A Precedent and Not About January 6

First, prayers are appreciated. Today is scan day. If you know, you know.

Second, I’m not going to get into the “our Republic is over” stuff I see circulating on social media. The left thinks the right is a threat to democracy. The right thinks the left is a threat to the republic. The thing they all have in common is that they’re all on social media yelling at each other and actually do very little in their own local communities that is not political and partisan. They are not seeking the welfare of the communities in which they’re in exile because, you know, they’d have to actually get off Twitter and know people in their communities who aren’t plugged into their politics. Instead, they’re all obsessed with Washington, and I’m just not in the mood today.

If I’m wrong about all that and the republic is at an end, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our Lord stands forever.

Let’s just deal with what actually happened instead of screaming for our tribe.

𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘑. 𝘋𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘥 @StevenJDuffield

"But in these cases, we still have judgment here, that we but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague the inventor: this even-handed justice commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice to our own lips." -- Macbeth, Act I, Scene 7.

No former president has ever had his home raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation until Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago was raided yesterday. One can argue no president left office like Donald Trump, which is fair, but from the reporting we have so far, the raid had nothing to do with January 6th or any supposed effort to overthrow the government.

Undoubtedly, Attorney General Merrick Garland approved the raid. A federal magistrate would have had to see allegations related to evidence of a specific alleged federal crime. He would have had to see some level of specificity about the evidence expected to be found at the location. A federal magistrate is going to want more than a state court judge.

Regardless, Democrats have a long history of ignoring precedents they set. Donald Trump himself used and expanded precedents set by Barack Obama to advance his own agenda. For eight years, I warned Democrats they were setting precedents their Republican successors would not just use but expand.

Consequently, Hunter Biden probably should just go on and burn down his house and all his belongings today.

Additionally, Merrick Garland has just energized the base of the Republican Party and probably inspired Trump 2024 to get off the ground with a fundraising spectacular.

Press reports about Trump and legal trouble often turn out to be wrong or framed with so much Democrat spin as to be wrong. We’ve seen this for six years now, with stories settling into conventional wisdom only to be modified or revised in diametrically opposed ways. See, e.g., the Russia investigation and the clearing of Lafayette Park.

I have to make the caveat about the press reports because the initial reporting does tamp down on the fevered dreams of the Left. This is apparently not about January 6th. It is not about a purported threat to democracy. It is, instead, about classified documents at Mar-a-Lago that should have gone to the National Archives.

Raiding the home of a former president over the Presidential Records Act seems, at first glance, a bit much and is probably why Chuck Schumer seemed so uncomfortable and unwilling to talk about it on MSNBC last night. (Side note: is this the first time Chuck Schumer has not wanted to speak on a topic like this to criticize Trump?) This strikes me as really poor judgment based on what has so far been reported.

If what is reported is true, one wonders why the FBI conducted a raid instead of picking up a phone and making some calls. Were they worried about the possible destruction of documents? If so, why and what were the documents? And honestly, this doesn’t seem to be a very exciting issue other than the precedent set.

There are a lot of unanswered questions, some of which will be forthcoming and some of which will not be forthcoming.

Undoubtedly, Republicans in Congress who are already skeptical of the FBI will seek to defund it right after they defund the IRS. When House Republicans take back the House in November, there will be a full investigation of the matter.

Happening just a few months before a midterm election in which Democrats have desired to make Trump the issue just really appears to be poor judgment on the part of the FBI and Merrick Garland. It will understandably provoke many people to think partisanship and politics are at work. Again, I think this emboldens the base of the GOP and fires them up more than they already have been. If the documents are in a safe at Mar-a-Lago, they presumably will not be destroyed because they have not been already. That means they’d be there the day after the election too.

The bottom line, however, is that contrary to wish-casting from the left, this appears to have nothing to do with January 6th, but with the more mundane issue of classified documents being at Mar-a-Lago that should be in the National Archives. That’s not very titillating, but the precedent of the FBI raid will not be forgotten by Republicans moving forward.

Eli Lake @EliLake

If DoJ has the goods on Trump, then charge him. But raiding his home for a violation of the presidential records act on the anniversary of Nixon’s resignation smells like partisan bullshit and an abuse of power.

I suspect there was a better way for this to play out.

Lastly, if the FBI is brazen enough to set the precedent of raiding a former president’s home, good luck to you middle-class gig economy folks when the 87,000 new IRS agents come calling.

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