August 10, 2022 - 8:00am
“If you come at the king, you’d best not miss” immediately springs to mind in the wake of the FBI’s surprise raid of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate yesterday, apparently as part of an investigation into whether he took classified records from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.
On the one hand, the stench of corruption has followed Trump from his days as a Queens real estate developer to his period as occupant of the White House as the nation’s 45th President. On the other, repeated attempts to impeach Trump — not once, but twice — when the full force of the US government was deployed against him, failed abysmally. So, it is difficult to escape the feeling of judicial overkill when it comes to the FBI’s latest investigation.
Even some Democrats have questioned the FBI’s actions. Former NY Governor Andrew Cuomo (no stranger to hyped charges by the press that were subsequently dismissed), tweeted that the Justice Department must immediately start explaining itself or risk becoming the very thing that conservatives accuse it of: a political tool to harass Republicans. Similarly, former Democratic presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, warned that the FBI “raid strengthens that case for millions of Americans who will see this as unjust persecution”.
Needless to say, the GOP is promising payback if they secure a majority in the House or Senate (or both) after November’s mid-terms, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy vowing to investigate the FBI and Attorney General Merrick Garland. But the real rage has come from Trump’s base; hours after the Feds searched the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home, his supporters gathered outside in an impromptu rally: Trump flags flew, pickups roared and “We’re Not Gonna Take It” blared.
It doesn’t take a swivel-eyed conspiracist to understand the suspicions of Trump’s base. From Russiagate onwards, the FBI (and other intelligence agencies such as the CIA), have consistently failed to find the smoking gun that would have validated their repeated accusations and investigations of Trump. Robert Mueller was given unlimited powers to investigate the former President and, in the end, came up with nothing that would justify impeachment. To the retort that “there’s no smoke without fire”, it should be noted that Democrats, and their allies in the mainstream press, did much to fan those flames, all the while ignoring the underlying reasons for Trump’s continued popularity among the so-called “Deplorables”.
Either way, this appears to be the overwhelming assumption among Democrats, as encapsulated by Obama presidential advisor David Axelrod: “One thing is very clear. Garland would not have authorised this raid, and no federal judge would have signed off on it, if there weren’t significant evidence to warrant it.”
Axelrod better be right. Failure to do so will almost certainly enhance Trump’s presidential chances in 2024 and turn him into a martyr. During his first term, Trump was able to exploit both attempts at impeachment and use them for his re-election campaign. This raid could well serve the basis for his 2024 campaign. In doing so, it will unleash political chaos to a degree that made the 2016-2020 period seem like child’s play.
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Subscribe“the stench of corruption has followed Trump…”. Really? What did he do in office that was corrupt? The casual double standard applied to Trump by you and other media is a huge part of the problem. If immediate recent history is any guide they will find nothing – but claim they did. They really are terrified of this man!
Donald Trump is the only politician in recent memory who actually lost money by going into government, probably to the tune of a billion dollars. The Clintons and the Obamas went from being just well off to fortunes in the hundreds of millions of dollars on the strength of their stints in government. That’s corruption in my book.
He didn’t lose money by going into government – he just lost money! This is guy who has gone bankrupt six times, and who managed to lose money running a casino….
And yet he somehow drives a nicer car than you do.
Note I said “the stench of corruption” and referenced periods before he became president. If you read the various biographies on Trump, especially during his time as a real estate developer in NY, there are numerous well documented accounts that, for example, detail the 1970s Justice Department suit against him and his father for racial discrimination, his business and political machinations, his alleged organized crime connections, to cite a few examples.
Also note that the whole point of the article was the opposite of what you’re implying. I said that the FBI better have the goods on Trump precisely because previous investigations proved futile.
That ‘stench’ phrase annoyed me too. And I note you say ‘alleged organised crime connections’.
Trump was vilified and hounded throughout his time in office. That looked pretty corrupt to me.
Villification and corruption are different things – you do understand that, right?
She meant the hounding was corrupt, not Trump.
When were those biographies written? To me it seems like you simply parrot the slimy accusations people started making once Donald Trump got traction as a political candidate. Prior to that he was pretty popular.
Jesse Jackson praised Donald Trump and gave him an award for his efforts as a developer to help the black community. Donald Trump hired Barbara Res and other women as top executives when no other developer would.
Now his political opponents claim that a stench of corruption has always been around him, and still is. Their evidence is thin to non-existent. Donald Trump is far from perfect. But he’s never been indicted for anything, let alone convicted. Not of anything. Not even close.
