Monday, August 15, 2022

Trump Uses Same Failed Excuse In Attempt To Get Documents Back

If you had not been living under a rock these last two weeks then you would know that twice-impeached former President Donald Trump had his Florida golf resort and home raided by the FBI in an attempt to retrieve over a dozen boxes of classified documents Trump took with him when he left office. 

This unprecedented move by the FBI shouldn’t have come as a surprise. In February the National Archives picked up fifteen boxes of documents from Trump’s home. The Department of Justice was also seeking more documents and communicating with Trump’s lawyers to ensure there were none left. While Donald Trump insists that this raid was totally unfair because he was “cooperating,” keep in mind that his own legal team signed off saying there were no more classified documents, reportedly an informant tipped off the FBI that there were more documents that Trump and his team did not give back to the government. Trump may claim that he was cooperating because the department requested he get a lock and Trump complied, but that seemed more like the government having a suspicion there were classified and top secret documents in an unsecured facility and they wanted to make sure they were protected while they continued the legal process of getting them back, which they had been doing with a subpoena that Trump ignored. 

This led to the raid. Attorney General Merrick Garland tried to not make the raid a spectacle. They waited for Trump to be out of town, operated quickly and professionally, and did not create a media presence, like when former FBI director James Comey made a press release prior to an election that he was reopening an investigation into former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. That leads to another complaint from Republicans- that a raid against a former president (who is not running for any political office at the moment) was too close to an election. The FBI followed current guidelines and waited before their self-imposed restrictions. 

Trump and his allies have had a rotating barrage of attacks and excuses, ranging from he didn’t know what he took, he gave a blanket declassification to anything he touched, to now the tried and failed attorney-client privileged documents and executive privileged documents. 

Considering he had been shot down on the executive privilege front numerous times, as a previous judge stated he was no longer president nor king, one could assume he and his legal team is prepping some kind of delay tactic by throwing everything and the kitchen sink at the courts. Compared to how the justice department spent months of negotiations, a subpoena, and a raid, one would suspect Trump would make an equally formal and official attempt, right?

Wrong.

Trump made a post on his knock off Facebook software where he was requesting his privileged documents back. Meanwhile Republicans still seek a narrative that sticks and while they do they continue to fan the flames of violence with their rhetoric. The party of “back the blue” is now calling to defund the FBI or repeal the Espionage Act because their leader got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and doesn’t want to let go of the cookie.