When you’re attacking FBI agents because you’re under criminal investigation, you’re losing.
-Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Twitter, November 3, 2016
Make your move and plead the Fifth, cause ya can’t plead the First
-Rage Against the Machine, “Down Rodeo”
So, after almost years of everyone wondering if the Justice Department under the Biden Administration would ever see fit to seriously investigate the accidental President Donald Trump, this Monday, August 8, around 7 pm, Trump took to his shrunken media platform to wail that the FBI had gone through his place at Mar-a-Lago, including his safe.
Let me go over several points that have already been made in the media: Any such search had to be approved by a judge, and judges are loath to do so, especially where such a subject is concerned, if they are not convinced it is absolutely necessary. There had already been a subpoena earlier that Trump and his staff had complied with, but the government had reason to believe that Trump had not fully complied. Most notably, it is legally required that for any search or takings to occur, the subject must be presented with the search warrant explaining the details of the action. Meaning, Donald Trump could have explained at any time what the subject of the search warrant was and the details he was presented.
It should also be noted that the reason Trump himself was not in Florida to make an even bigger scene in person is that he had to fly back to New York this week for a completely different investigation by the State of New York into the Trump Organization’s finances. Which led to even more Schadenfreude when Donald had to take the stand and pleaded the Fifth Amendment at least 440 times on questions, with the possible exception of answering his name. If I were the prosecutor I would have used the opportunity to hit him with questions like “What was Beethoven’s most famous Symphony?”, “How much bourbon does Rudy Giuliani have before making an important decision?” and “What fraction of brain power do you use compared to the average person?”
Liberals of course had a big laugh fest over that, since during the 2016 campaign and afterward, Trump loved to make fun of Democrats in legal jeopardy, saying “you see the Mob takes the Fifth, if you’re innocent, why would you take the Fifth Amendment?” Well, on Wednesday, Trump addressed that very point: “I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?’ Now I know the answer to that question. When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”
You know, fair enough. That IS a Constitutional right. We often refer to the Sun Tzu quote that one does not interrupt the enemy when he is in the process of making a mistake, and according to Trump, he pleaded the Fifth on the advice of counsel, which would be a rare occasion of Trump taking the advice of counsel or interrupting himself in the process of making a mistake. I also do not want to make much of anyone pleading the Fifth because in any jury trial, jurors are not allowed to take a subject’s lack of testimony as evidence against them. But then again: By definition, if you ARE innocent, why do you need to plead the Fifth? That legally can’t be used against you in a court of law, but Trump doesn’t want to engage in the court of law, but in the court of public opinion.
Because of course, Trump used the search as a basis for fundraising, cause Trump can and WILL make ANYTHING a basis for fundraising.
And of course Trump is presenting himself as the poor, persecuted, political victim of the globalists/deep state/Lizard People/Eternal Jew.
And while a few weeks ago people supposedly thought Trump’s power in the Republican Party was slipping, this attack on The Boss brought all of the “conservative” leaders out to make louder and louder professions of faith.
You had the usual suspects like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (BR.-Georgia) scream-tweeting “DEFUND THE FBI!” Orange Lives Matter!!
Then you had some of the other Banana Republican Fox News stars taking time off of their side gigs in Congress to offer their own takes. Like, Senator Rand Paul (BR.-Kentucky) speculating that maybe the FBI used the opportunity to plant evidence on Trump. So, apparently Trump is Brittney Griner?
These apparatchiks spread their rumors and slanders not knowing (or caring) that Trump’s cultists have even less intellect and emotional control that he does, and for some sudden unexplained reason, this Thursday a man attacked the Cincinnati FBI office with a nail gun before getting chased down and shot. Apparently the suspect was one of the people who joined in the January 6 riot. What are the odds?
So all this helped lead to Attorney General Merritt Garland’s decision to do what the Trump Pity Party and Beltway media have been nagging him to do all week, and make a statement explaining himself. In a brief press conference in Washington, Garland confirmed that he had authorized the search, and had furthermore filed a request in court to unseal the search warrant. At this point it would be Trump’s choice to either allow the unsealing or contest it, which would immediately raise the question of why the alleged victim of government abuse would want to do that.
In other words, put up or shut up, Donnie.
All the liberals (prior to Monday) were asking why Garland had seemed so scared of making an open move on Trump even knowing what we knew just after January 6. Well, this is why. Because everybody’s second guessing what he did. And part of that is the idea that the former president deserves some benefit of the doubt, which normally would be the case. The problem is that it is no longer the case that Trump or anybody in his Party can be taken in good faith on anything, but they are now taking advantage of the false impression that there are still two parties that are equally committed to the former American system of government.