Corruption? That shoe is on the other foot, that of those who are using criminal law and procedure as a political weapon. Merrick Garland ought to be ashamed of himself.
I lived in NYC in the 1970s. The goal of public housing was a well integrated neighborhood, choosing families similar to the way Universities are allowed (required?) to choose their student body today: by looking at race and ethnicity. Also, crime was not tolerated in public housing. This wasn’t just Trump built low income housing, it was all low income housing. The lawsuits to stop this practice resulted in large, black only high rise apartments making up The Projects, with many criminals living there at public expense and terrorizing their neighborhoods. How has that worked out for NYC, Chicago, Detroit, and other major cities?
But social engineering (quotas, “diversity”, etc) is inevitably the thin end of the wedge for corruption. Trump was a real estate developer. In New York. Simple profiling would expect to find some sharp practice, lots of bluster and oafishness, and so forth. However, ordinary Americans are seeing and voicing the stark contrast of the progress and prosperity of the Trump years, with the unqualified debacle pervading the whole nation since January 2021.
Labour unions in construction are or were controlled by the Mafia. Anyone who employed construction workers therefore can be said to be doing business with the Mafia.
Doing business in New York (and pretty much every city), requires knowing how to deal with the Tony Sopranos who run all the “territories”. I know the owner of a fish distribution business in VT. He goes down to the docks in NYC every other day and has to work with the unions on their terms if he wants to get his fish delivered. Don’t get me started on those tough SOBs in the flower industry. Oh, and most of those guys have bought and paid for the requisite dirty pol (is there any other kind?), for when the occasional uncooperative ham sandwich needs indicting.
The undeniable, wholly destructive corruption -not merely its stench – is what this government (or whatever it’s calling itself) is doing to Donald Trump and everyone who supports him. The Washington Post announced, on Trump’s first day in office, that he would be impeached. It wasn’t a prediction, it was a pledge.
Yeah, write more articles about anything other than the real criminality. That stench you smell is self-generating.
Why is anyone expected to believe the FBI and DOJ in matters concerning Donald Trump?
Please give us the evidence of their impartiality toward him?
Cite relevant statements of former Directors Comey and McCabe in support.
Speak about Peter Strzok and Kevin Clinesmith.
”Evidence” was likely planted. If they don’t succeed in this latest take-down attempt, what is the next, desperate, violent probability? Something’s about striking at a king?
So when a Republican vice president says, ‘In our nation’s 236-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump’, is this Fake News, The Deep State, or something more sinister? BTW, there is a long and growing list of his ex-employees, colleagues and family members who echo this sentiment. Although if you stick your head in the sand, there isn’t. These days you can choose your facts so that you don’t have to feel bad, whether you are on the left (transwomen are women etc) or right (Trump is a martyr who did nothing wrong).
The problem with this whole thing is the FBI and CIA have already shown they’re partisan with the russiagate misinformation and hunter biden laptop cover up. Even if they claim to have found something in the Trump raid… why should they be believed? The FBI/CIA definitely aren’t above a little evidence planting, we know that from a variety of historical cases, and it wouldn’t have been hard to do in this instance, plus they know nobody would hold them to account because “orange man bad”.
It’s unfortunate that thought has to even cross your mind, but sadly that’s what happens when agencies become openly politically biased.
The FBI tried this once before. One of its lawyers altered an e-mail to say Carter Page, a Trump campaign worker, was not a CIA asset when the e-mail in fact said that Carter Page was a CIA asset. The altered e-mail was used by the FBI to obtain the warrants it needed to spy on the Trump campaign and administration.
His name is Kevin Clinesmith.
He received 12 months probation and 400 hours of community service.
No jail time.
After one year he was free again to practice law.
I also jibe at the phrase “The stench of corruption….”
Mr Trump was an excellent president when compared to Biden or any of the lightweights who vie for power in Westminster. The media are a real and present danger to our political and social life Mr Trump had them to a tee. The Swamp and the Fake News Media, a marriage made in Hell.
In what way was he an excellent president?
One example: He didn’t allow the Justice Department and investigative agencies to go after his rival in the previous presidential election.
There would be no “Lock her up!”
In fact, during the interval between that election and his inauguration he explicitly disavowed such a pursuit, as a statesman should.
Indeed. Neither would he ever’ve done something like hold back billions of dollars to Ukraine to help himself, say, by demanding they ‘find’ dirt on Hunter Biden. That would be narcissistic and corrupt, and ain’t him – he cares only for American Greatness.
