Raid
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raid on Mar-a-Lago, the private residence of former President Donald Trump, was considerably more organized than the much investigated riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 8, 2021.
Hours after the Mar-a-Lago raid, Attorney General Merritt Garland, nominated by former President Barack Obama to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, seemed to disclaim knowledge of the raid. Following splashy news reports, Garland thought better of his denial and on August 11, according to the New York Post, acknowledged “that he ‘personally approved‘ the search warrant request for documents that triggered Monday’s unprecedented FBI raid on the Florida home of former President Donald Trump.”
It is generally acknowledged that the historic and unorthodox police raid, the first-of-a-kind raid of a president’s home in U.S. history, had been carefully preplanned.
Garland said, before he quickly scooted out of range of the media, “The Department does not take such a decision lightly. Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search, and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken.”
The Attorney General added, “Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy, upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly without fear or favor. Under my watch, that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing.”
Although it may take months for data necessary for a just assessment of the appropriateness of the raid to tumble from the lips of the principals involved, including Garland, some people – not enough – are now asking proper questions.
If it is standard practice within the FBI “to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search, and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken,” what was it that triggered the abandonment of standard practice? And why is Garland equating a standard practice rule with “the rule of law”?
Under considerable pressure, Garland has now supplied the warrant used to authorize the raid but not, some commentators have noted, the much more detailed affidavit supporting the warrant.
The motion to unseal the warrant, we are told, “would not impair court functions moving forward,” and because “representatives of the 45th president have already provided ‘public characterizations [emphasis mine] of the materials sought,’ therefore the occurrence of the search and indications of the subject matter involved are already public.”
If representatives of the past president were to “publically characterize” matter included in the affidavit, would Garland agree to release a properly redacted affidavit supporting the warrant?
To ask the question is to answer it. The answer would be -- sorry, no, go away.
If the affidavit itself were a political devise to secure an overly broad warrant that would allow the Justice Department to gather any and all evidence in support of outstanding criminal investigations -- not to mention the continuing partisan Congressional hearing on the Capitol building riot -- a close examination of the affidavit might prematurely disclose such hidden political purposes.
In connection with Trump, prior questionable affidavits submitted to a closed FICA Court and a subsequent close examination of unfolding data have pointed to a two year long crippling investigation that some – not only the inflammable Trump – have characterized as a hoax, the origins of which were early on buried alive in a previous attempt to deny a campaigning Trump honest access to the presidency.
Are the warrants, affidavits and the authorized raid itself an instance of a partly successful effort to subvert a presidency? Have we entered an arena of “deja-vue-all-over-again” dirty tricks?
In a recent column printed in a Hartford paper, “Garland has a political duty to explain the circus perpetrated as Mar-a-Lago,” George Will, no Trump acolyte, notes that the bandied about expression “‘No person is above the law’ is a thought that makes further thinking unnecessary. However, the punctilious enforcement of every law, no mater how complex the social context, is zombie governance by people spouting bromides to avoid making complex judgments.”
Just as the meaning of a word may be determined by its use in a sentence, so the meaning of a political action should be determined by its complex social context.
Political zombies take note.
The goal is, as Liz Cheney said, to keep Donald J. Trump from ever holding government office again. Many have said that this can be accomplished by convicting him of a federal felony. But, that is not necessary from a practical view rather than a legal view.
All the DOJ/FBI has to do is to empower a grand jury to charge Trump with a federal crime. They can do this in DC, which voted 93% for Biden. Then they will move to trial. Trump's attorneys will file for summary dismissal, but that will be rejected. The trial will be scheduled and discovery will begin. But, the government will control the timely access to information, so dates will be missed and the trial date will be extended. Time will drag on while Trump in "on trial for serious crimes." A DC jury (remember the pool of potential jurors is 93% anti-Trump) will likely convict him. He will appeal to the DC circuit and lose. He will them appeal to the Supreme Court and win. But by the time this all plays out, it will be September of 2024.
States will have barred Trump from primary ballots. He will not be nominated by the GOP. He may try to run as an independent candidate but will be blocked by various states and will be blocked from any debates.
In a nutshell, he will be wrongly accused and convicted, ultimately acquitted, but locked out of any chance of running again until 2028 or 2032 when he will be 82 or 86, if he is still alive. Lawfare. Game over.
Just a continuation of the Democratic Socialists which hunt!
They are clearly terrified by the thought that Trump could run again in 2024 and in their zeal to continue the corrupt, dirty tricks, they have shot themselves in the foot.
Trumps popularity increased as did his campaign finance contributions.
What the democrats always do is put on little dog and pony shows and waste their time, resources and our taxpayer money trying to play dirty instead of using those efforts to find a really good candidate.
What if Trump doesn't run? What if he ends up the speaker of the house after the November elections crucify the democrats? Certainly, this should concern them greatly because he could then demand investigations into all the past malfeasance committed by them and some will go to prison for a very long time.
The Russia scandal has been proven false, the impeachments were failures and Trump has yet to be charged with anything while Hillary Clinton erased emails, Hunter Biden continues to be a corrupt drug addict funneling Chinese and earlier, Ukrainian funds into "The Big Guys" account and his own, Comey leaked confidential FBI information to the press and his friends and the corruption from the left continues unchecked and unreported by an equally corrupt media. Why is that?
The double standard has to be stopped, term limits of eight years and out must be imposed for all
elected public service positions through a constitutional amendment and all lifetime members of Congress or those with more than ten years tenure replaced.
True progress cannot be enjoyed when we have a stagnating group of elderly, corrupt political hacks who act like puerile children, not professionals who's main concern is their constituency.