We have our answer: no one is above the law.
At 9am yesterday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a federal search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, home of former US president Donald Trump. A team of FBI agents dressed in plain clothes notified the Secret Service about the impending search before their arrival. Secret Service agents protecting the property facilitated their entry, but did not participate in the search. Trump was not present. He was in New York.
The search capped a remarkable news day, even by Trump standards. In the early hours, Axios published photos of two toilet bowls — one in the White House, the other overseas — containing the remains of shredded notes in Trump’s handwriting. This would be puerile if not for the fact that it is a federal crime to destroy presidential documents. Any documents.
It has previously been reported that Trump regularly destroyed documents during his term in office. Some he flushed down the toilet. Others he burnt. Those he simply discarded were retrieved by aides and painstakingly taped back together to comply with the Presidential Records Act. Enacted after the Watergate scandal, the PRA mandates that all presidential documents, official and personal, be preserved unless the archivist of the United States agrees in writing that they have no further value.
Like all presidents, Trump was informed about the PRA. Trump knew he was breaking the law when he destroyed documents. He did so anyway.
Mid-morning The New Yorker released excerpts of a new book, The Divider, by married journalists Susan Glasser and Peter Baker. These revealed that Trump had whined about “my generals” not being like Hitler’s generals in their loyalty to him. He wanted total subservience, just as Germany’s dictator had demanded. And people wonder why he stands accused of flirting with fascism.
These preludes collided like a thunderclap with the FBI’s search. There is much speculation, but little specific public knowledge, about the reasons for the search. Attention has focused on classified documents that Trump took with him when he left the White House. Per the PRA and other national security laws, this was illegal. The National Archives has been negotiating the return of the missing records, but authorities may have additional reason to believe sensitive materials have been mishandled.
What we do know is that for the search to proceed, the FBI would have needed to persuade a federal judge of probable cause that a crime may have been committed, that the search would be likely to discover evidence of that crime, and that evidence might be concealed or removed if not seized promptly.
Agents must provide a sworn affidavit attesting to the accuracy of the information supporting their application. Search warrants are issued pursuant to detailed Department of Justice protocols. Approval is required from the executive and judicial branches of government.
Given the target of the search, we also know that FBI director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, and Attorney-General Merrick Garland would have signed off on the search. Knowing that it would trigger a political firestorm, they would not have done so lightly. Nor would any judge have permitted the search without weighing its justification and the totality of the circumstances. The judge would require that the information provided be credible and current.
This was not a fishing expedition. Someone told them where to look.
Last night Trump issued a statement denouncing the search. Amid a litany of lies, he wallowed in typical self-pity, painting himself as the victim of political persecution, prosecutorial misconduct and the weaponisation of the justice system. From a man who has spent his entire life maligning others, and routinely demanding investigations of his political opponents, his claim is rich. He wailed “they even broke into my safe”. This has not been confirmed by the FBI.
One thing Trump has not done is release the search warrant. His representatives would have been given a copy during the search. Neither the FBI nor DOJ can disclose it, but Trump can.
Of course, he won’t. The warrant would list the evidence sought, where it was believed to be located, and the crimes believed committed. He could also share the inventory of items seized that would have been compiled by the FBI and handed to his representatives.
It goes without saying that a search conducted by law enforcement of a former president’s residence is unprecedented in American history. For the Trump era, it’s just another page of another chapter of an unprecedented presidency.
I get that the PR machine will spin this as nothing but Democrat persecution of an elected official, but I’d hope that at least some of them would be secretly glad that the office and its function is higher than any individual in it. America isn’t (yet) a dictatorship, and the institutions should mean something above and beyond the person holding the keys.
Trump got so many free passes because his brand of politics resonated with a surprising number of people, but at some point those who profess to “love America” need to speak up when someone so blatantly violated its sacred principles. The way Trump behaved and was protected in that behaviour should be a source of great shame to any self-respecting patriot, irrespective of whether they worry abortion-loving neo-Marxists having power. Being a president should mean something especially when it’s politically-inconvenient.