Several ways. I don’t know enough about US politics to comment on his domestic record but on foreign affairs he got a lot of things right.
He pulled out of the Paris climate change agreement, he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. He improved relations with N Korea and persuaded several Gulf states to enter agreements with Israel.
He warned Germany about its reliance on Russian gas and he warned European members of NATO to increase their defence spending.
That enough for you, Frank?
First, Trump presided over the longest economic expansion in American history. This was after Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman (and many other economists) said in the New York Times that we were entering an economic apocalypse from which we might never return because of the election of Trump. They can’t have a mulligan on that – they gave Trump credit for the economy in November 2016 whether the outcome were good or bad. And it turned out to be very good until the COVID Virus emanating from China stopped the world economy. Thanks, Trump.
Second, Trump is the first President in 70 years to have not engaged the US in some foreign war somewhere. Look up the list of US Wars: Bush – Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. Obama – Libya, Syria and Uganda. Biden – proxy war with Russia in Ukraine and soon-to-be war with China. And so on. Thanks, Trump.
A great economy and avoidance of costly and bloody wars are the two great accomplishments Americans care most about from any President.
I would have used “perfume”
It’s a very bad idea to turn the national security services into a political instrument and raid the home of the (de facto) opposition party leader.
In addition, the magistrate judge who signed the warrant for the Trump raid – Bruce Reinhart – is an attorney who once represented Jeffrey Epstein’s crew.
is an attorney who once represented Jeffrey Epstein’s crew
Why should that matter either way? He is an attorney and he represented someone, everyone is entitled to a defence.
I agree with Linda on this; that’s irrelevant. It’s being trumpeted by every conservative media outlet because it’s all they have, but it’s moot.
The fault here isn’t with the judge. The judge’s job is to look at the evidence presented, assume the prosecutors are presenting it honestly, and decide if there’s probably cause. The fault here is with the AG and his senior staff. Did no one at DOJ get up yesterday morning and say, “maybe sending armed FBI agents to search the house of a former President, current party kingmaker, and likely future candidate to retrieve some pieces of paper the National Archives says they want… would be a bad idea? Let’s call off this search warrant and find another way.”
What’s scarier: that no one at DOJ thought it would be seen as a political hit job? Or that that they didn’t care because Trump is Hitler and his voters are all little deplorable Eichmanns? Once you convince yourself that your political opponents aren’t just wrong, but are actually EVIL… you can justify anything.
Good points, but this search isn’t something out of the blue. The Department of Justice has had a grand jury looking at this for months. They have been making a mountain out of a molehill, but that project isn’t something that just started recently.
To me, Carlos, that’s even more shocking, since it means that dozens of people at DOJ have been talking about this for months and either oblivious to / uncaring of how a raid on a former president’s home, a president who spent his term railing about FBI conspiracies against him — not entirely falsely, we’re now finding out — would be perceived by much of the country.
The answer to your implied question is spelled
B-U-B-B-L-E.
The press is already tossing about nonsense phrases like “nuclear codes”. Nuclear codes aren’t classified as they literally auto-change every few hours and a nuclear launch code is COMPLETELY useless to anyone other than ONE person working in concert with MANY other people, each with their own unique code known ONLY to them, and only in very specific locations at very specific times. Btw that code is not even known to each holder until a very specific chain of events within a very small window of time first occurs. As someone who was once part of this process (and who rehearsed it each day) I always thought it would be a miracle if a missile was ever actually launched no matter how much the President on down wanted it too. (Unfortunately other nations have more of a Dr. Strange Love type system in place .. Russia is not the Soviet Union).
The truth is it shouldn’t matter whether one is a democrat or republican. The fact is that the hounding of an ex-leader of the country and current leader of the opposition is the stuff of 3rd world banana republics, especially in Central and South America, as well as many African countries. If I were Biden I would immediately fire Garland and Wray for authorizing this. Of course this won’t happen because, unfortunately, Biden has no clue as to what is actually going on around him and being done in his name. Let’s hope this doesn’t end up with the demise of the American experiment.
It seems 30 plainclothes FBI agents and 3 arrogant Justice Department lawyers (plus professional outside safecracker) carried out a 9-hour search of the entire Mar-A-Lago estate, taking 15 boxes of materials with them as they left.
Two points.
One, a federal magistrate in Florida approved the warrant based on an affidavit submitted by the Justice Department. A judge also approved the wiretapping of Carter Page based on an affidavit like that. Not just once but four times. Those warrants should never have been issued. I suspect the same with this one.
