MEGHAN MCCAIN: If they don’t have the goods, raid is proof ‘Deep State’ wants to destroy Trump

The raiding of an ex-president’s home and personal office by the FBI, three months before an election, is a deeply shocking and jarring event – even by the standards of 2022.

When the news broke Monday evening, there was jubilation on the left and fury on the right.

Even ‘Never-Trumpers’ and voters who’ve cooled on Trump as a political figure were voicing their intense anger.

Political journalists and the White House were caught off guard by the news and there is a mad scramble to determine what this historic event means – both legally and politically – for Trump, the upcoming midterm election and the presidential election going into 2024.

I am not a lawyer. But I am a political analyst. And there are three things I know to be true:

Firstly, the American public has a historically low-level of trust in our institutions and the people who run them.

Call it the Deep State, the Swamp or whatever you please.

Disgust with the bloated, self-interested federal bureaucracy is a major reason why Trump was elected in the first place and why people want him to run for president again.

There is an overwhelming sentiment that the people in these institutions are corrupt, politically biased against conservatives and misuse their power for their own political purposes.

There is an understanding and belief among even the most moderate of Republicans that power has been abused for political gain and ultimately, if you are a conservative, they are out to get you and everything you believe in.

Secondly, we’ve been given valid reasons over the past five years to believe the FBI has politically motivated figures running it, and that the agency makes biased judgment calls.

If you don’t believe me, feel free to watch FBI Director James Comey’s news conference on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server scandal just a few months before the 2016 presidential election.

Comey gave everyone the impression that Hillary Clinton was about to be charged with a crime.

He kept us on the edge of our seats – detailing the evidence of violations of the rules for handling classified information – only to say that no charges were appropriate.

Comey demolished long-standing Department of Justice rules that bar officials from going public with an investigation if they are not pursuing charges.

But King Comey – decided to do it his way.

And lastly, time and again I have been teased and titillated and made to believe Trump and his family have committed some form of illegal activity and would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but this just never happens.

One can also revisit anything to do with the Robert Mueller report, Russiagate and all the rest.

It’s a lot of sizzle with no steak.

They were all dead-ends that did nothing but help Trump in the end.

Past investigations have been historically unprecedented in their scope and attention, and all of them resulted in absolutely nothing.

The only upshot is that the principal players on the other side become cable news celebrities and trending topics on Twitter.

The sanctimonious liberals get to clutch their pearls and call themselves heroes over and over again.

And Nothing – Ever – Happens.

Do I believe President Trump most likely has committed illegal activity while in the White House?

Yes.

But I also don’t understand why all investigations turn up cold.

So, why is this time different?

What was done Monday sails America into uncharted waters.

The FBI is forcing us all to question them and, by recourse, defend Trump. And I really don’t want to because, quite frankly, I hate the man.

I believe he and his disciples are an existential threat to both America and the Republican party.

Unfortunately, right now, the bar is set extremely high for the FBI.

They must justify raiding an ex-president’s home.

If they don’t have the goods, if they haven’t absolutely nailed it, they have made one of the most disastrous mistakes of all time.

What I fear is that if this raid turns out to be a red herring, it rallies Republicans across the party to defend Trump.

It makes Trump a martyr.

Once again, he will be seen as such a threat to the Deep State and the Swamp that the career bureaucrats who run our institutions who stop at nothing to try and destroy him.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, will be President Trump’s next stump speech.

So where does this leave us?

If I were in charge of the FBI, I would advise whoever was in charge of this to conduct a news conference today to explain to the American people the justification for the raid, what they were looking for and what they found.

It is not outside of the realm of possibility that Trump did, in fact, do something illegal that he could be prosecuted for in the future.

The problem is so many people have cried wolf for so long, and broken and bent the rules so often, that there is a healthy level of skepticism shrouding everything related to Trump.

The ex-president of the United State is either about to be charged with a dramatic and possibly heinous crime by the FBI, or his supporters and Republicans alike are going to become so angry that the political ramifications will be felt like an atomic bomb in midterms and beyond.

I for one hope the FBI didn’t just make Trump a martyr and usher him into the 2024 nomination on a silver platter, because I believe it is time for our country to move on from him, MAGA Trumpism and the absolute chaos and drama that surrounds his every move.

I also believe it is time for the people running our institutions to understand that everything they do for better or worse is seen through a political lens and that they are severely tainted in the square of public opinion.

Yesterday, the game was just changed. And the implications are positively terrifying.