Republicans have gone all in on their gigantic hissy fit over the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. In one sense, of course, this isn't surprising: the hissy fit has been the defining characteristic of the Republican Party ever since Newt Gingrich invented it in the '90s and and Fox News perfected it in the aughts.
At the same time, this is a particularly instructive case since literally no one has any idea what the FBI search was about. Classified document handling? Maybe. But we haven't seen the warrant. Or the application for the warrant. Or the judge's approval. Or any of the FBI work product leading up to it. Or anything. The FBI could be investigating Trump for anything from shoplifting to serial murder for all we know.
In other words, we know—for a fact—that the Republican hissy fit is based on absolutely nothing. It's just a reflex designed to work the refs, and we can only hope that this time around the refs (i.e., the media) don't fall for it. Republicans should get no extra coverage for their claims just because they're united and loud. They should get coverage if they have actual evidence to back up their complaints.¹
¹I feel like this should go without saying, but I mean real evidence, not the daily drip of dimwitted, context-less snippets that Republicans perfected during the Obama administration (Solyndra, Fast & Furious, the IRS, Benghazi, Hillary's emails, etc.).
These idiots are just begging the September Jan 6 hearings to be complete bombshells. Those who play with fire get burned, says the fortune cookie. 😉
i really hope they get into the alex jones phone texts and emails
Unfortunately Jones was too smart to not have erased anything to do with Jan. 6.
your estimate of jone's intelligence exceeds mine. but also, digital forensics can do some amazing things. deleted isn't always deleted.
In fairness, a former President has never before had his home searched by FBI agents. OTOH, no other President in history has tried to overturn the results of an election, so maybe, just maybe, Trump and his Presidency and post election behavior are sui generis. That's the part all those Gingrinches out there want to shuffle past as quickly as possible.
Nor, for that matter, has there been abundant and credible evidence of a president’s deep, long-standing connections to organized crime and money laundering. Neither has a president avoided prosecution for obstruction of justice based on the justice department’s theory that Republican presidents are functionally the physical embodiment of the state and thus are above the law.
+1
FYI, Mar-a-Lago may be Trump's residence, but it is by no reasonable definition his "home." It's a big club people pay thousands of dollars a year to belong to, he eats all his meals in public in the restaurant, etc. He surely has a suite of rooms there, but so do a fair number of his customers.
I think Kevin is missing fully half the equation here.
Those refs have been worked so hard for so long that a failure by the Republicans to do so would leave them adrift and uneasy, unable to complete a thought.
How can any Objective Reporter of Fact finish an article if one half of the required inputs fail to voice an opinion?
You know who has some actual documentation that could start to clear things up? Trump and the papers he was given for the warrant. Shocked that doesn't seem to be happening...
It will, right after he gets his taxes out...
😊😊😊
The rightwing is full of absurd comments about Biden - not trump - "weaponizing" the FBI & DoJ.
The worst is that people like Mike Pence & Andrew Yang are condeming the action which most of us suspect has been long delayed by an abundance of caution, partly due to concern for thoroughness & partly justifiable by fear of the absolutely phony reaction of such people on the right.
Still wondering how the Democratic Party ever had two ridiculously illiberal people campaigning for the nomination to represent our party in the last presidential election. Tulsi Gabbard & Andrew Yang were just interlopers.
Like all third party candidates, Andrew Yang is a narcissistic asshole. I don’t think he wants to actively do evil, but he’s too stupid to realize he’s an evil-enabler (like much of the tech bro and venture capital bro classes).
Remember when Starbuck's CEO Howard Schultz put himself forward as the person who could fix our country? He was excoriated in the Seattle press, as his only public achievement of note was to buy the Seattle Supersonics, failed miserably to work with the state legislature to get support for a new arena, then got pissed off and sold the team to the stinkin Okies. Narcissism is when you are one of the most despised local leaders and you still think you can win an election.
andrew yang has revealed himself as a monstrous asshole since his presidential bid. probably before that but i wasn't paying enough attention.
It's worth pointing out to one's Republican friends the inconsistency in going ballistic over HER EMAILZZZ!!! that may possibly have contained information that later events rendered "classified" but were not when sent ... and defending the former guy's taking innumerable CLEARLY classified, marked and backed Top Secret documents off to his golf resort retirement home.
And just to be clear, Hillary turned all the documents she was supposed to turn over, over. People tried to make hay of the fact that they had been stored on a private server, but there was never any serious evidence that she had some super secret stash of incriminating emails -- about, who knows, whatever -- on there. It looks like Trump *literally* had a private stash of classified documents he was trying to hide at Mar-a-Lago.
I am getting more and more convinced that the republicans are judging themselves on how intense their REACTION is to events rather than taking action themselves
They REACT to HRC's email scandal and the reaction was so bad and so blatantly wrong they just let it go rather than face the music
Their thoughts and prayers over mass murders with guns have turned into outright lies about the cause of so many deaths
They ratchet up the lies when they know they've lost
They complain about cancel culture but want to defund the federal police (FBI).
Sure you could say its getting way too much press - and it is compared to Watergate which came out in drips and an occasional bombshell. I don't think any of us has quite gotten used to the 24 hour news cycle yet.