Two, a raid like this for the suspected crime is ludicrous. The raid should fit the crime. The crimes here, if any, were petty offenses. If Donald Trump even knew what was in those boxes I would be surprised. Any violation would be petty and administrative in nature. There was no possible felony here. Not even close.
A few Democrats (Andrew Cuomo and Andrew Yang) have noted the naked truth that emperor Merrick Garland who approved this raid has no clothes. Other Democrats insist despite all evidence that he still has his robes. Politics, pure and simple.
Merrick Garland disinterestedly authorized a raid on the home of the man who eliminated him from consideration to be a Supreme Court Justice.
I agree that the possible failure to send all classified documents to the Archives is trivial, which is why I suspect they were really after evidence relating to the January 6 events, hoping to find a “smoking gun”.
“This raid could well serve the basis for his 2024 campaign. In doing so, it will unleash political chaos to a degree that made the 2016-2020 period seem like child’s play.”
Maybe that’s the reason for the raid. The Dems will likely lose big in the November midterms and ultimately in 2024 provided the Republicans present a united front. If the Dems deliberately enhance Trump’s standing with what appears to be politically-motivated legal harassment they’ll probably further encourage him to run and split the Republican base between true Trump supporters and more moderate (or realistic) Republicans who’d prefer someone like DeSantis in the White House.
My post sounds very cynical, but the past couple of years have demonstrated I’m not nearly cynical enough.
DeSantis is the last person in the world the entrenched GOP politicians want to see in the White House. He might do something.
On the other hand Trump is a known entity. They brought him to heel in August 2018. For all his bluster, Trump seems to be easily manipulated and eager to take bad advice; after all he just wants to be loved by everyone.
The author of this piece seriously under estimates how bad the situation has become. This is not about the general election in 2024, it’s the November election that might well give Republicans control of both the House and Senate.
Speaker of the House Donald J Trump.
I’m thinking of US politics since the 60s as ‘The Wars of the Roses’. Clashes between hereditary families of barons. As the supremacy of the Kennedys faded first the clan Bush arose. Old George ran the CIA before being VP and then President. When were the ‘security’ services anything but political? Then came the Clintons ,a jumped-up group from the Arkansas Marches with royal pretensions.
And then Donald Trump (Henry Tudor?) toppled both these dynasties. Remember ‘low energy’ Jeb Bush, first to bite the dust in the primaries before the ‘deplorables’ tripped up Hillary?
These were the most powerful and dangerous enemies for Trump to make. And they have gone for his throat through their proxies and their connections ever since 2016.
Will they get him? I don’t know.
Funny enough, clan Bush’s old patriarch, Prescott Bush was involved in a literal fascist coup attempt against FDR in 1933. It was exposed when Major General Smedley Butler did not appreciate being asked if he would like to be involved in a treasonous attempt to overthrow the American government on behalf of Wall Street financiers. The plot is now known as the Wall Street Putsch or the Business plot. Prescott’s involvement is suspiciously left out of a lot of articles on the subject, but if you look around you can find all sorts of juicy details.
Basically agree. Though, unhappily, I would characterize Trump more as (the rehabilitated) Richard III. Intelligent, effective, terrible PR, brief in his reign.
Brief in his reign, but invaluable for exposing the fault line running through America, and the West, which is the clash of two irreconcilable visions for human civilization. I think the greatest contribution of his presidency was to bring this thing to a rolling boil for all to see. It will be interesting to see what happens when the boil over occurs.
“the FBI (and other intelligence agencies such as the CIA), have consistently failed to find the smoking gun that would have validated their repeated accusations and investigations of Trump”
That’s the stench of corruption.
I am trying to withhold judgement on the raid for now, but if this is just about a few stacks of papers that the National Archives wants… good Lord, are the Democrats really that dumb? And the answer to that question is “no, they’re not that dumb.” Which makes me wonder if they’re not playing into Trump’s characterization of being “persecuted by the deep state” on purpose, believing him easier to beat than DeSantis in 2024.
I don’t go in for conspiracy theories. A secret Illuminati cabal playing 9 dimensional chess is actually pulling all the strings — yeah, right… go take your Xanax. But the Democrats could not have unified the GOP any better if they were trying. I detest Trump as a person and am glad he’s gone, but unless there are serious and imminent criminal charges (“you kept something stamped Top Secret at your house” doesn’t count) this raid was a huge mistake.
There’s little indication that political strategy had anything to do with the decision to raid Donald Trump’s house. Most likely this is a case of prosecutors running loose and their leaders doing too little to stop them.
