One day, relatively soon, the heads of the Department of Justice and the FBI will likely be taken to Capitol Hill to testify about the historic decision to raid the home of a former president.
For now, however, we don’t know much about what was in the search warrant that was used Monday to raid Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago. We do know that the raid involved the removal of classified documents from the White House and that, according to Trump, agents broke into his vault.
But we also quickly learned that many influential people are quite disinterested in that, reflexively “witch-hunting” moderate, and unjustifiably blame President Biden for the raid in a way that bodes ill for what comes next in this process. Trump has called on his army of supporters to reflexively declare any legal scrutiny of him a deep-state operation.
It’s also an army that, it should be noted, was once quite preoccupied with document security imports by potential presidential candidates — and quite happy to promote the idea that their favorite candidate should “lock up” such an opponent.
Trump immediately likened the raid to what happens in third-world countries. Plenty happily echoed that talking point, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and the House Judiciary Committee’s Republicans, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio). “Doesn’t the FBI have better things to do than harass the former PRESIDENT?” read a tweet from the House Judiciary GOP’s account.
Another talking point promoted by the House Judiciary GOP and Fox News commentators was the idea that, if they could go after Trump like this, nobody is safe.
Many blamed Biden — Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade went so far as to say that the order for the raid “has to have come from @POTUS and/or someone in White House” — despite there being zero evidence the president had any role.
The responses from the highest levels of the GOP soon arrived, and they were equally pitched.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) assured Monday night that Garland had better be prepared to answer questions. But even without any of those questions answered, McCarthy declared: “The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.” The Republican National Committee declared that “Democrats continually weaponize the bureaucracy against Republicans. This raid is outrageous.”
That’s a lot of firm conclusions based on not much at all. But it’s the fruit of years of Trump claiming persecution.
First there was the Russia investigation, which, it turned out, contained much evidence of possible obstruction of justice and even coordination with Russians — according to a report by the then GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee — but is now shorthand for a classic “witch hunt.” ” at the right. There was the impeachment proceedings in Ukraine, which ended with Trump’s acquittal, but contained many notable details about using foreign policy to aid his reelection. Finally, January 6, which many top Republicans initially acknowledged was very bad and even blamed Trump, was to clear him of a technicality in his second impeachment trial and quickly return to Trump when it was clear that he was politically wasn’t going anywhere.
Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that this investigation hardly comes out of nowhere: Trump’s handling of government documents has long been a focal point. The Washington Post reported in February about Trump’s “ruthless document destruction habits.” A few days later, the National Archives confirmed it had recovered 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago — including records marked “classified” and even “top secret” — that should have been handed over, then asked the Justice Department to investigate, which it clearly has.
The question from there is whether this is a case worthy of a search warrant. That the Department of Justice might go down this road seems to indicate that it sees something potentially incriminating beyond just sloppy archiving and document retention. The department knows that this decision will be closely scrutinized; walking this path alone because the destination is a minor finding, ending in a slap on the wrist, isn’t worth the backlash it will get from 40 to 45 percent of the country.
It also bears noting that this portion of the country was once quite laser-focused on keeping tabs on potentially sensitive government documents. Trump’s best attack on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign was her private email server. Many of those who raised alarm bells about that were very quiet when we learned that government documents had made their way to Mar-a-Lago. (McCarthy, for one, had lambasted Clinton for what he called her “fundamental lack of judgment and wanton disregard for protecting and keeping information confidential” back in 2016.)
Then there is the matter of alleged political targeting by the Justice Department and the baseless allegations of Biden’s alleged involvement. During the 2016 campaign, Trump encouraged supporters to chant “lock her up” through Clinton’s emails. He had little qualms about using his power as president to investigate political opponents, including in Ukraine. And whatever you think of how the Clinton investigation went, there was an investigation — a free public inquiry, involving a presidential candidate in the thick of a campaign, which could very well have changed the 2016 election.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, offered a somewhat more measured response on Monday night. He complained about the proximity of the raid to the midterm elections and cited supposed overreach in past Trump probes. But he also said that “no one is above the law” and added, “time will tell regarding this most recent investigation” into Trump.
That latter sentiment seemed reasonable. By that early juncture, though, his party had already passed him by, deciding it wasn’t worth waiting for time to tell us anything.