Remarkably, FBI agents raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this Monday in connection to an investigation at the Justice Department into the handling of records from the Trump administration after Donald left office.
The National Archives, which is a federal agency responsible for record-keeping, previously stated it discovered classified material in over a dozen boxes of White House records that it recovered from Mar-a-Lago after the overall stash was improperly taken to the property. The agency subsequently referred the matter to the Justice Department, which began a grand jury investigation into the issue. As could be expected, the Trumps weren’t exactly thrilled. Although there’s no real-world indication that the process leading up to and including the search of Mar-a-Lago involved anything other than well-supported and carefully executed (even if rare) law enforcement practice, Trump and key figures around him swiftly began characterizing the raid as some kind of savage political assault.
“Biden’s out of control DOJ is ripping this country apart with how they’re openly targeting their political enemies,” Donald Trump Jr. tweeted Monday. “This is what you see happen in 3rd World Banana Republics!!!” Exemplifying his mindset, Don Jr. also retweeted a message reading: “This is an actual threat to democracy. Weaponizing law enforcement against political enemies of the people in power is something that happens in third world countries. The FBI is nothing more than the brownshirts of the Biden regime and all they want is to stop Trump from running.” There’s simply no real-world evidence that the powers of the U.S. government were “weaponized” against “political enemies” on the basis of those opponents’ political affiliation. It’s just not there. The FBI agents who conducted the search of the former president’s Florida resort only acted after a process likely including judicial approval and the support of high-ranking department figures. (Judicial approval is required.)
Because Trump is, well, Trump, does that mean he’s supposed to be considered above the same law that applies to everyone else? Does Trump’s political stature mean he can’t face consequences for potentially mishandling national security secrets? For a current or former government figure to somehow evade even the potential for basic accountability would be far more troubling in terms of the impact on democracy than a raid of the sort that happens frequently around the country. According to reporting from The New York Times, the search was angled at least in part towards seeing whether records that should’ve been provided to federal record-keeping authorities were still at the Trump property. Trump, of course, was personally furious: “The political persecution of President Donald J. Trump has been going on for years, with the now fully debunked Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and so much more, it just never ends. It is political targeting at the highest level!”
Biden's out of control DOJ is ripping this country apart with how they're openly targeting their political enemies.
This is what you see happen in 3rd World Banana Republics!!! https://t.co/tNIsinyutr
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 8, 2022