Look a federal judge had to sign off on the warrant based upon evidence of wrong doing. The DoJ and FBI KNOW how this would be publicized and dissected. I don't think they would have taken this step UNLESS they had credible evidence to support the warrant request.
Now Pompeo wants to talk to the committee?
Carlson is worried about leaked text messages he sent to Alex Jones?
And Hannity went from Assistant Chief of Staff to Chief of Has-beens in 2 short years?
They went from "he pulled back his attempted bunt" to "holy cow he took a rip at that one and missed it by a mile." (RIP Vin Scully)
The republicans over reaction to everything is really hurting their cause(s)
It's ironic, too, because, to be frank, the vast majority of FBI and staff DOJ people are probably stalwart Republicans and a good number were no doubt hearty Trump supporters as well. These guys almost always come from the ranks of the military and/or other police agencies and aren't exactly dfh's. And here they are doing their jobs, probably with some reluctance, and all they get are 180-decibel shrieks to put them all up against the wall. Yeah, well played Republicans. Well played.
Well it COULD be that this is all a distraction from the fact that Trump lost in Federal Appeals court today and has to turn over his taxes to Congress.
Completely over shadowed by the FBI raid along with Biden signing the CHIPs Act
Some of my friends are republicans. Just about all of them have now fallen into the Mitt Romney, Chris Christie camp and are resigned to the fact that most of the GOP pols in DC are really going off the deep end over Trump and they KNOW what that will do to the republican party
They actually want Trump to have a medical episode and NOT RUN. Or simply die. The second is now preferred as no one who decides to run will have to adjust their platform to seek Trumps endorsement. This might actually lead to someone having an actual platform to run on.
If they can find someone
My reasons are diametrically opposed to Romney type Republicans but we can agree - I want Trump dead too. Maybe choking on a Big Mac. That would be fitting.
Still waiting for Trump to release the warrant for the public to see. He'll never release it. He does not want Americans, specifically conservatives, to see what the FBI actually seized.
Probably something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh6kbQnOAg4
The giant Big Mac wrapper he gets Russian escorts to dress up in.
I’m rooting for violence in response to the harassment of trump. You know it’s going to happen eventually. Bring it on. Either we let trump win and they attack us or we fight to keep him from winning… and they attack us anyway. It’s a foregone conclusion.
Clearly you do not have children.
I think trump should have been arrested months ago, convicted of treason and given the death penalty. But I guess you all are afraid his supporters. So your fears give him free reign to terrorize your children. Good luck with that.
Justin is just an amoral asshole. Ignore his sociopathic ignorant trolling.
“ The FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago on Monday has galvanized the American right, raising the prospect that Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican party could strengthen at a time when the former president had been losing it.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/09/trump-republican-party-influence-fbi-raid
It doesn’t matter what happens, it always makes them stronger.
FBI just seized Scott Perry's phone. It appears various investigations are culminating before the midterm election.
Trump has a copy of the warrant. He can tell us anytime he wants.
McConnell seems to be holding his tongue. I suppose he doesn't to look a fool when the contents of the warrant app are revealed.
McConnell and a good portion of the GOP establishment want somebody…..anybody…to rid themselves of Trump so long as it isn’t them.
Pretty much everything Republicans shout about is based on nothing. That doesn't stop them from shouting and it doesn't stop the press/media from treating it like the most important thing in the world.
Was the FBI inspired to act now by something Chunky l'Orange was blathering on about at his Saudi golf tournament?
There must have been a lot of Saudis there. How much did they really cough up for it, --enough to, you know, merit a special gift?
He may well have kept classified documents in that safe or somewhere in his office at "Mar-A-Lardo". When the archives department was cateloging the documents he initially took from the White House, they may have noticed a few of them missing. He may have kept them in the safe but chances are also good he tore them up and tried to flush them down the toilet. There's prescedent for it.
I know it's "Largo" but I like saying "Mar-A-Lardo"
The volume of the histrionics emanating from Fox certainly suggests rumors that the Murdochs have abandoned Trump are greatly exaggerated.
LOCK HIM UP!!!
If he is innocent what is he so pissed off and worried about?
Trump sold US military intelligence to China.
Fwiw, China was behind delaying the chip bill via McConnell as well.
America's greatest export, Steven Seagall, tours Ukraine for Russian TV,
https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2022/08/09/steven-seagal-appears-in-ukraine-serving-as-a-russian-spokesperson/
Within a few hours of the FBI’s Monday raid on former president Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, leading Republicans made very clear where they stand. In an effort by federal law enforcement to investigate and possibly prosecute the former president, some of the party’s most prominent elected officials would side with Trump against the rule of law, against any sort of deference to the FBI, Attorney General, or Department of Justice, and quite possibly against holding him legally accountable at all.
Hence my gloomy tweet from Monday night aimed at all the giddy Democrats in my feed: “None of you has the slightest clue how bad this is gonna get.”
https://damonlinker.substack.com/p/america-is-already-failing-the-trump
He’s right. While you all stare at charts and graphs… the table is being set for the overthrow of the US government. Will Biden and congressional democrats survive a Republican takeover of congress in 2023? And I don’t mean political survival. Good luck.