Photo by Alejandro Cartegana on Unsplash.
I am amazed at the number of pundits and news anchors who have called for Attorney General Garland to speak about the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. How quickly they forget the outrage they expressed when James Comey announced the emails he found from Hillary Clinton just days before the 2016 presidential election.
Do they believe we should allow Trump and his crazy crew of cronies to continue to control the narrative? Are they asking the Attorney General of the United States to violate policies carefully created to protect the confidentiality of an investigation simply because Trump and his simple-minded supporters call the “raid” unfair?
Does anybody with a brain need more information to understand that Trump committed crimes? Do they think Merrick Garland is unaware of the nature of these crimes? Do they believe they are better qualified to decide what information should be disclosed than the head of the FBI or the Attorney General of the United States?
DOJ policy requires that they maintain the confidentiality of ongoing investigations
I have to chuckle a little when I look back on just a few weeks ago when Rachel Maddow and many others seemed horrified that Attorney General Garland was relying on a policy document written by former Attorney General Barr during the Trump Administration. Some even called for Garland to be fired — but for what?
Garland is following DOJ policy. While others are demanding he get sucked into a political debate he can’t win, he is playing the smart card by not allowing Trump to call the shots. Meanwhile, these over-reactive pundits are playing directly into Trump’s hands. They should know by now that we all lose the second the DOJ joins the political fight over this.
Fortunately, a few lawyers with a bit more impulse control, have been trying to talk the reactionaries down by reminding them that the memo reinforced the policy the DOJ has historically followed — a sound policy prohibiting them from speaking publicly about ongoing investigations.
The only new addition to the policy was that the DOJ would not allow any further announcements of candidates’ investigations before a presidential election, and any recent investigations of political candidates would need to be signed off by the AG.
This language makes sense. It ensures that a purely political investigation into a candidate that a lower-level investigator might wish to conduct would not occur because the AG would not approve it. Since those who know a bit about Garland understand that he is not political, this would be the failsafe to prevent a political “witch hunt.” That’s a good thing.
I was pleased to hear it, but the immediate and intense reaction from Maddow and others was so over the top I could only assume the uproar was less about the memo’s contents and more about the fact that Barr wrote it. It seemed that was enough to get a lot of people riled up.
I think it was a smart move on Garland’s part. If Garland sticks to a policy a Trump official wrote, how can Republicans find fault with it? (Okay, Republicans will find fault with anything — but that’s why we can’t let what they say and do determine our actions — we have to be smarter than that.)
I never expected well-meaning, intelligent Democrats to be the ones to call for Garland to ignore the policy the second Trump started up with his usual grievance politics. I had hoped they had more discipline, but it seems they can’t see the proverbial forest for the trees.
Fortunately, AG Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray are holding firm, as they should. We should all know by now that any conversation the DOJ is drawn into will backfire. The only response Garland or anyone else at the DOJ should be giving about the so-called raid is “policy prohibits us from discussing this.”
It’s like having a stalker. The best advice is to refuse to engage. Period. Don’t give them any reason to expect a reaction of any kind. It’s also the surest way to end an argument — don’t argue.
If Rachel Maddow or anyone else feels entitled to more, they should ask Trump for the details. He knows everything.
Why do you think Trump is not sharing the search warrant with his supporters? Why is he hiding the inventory of the items taken from Mar-a-Lago? These are the questions we should be asking — instead of harassing Garland or Wray for information that they are required to keep confidential.
Trump’s claims of the “raid” as an attempt to publicly discredit him are hollow
Despite Trump’s claim that the search warrant was done to disgrace him publicly, it was Trump, not the DOJ, who announced the event. The FBI operated quietly, using non-uniformed operatives. No one from the government told anybody about this — it was Trump who made it public — and it was Trump who immediately began fund-raising from it.
Trump was given a copy of the search warrant and the inventory of items reclaimed by the FBI. Why is he not sharing this information?
It’s simple: Trump doesn’t want people to know the truth. The truth will incriminate him. If he can keep people guessing, he can prevent his followers from understanding what’s really happening.
The dominoes keep falling, and Trump is losing at every turn
Trump is battling the state of New York, where he was deposed yesterday. Contrary to his early claims that anyone taking the Fifth is a criminal, he took the Fifth for every question answered, save one. The only question he answered was his name.
And, of course, he is now stating that he had to take the Fifth because he is the victim of a political witch hunt.
Georgia is also investigating Trump for his call to their secretary of state, during which Trump pleaded with him to “find” the votes he needed to claim a win in Georgia during the 2020 election. The taped call is convincing evidence of his attempt to interfere with a free and fair election, so we have reason to expect this to lead to an indictment eventually.
In response, Trump is attempting to have the DA of Fulton County recalled — because it’s all her fault.
There are also other lawsuits in two separate counties in Georgia — both are to recoup from Trump for the costs incurred due to his false claims of election fraud.
As if that weren’t enough, we also know that AG Garland has begun investigating the fake elector scheme, which was the brainchild of John Eastman — whose cell phone was confiscated by the FBI earlier this year.
And it won’t stop here. With each case, we will see the same response from Trump. Every time Trump finds himself in trouble, he blames someone else. This is a man with no sense of personal responsibility. With each occurrence, he establishes himself on the losing side of yet another battle he will never win. Eventually, the list of his opponents will be so great there will be no one left to take the fall for him.
Once again, I am reminded of the prescient statement by David Jolly, former Republican, who said, “In the end, it will be Trump against everybody else.” Here’s hoping the end is near.
As of this writing, we are awaiting a statement from Attorney General Merrick Garland. It is in response to violence at the hands of a Trump supporter. He will not give details of the FBI’s search warrant.
Nor should he.