This should be simple. On its face, the armed raid on Mar-a-Largo appears to be a massive political blunder and a despicable and dangerous continuation of the progressive/Democratic Party effort to criminalize politics, especially when Donald Trump is the quarry…and that’s just if the early morning grandstanding was exactly what the Justice Department claims it was. It was still an excessive (and intentionally disrespectful) use of criminal law enforcement power against a political adversary of the government employing it, and therefore carries at very least the appearance of impropriety, which Justice Department officials are bound not to engage in.
As I already mentioned, it also shatters a core democratic norm, which when Trump was President, was pronounced as a terrifying and threatening thing by the Axis of Unethical Conduct along with their academic lackeys even when the norm being breached wasn’t a norm at all. This norm, however, is important. Once a government starts targeting political opponents, can Chile be far away?
We don’t know enough to go farther than that, but if this is accurate, from the New York Post…
Trump’s attorneys, led by Evan Corcoran, had been cooperating fully with federal authorities on the return of the documents to the National Archives and Records Administration, according to sources.
…then Merrick Garland and Sgt Biden Schultz (“I know nothing! NOTHING!”) have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.” (Is it mixing metaphors to allude to both “Hogan’s Heroes” and “I Love Lucy” in the same sentence?) Presumably, we’ll get the explanations, or some facsimile soon. We’d better.
Meanwhile, idle speculation and assumptions by both the Trump Defenders and the Trump Destroyers don’t help; in fact, they make things worse. A unshakeable left-wing lawyer who was once a Facebook friend (I believe he unfriended me) posted an astounding matter-of-fact characterization of the raid as simply the Justice Department doing its job. He does this as if the little details of it only being the latest in six years of government attempts to “Get Trump,” occurring, coincidentally, as a one-party show trial aimed at the former President has been going on for months and failing at its mission, while the wipe-out in the mid-terms Democrats are as desperate to avoid as they have been madly begging for loom ever-closer, are completely irrelevant. I wonder if he believes that. He probably does, because he is completely woke-wacky. I was going to point out the nonsensical aspects of his fantasy in response, and decided, “Why bother?”
It should be clear even to the Deranged that the FBI raid is an extension of the 2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck that launched the anti-democratic push to sabotage an elected President the Left deemed unworthy. But no. The raid and its fallout now risks turning into one of those offspring ETWs, like the Ferguson Ethics Train Wreck emerging from the Martin-Zimmerman disaster.
Here, the Trump defense brigade is getting way, way ahead of the facts, which are bad enough. Claims are being made—not by Trump or his lawyers, at least so far—that the FBI planted evidence during the search. This prompted the tweet by Dan Rather above, which is even more irresponsible than the claims of planted evidence.
Rather is pathetic, as we know. Only in a twisted environment where a disgraced old journalist can be treated with reverence—simply because he completely abandoned all pretense of objectivity and trustworthiness in exchange for partisan exploitation—would someone so tainted not have to supplement his pension by serving as a museum docent or something. That tweet is remarkable. The individuals directly affected by the raid haven’t made the planting of evidence accusation, so it isn’t one of their “defenses.” It is far from certain that a defense is necessary, though the Justice Department better be able to defend its actions. The gratuitous evidence-planting claim can’t be called the “only defense” because there may be others, again, if any defense is ever necessary.
Meanwhile, what “damning evidence”? Rather is either speculating while misrepresenting what he knows, withholding facts from the public, or, as is overwhelmingly likely, just pandering to the Trump Deranged mob. That’s how he makes his living, after all.
Doesn’t Dan know that “I’m not a lawyer but…” is translated as “I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about”? Although, to be fair, Dan does know something about planting phony evidence…
The wildly premature “they planted evidence” claims (by people who don’t matter) managed to trigger an even more intellectually dishonest response than Dan’s, amazingly enough. This arrived in the Politico magazine, courtesy of Chuck Rosenberg, a former United States Attorney and senior FBI official. His argument, believe it or not, is “How dare anyone accuse the FBI of illegal or unethical conduct?”
I’m temped to let that one just sit there, exploding heads coast to coast.
I do not understand how anyone could make that argument, after the culture created by the bureau’s founder, J. Edgar Hoover, after COINTELPRO, the FBI’s systematic and illegal targeting of civil rights leaders, after the unethical leaking by Mark Felt, aka. “Deep Throat,” because he was angry about not getting the top job, after Comey, after the FISA fiasco, after the texts between former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, after the revelations about the Steele Dossier. Hey, why wouldn’t we trust the FBI?
Why would we trust the FBI?
Ethics Alarms 
“(Is it mixing metaphors to allude to both ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ and ‘I Love Lucy’ in the same sentence?)”
Yes.
Is mixing those metaphors O.K.?
HELL YES!
Jack, don’t you know you can’t call it a “raid?” Eg. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/e2-80-98the-opposite-of-a-raid-e2-80-99/ar-AA10wJ51
That post went out of date fast…
Typos: “progressive? Democratic Party” and 2106. Though at the rate we’re going, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ETW goes for that long.
Thanks. Fixed. “In the Year 21O6…”
“… if man is still alive.”
I love the way the AUC keeps saying “ongoing investigation” as if it’s some sort of mantra or scapula or holy water or magic fairy dust to ward off evil spirits. When did the left become so enamored of the FBI? Is it because J. Edgar was purportedly a cross dresser? I thought all law enforcement is racist and heteronormative and oppressive. Except the DOJ and the FBI? They’re not bastards?
So, a journalist involved in publicizing and defending fabricated evidence against a Republican president to influence an election is saying that no one would ever fabricate evidence against a Republican president to influence an election? Uh huh….
But …. “Nuclear documents”!!!!
Well this should bolster the FBI’s reputation.
The summary of events in chronological order.
(1) The FBI uses a private safe-deposit box company as a ‘honey pot’ to catch criminals.
(2) It turns out, almost no criminals are using the company and the scheme is a waste of time.
(3) The FBI decides to seize the company and use asset forfeiture to make the endeavor look like a success.
(4) They draw up a plan to seize the company, open all the safe-deposit boxes, and steal every box that contains over $5000 (the statutory minimum for asset forfeiture). They don’t even know who owns the boxes and they definitely don’t have any evidence of criminal activity.
(5) They tell a federal magistrate that they are only interested in the the company that runs the business, not the boxes, and will inventory each safe deposit box and return the contents to the owner (note that this is what laymen call a ‘baldfaced lie’).
(6) The warrant is granted, but the FBI is specifically not allowed to search the boxes for criminal offenses, just to identify the owners.
(7) The FBI searches the boxes under the pretense of finding the owners. However, they search boxes that have the owner’s name, address, and next of kin on a piece of paper taped to them. They copy all documents they find; wills, lists of passwords, legal records, etc and put them in to federal databases.
(8) They seized over $100 million in cash, precious metals, and jewelry and refuse to give it back.
I’m sure this will make people much more trusting of the FBI.
I don’t know if this or the police department that was pulling over armored cars to seize all the ‘suspicious cash’ inside is a more brazen use of asset forfeiture. At least the previous one didn’t rely on lying to federal judges to get warrants and then violating those warrants anyway.
Speaking of appearance of impropriety…
I wrote in my Appearance of Impropriety blog post at noon yesterday that…
I also wrote…
This shit is spiraling into a really dark place.