There are some people who think that the Justice Department should have been more forthcoming about this search so as not to muddy the issue, but they don’t seem to grasp the point that muddying the issue is what Republicans DO. If Trump sprained his ankle at noon, by 5 pm Jesse Watters and all the Fox News goombas would be screaming and hollering that Hillary Clinton and George Soros made him do it.
Once again, I am reminded of an incident involving the old hair-metal band W.A.S.P., led by bassist and “singer” Blackie Lawless. Blackie would pose on posters with a spandex costume and a codpiece with a buzzsaw blade coming out of it, and on stage, he would frequently arm the codpiece with various explosive rockets so that they would fire off of his groin during the set. Well, one show, the explosive charges misfired and exploded inside the codpiece, leaving Blackie with screaming pain and a seriously burned crotch, as happens in these situations. And his bandmates came to visit him in the hospital, with the bandages on his crotch, and his guitarist told him, “y’know, Blackie, we wouldn’t have to do these gimmicks if we could just write better songs.”
Trump is like Blackie Lawless’ burned crotch, except less photogenic. If his Party could write better songs, they wouldn’t be where they are, but they are where they are, because they can’t. You would think, after Trump lost an election, after he got caught on tape telling the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” enough votes to switch the results, after he sent a mob to kill his own Vice President, after the January 6 committee summer sessions, the people in the Republican Party who know better, like Mitch McConnell, would, finally, FINALLY, be able to get rid of Edward Babyhands, but they still can’t. Because Trump is much more like the real Republican Party than people like McConnell. And if they had the imagination or spirit to pick someone better than him, they would have by now.
But that’s the other reason you don’t just make a move on Donald Trump just for the sake of doing it. You have this whole cult that pretends to represent everybody in America who’s not a Democrat or socialist, and we’ve seen what they try to do when reality doesn’t go their way. It goes back to the line, “You aim at the king, you best not miss.” The Department of Justice didn’t have to investigate Trump. They could have just done what Gerald Ford and the rest of the political establishment did with Richard Nixon after Watergate, just given him a slap on the wrist to let the country “heal.” Of course, the pardon of Nixon did not actually help the nation move on, it just created the public precedent that the President of the United States IS in fact above the law, that if the President does it, it’s NOT illegal, that a politician can be “too big to fail” and treating him like a common criminal would supposedly be a worse standard than not doing so, and therefore if you’re a career swindler who is fundamentally opposed to honesty and integrity, getting elected president is the best way to make your conduct literally unimpeachable.
Either we nip this in the bud now, or it gets worse. And if it gets much worse than this, the United States may make Putin’s Russia look like Utopia.
But then there’s just SO MUCH that Trump could be investigated for. Let’s see…
Serial adulterer who has been accused of rape at least once, and admitted to spying on contestants’ dressing rooms at the Miss America pageants he managed (one of these being Miss Teen USA), who was also a former confidant of Jeffrey Epstein, whose sex slavery crimes have never been fully investigated cause he died in suspicious circumstances,
During the 2016 campaign, openly begged Russia to release Hillary Clinton’s emails, and by another one of those magical coincidences, the very same day (according to the Mueller Report) Russian hackers attempted to probe email accounts at a domain used by a Clinton campaign office. During the same period, the Trump campaign actively worked with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to release emails from John Podesta and other Clinton associates. Assange is currently imprisoned in the United Kingdom and fighting the extradition process to be sent to the United States over the accusations against him,
As President, had a secret meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov – hours after firing FBI head James Comey over an investigation of Russian interference on his behalf in the election – allegedly providing Top Secret information including the details of a planned operation against Islamic State in Syria, in the process potentially exposing an Israeli intelligence asset,
As President, frequently hosted events at Mar-a-Lago, frequently holding discussions with diplomats and heads of state in public earshot. In one incident a Chinese national attempted to enter the property and was searched by Secret Service agents and found to have a thumb drive with malicious malware,
According to the January 6 congressional investigation, Trump Organization Chief of Staff Mark Meadows burned documents after a conversation with Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Scott Perry. Perry was one of the Pennsylvania politicians willing to press the strategy that Pennsylvania’s 2020 vote needed to be contested and thrown out in favor of Trump. Perry has acknowledged that he introduced Trump to Jeffrey Clark, and advocated for him to become the next Attorney General to push the election fraud allegations. This week, shortly after the Mar-a-Lago search, federal officials served another warrant to take Congressman Perry’s phone…
So if this search means that the DOJ is doing a serious criminal investigation against Trump, what exactly is Merritt Garland going to charge him with?
I’m sure he can think of something.