One of the issues that disturbs me is that law enforcement people are so sympathetic to right wing ideologies genrrally. It normally means there is over enthusiasm for tormenting left leaning types and minorities across the board. It is refreshing that they are taking action against Trump, one of the biggest crooks in American history.
“We’re the party of Law & Order”
The party of Nixon, Reagan et al.?
Criminals charged in various Administrations most linked to the Executive branch
Trump administration: 215
Nixon Administration: 69
Reagan Administration: 30
Bush2 Administration: 7
Clinton Administration: 3
Carter Administration: 1
Ford Administration: 1
Bush 1 Adminstration: 1
Obama Administration: 1
Biden Admin: 0
Most of those in the Tricky DIcky Administration were linked to The Watergate Scandal but there was VP Spiro Agnew who resigned under a cloud due to tax evasion.
Those 30 from the tainted Administration of the Sainted Ronald Reagan!
Iran–Contra affair:13
HUD Rigging Scandal: 7
Lobbying scandals: 2
EPA scandals: 2
Operation ill Wind:2
Wedtech Scandal: 4
Surely the point is that this “raid” will be grist to Trump’s mill. His supporters will simply see it as another expression of the conspiracy waged against him and the class he represents, a conspiracy he has been so arduous in repeating. It will be part of the ongoing narrative that the so-called “Deep state” has been waging war on him since the beginning of his presidency ad stole the election from him. That so many moderate Republicans have accepted the election result of 2020 will be too great a subtlety for many of his supporters to accept.
Nonetheless, the FBI–if they had good grounds–would have been remiss in holding back if they feared they would fall into the trap that Trump will make of it. Nobody is above the law, even where they have enormous power to circumvent it.
The logical inconsistency in the Trumpists, of course is that if there were such a thing as the ‘deep state’ how, with millions fewer votes than Clinton, did he win in 2016 ?
Another being that if they were able to rig the votes for the President, why didn’t they rig the votes for the Senate (which would have made much more sense)?
Amazing isn’t it – the votes for both houses and the presidency are all on the same ballot. On voting machines, the voter steps through them like questions in an online questionnaire. And yet the GOP Senators and Reps members never call into question their own elections – they are all on the up and up. It was only the vote for the presidency that was “Rigged I tell’ya, rigged!“
Such was evident on The Sky After Dark Comedy Show. with all the inmates rabbiting on about how the election that was stolen from their Radge Orange Bampot, as the Scots have it,
I drop in every so often, as now in regional Australia it has been inflicted on FTA , in a desperate attempt to increase its dismal ratings, so no need to subscribe to the stupidity.
It was amazing to watch the antediluvians Jones, that night, also Maurice Newman, and the younger inmates, Credlin , Dean et al, frothing at the mouth in their lunatic presentations about the electoral fraud concerning Trump’s loss of both the Electoral College and the popular vote by c. 6 million.
The question never asked of them , as far as I could hear/see…if the Democratic Party was exercising such electoral fraud, how come they lost seats in the House of Representatives and at that stage had only won a single Senate seat?
As Garland Nixon says “ when can we expect FBI raids on Ghislaine Maxwells clients”? Oops might catch the wrong people. As Nixon says “ I don’t support Trump, but I’m sick of the Dems saying how much better they are. They’re not”. The madam goes down but the creepy powerful customers are untouched! Mr. Semmens should read the piece by Dennis Argall in Pearls and Irritations for true perspective on the USA ( and us sadly).
‘Whataboutery’, implying that Trump should not be investigated because of conspiracies protecting others from the Dems?
Garland Nixon, works Sputnik Russia, still promoting Putin and his friends? Meanwhile, Argall like you takes every opportunity to display antipathy towards the US by linking to any incident, event or war, the ‘west’, NATO etc. but soft on tyrants like Trump and Putin?
“But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity……..”
Andrew Marvell
1621-1678