Your comment seems artificially simple, hence dismissive. In my lifetime the “optics” of the FBI has sadly morphed from Fearless G-Men to the witch’s Flying Monkeys. And they didn’t happen upon, they were sent. So, whose influence hangs back in the shadows behind their “leaders”? Who has the most to fear from a return of the Trump? Hu Flung Dung?
Do you actually know Donald John as a person Brian?
I do not detest anyone, we are all flawed in one way or another and I’m wary of judging others without going a few steps in their shoes….ex Commie now rabid conservative.
More than a few steps :0)
His mocking of disability on stage was pretty damning. Maybe you find that funny or endearing?
I thought it was funny. If instead you found it endearing, then perhaps you have led a life different than have I, and I respect that.
To answer your question “Could the Democrats really be that dumb?” I offer up two historical parallels.
Could Louis XVI and the ruling elite in France have been that dumb?
Could Tsar Nicholas II and the ruling elite of Russia have been that dumb?
There were no grand schemes to install Abbe Sieyes or Alexander Kerensky in place of what actually happened.
As Georges Clemenceau may have said “ Americans afford the unique historical example of a people which has passed directly from a condition of barbarism to one of decadence without an intervening period of civilisation”.
And meanwhile, Hunter Biden’s laptop, with loads of incriminating evidence of corruption, sits somewhere gathering dust.
Sure, because a president’s son’s financial shennanigans are definitely on a par with a Presidential coup attempt; and despite this and all the attention on HB and his laptop, nothing has been done about it – NO Fair!
Gathering dust?
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/04/fbi-aggressively-pursuing-hunter-biden-investigation-director-wray-says/
https://www.newsweek.com/federal-investigators-hunter-biden-probe-possible-charges-business-tax-gun-1726578
Trumpers have a very interesting relationship to the truth – ‘if it makes me feel good & righteous it’s true; if it so much as threatens to make me feel bad (shame) it must be lies. Such psychological sophistication.
Very good analysis.
But he is a martyr
So why didn’t the FBI raid Hillary’s place for the servers?
This. While they’re at it, how about Hunter’s place?
It would not surprise me in the least if Trump set this all up himself with his acolytes, in order to obtain precisely the reaction that the incident has manifest?
No matter what they claim, any sane person (which may be a minority when it comes to Trump, but a large minority) will
With good reason suspect the evidence was planted or concocted.
There is no way to put lipstick on this pig beyond fooling the same gullible people who to this day believe Russiagate, Ukrainegate, and all the other failed narratives.
My guess is that it’s more likely to be something to do with January 6th.
““In our nation’s 236-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,”
Richard Cheney
I look forward to counting your downvotes.
Too busy laughing.
Richard Cheney’s growling ad was a self-parody. He was partly responsible for the failures of the worst president in modern history, George W. Bush: the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, had a string of successes to go along with some modest failures.
Are you referring to d**k (Iraq) Cheney here?
The advice about striking at the king is backwards. Trump is the one who struck at the king, the Deep State and the globalist oligarchs, and failed to take them out. He is paying the price.
If he runs again, is the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, and is leading in late October, he will not live to see Election Day.
These institutions, and the people running them and their predecessors have many times shown they have no problem with assassination as long as the have plausible deniability. They are pros at this and it will be just another day at the office.
Having destroyed the American judicial system and warped our politics for 7 years, they are not about to accept failure.
This edition has an article on Bill Maher, who was another victim of TDS – with his dearly held conviction that they’d find a link between Trump and Russia. Another Maher blind spot.
It is baffling how, in a nation with such puritanical traditions, devil worship (aka Trump love) should have become so popular.
In an except from a forthcoming book, the journalists Susan Glasser and Peter Baker reveal an exchange between Trump and his then-chief of staff, John Kelly:
“You f*****g generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?”
“Which generals?” Kelly asked.
“The German generals in World War II,” Trump responded.
“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?” Kelly said.
Trump refused to believe Kelly: “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” he replied. “In his version of history,” Glasser and Baker write, “the generals of the Third Reich had been completely subservient to Hitler; this was the model he wanted for his military.”
Let us leave aside the problem that Donald Trump might be the most intellectually limited and willfully ignorant man ever to sit in the Oval Office. Still, one must ask: Nazis?
“On the other, repeated attempts to impeach Trump — not once, but twice — when the full force of the US government was deployed against him, failed abysmally. So, it is difficult to escape the feeling of judicial overkill when it comes to the FBI’s latest investigation.”
They didn’t fail abysmally, nor was it despite ‘the full force’ of the US government. They only just failed, and because half the US government had already decided, in advance, that they were not going to listen or engage with the process, and that they would support the accused. Exactly the sort of people who are immediately disbarred from Jury service.
There is no denying that Trump is a genius operator – this is why he is still at large – same thing with Al Capone, Putin, Erdogan etc.
My interest has turned away from Trump – almost all the controversy and mystery around him is explained by NPD – and towards his unshakeable supporters. How can they not see what is abundantly evident – why do they debase themselves intellectually, psychologically to support him? Why do they not learn from the legions of ex-Trumpers, particularly those who worked closely with him? There are the grifters (most GOP pols) who clearly do not regard him well, but pretend to do for careerism – depressingly easy to understand – and then there are The True-Believers.
The closest I have come to understanding the latter, this mindset at least, is that they have been groomed by what are essentially pre-enlightenment aspects of US culture – neo-medieval religiosity (all those fake, corrupt preachers!), coupled with a tribal mentality and aggression. Of course, this also happens on the left – shrill puritanism, tribalism etc – but it is not generally as marked, or as astonishing, unchallenged and delusional.
“Of course, this also happens on the left – shrill puritanism, tribalism etc – but it is not generally as marked, or as astonishing, unchallenged and delusional.” Those of us of the “neo-medieval religiosity” persuasion think exactly the same about those on the neo Marxist left. This is what transpires with two utterly irreconcilable worldviews striving for social and political dominance. This is why there will soon be war—real war.
I know both sides are at it. I am a centrist, I am not captured by politicians whom I support, they are not my heroes, I do not support them when they fail, and I understand and accept fact-based, legally sanctioned criticisms and investigations. The problem to my mind is splitting – both in the political sense and the psychological sense (artificially separating things into good and bad, and nothing in between – it’s a primitive defence, a facet of psychological immaturity and/or extreme stress).
Politics has become a team sport in the US – it’s just about winning; and the players and supporters are, increasingly, brats who refuse the rulings of the referees, and even question the need for rules and referees (at least those that don’t immediately support their side – in any given scenario).
It does seem to me though that one side is able, even characterised by an ability to self-examine; and the other by it’s inability to do so.
The Republican fury and hypocrisy here is off the charts. Read this excellent blog on the brazen, publicly stated, hypocrisy of right wing commentators re this incident:
https://davidallengreen.com/2022/08/hillary-clintons-emails-vs-donald-trumps-boxes-of-files-and-the-dangers-of-hyper-partisanship/
Of course, this is all catnip for Putin’s traitorous stooge. His base is so cultish that they believe whatever Donald tells them to believe. The reality is Trump illegally made off with state documents, a crime that can merit up to 3 years in the slammer. No other President ever did that; and, but for that, no raid would have happened. But none of that matters to the Trump disciples. Regardless of how deeply Trump is mired in his own cover-ups, or not; to his base, it matters not. The more Trump is attacked by educated liberals, the more his base love him. I’m not saying Trum is smart enough to have triggered the raid by wilful refusal to cooperate with the authorities, but I’m sure he’s easily smart enough to know what plays to his base.
Hey Frank – have you noticed the way that Trumpers don’t, won’t correspond with argument or facts, just downticks, claims and deflection? Whaddya thunk it means?
Never argue with a drunk or a zealot.
Except the Trump people were cooperating perfectly amiably with the FBI prior to this. But I guess Garland et al. wanted to get a kick out of searching and removing Melania’s lingerie.
Now seriously, the issue is not Trump but how one treats a former head of state. If Trump had murdered somebody, an FBI raid with 30 agents machine guns drawn would be understandable. It is simply beyond the pale, however, to carry out a raid in this manner for a bunch of meaningless documents. The documents were in any case packed up by the GSA and you can bet that Trump hasn’t got a clue what’s in most of them.
Simply put, democrat or republican, Trump hater or Trump supporter, this action by the DOJ and FBI is the stuff of banana republics. It represents the politicization of the DOJ and FBI and what comes around goes around.
Goofball. Anyway I would be far more concerned as a Democrat than as a Republican at this fiasco .. as I used to teach my students .. the citizenry was ready to give JFK all the power he needed to get the job done .. but any power given to JFK will be inherited by Richard Nixon. This was the organizing mindset of the Founding Fathers when they drafted the Constitution. They didn’t draft it for themselves, they drafted it for their enemies, who of course, over time, would eventually come into power.