Did the FBI get played by Trump on its raid of Mar-a-Lago? So far, it looks a lot like it did.
By Gary Abernathy
On Mar-a-Lago raid, Trump may have played feds to a T
As everyone knows, the FBI conducted a search of former President Donald Trump’s residence on Monday. There’s an updated story above by ABC news.
The best reporting so far on the raid of Mar-a-Lago has come from Newsweek. The headline of the piece is somewhat misleading, focusing on the claim that an inside informer helped the feds know where to look for documents. Even if true, the most interesting and newsworthy information in the story was about how the feds hoped to go in, get what they wanted, and get out without any public notice.
Newsweek is basing its reporting on interviews with two senior government officials “who have direct knowledge of the FBI's deliberations and were granted anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters…”
FBI decision-makers in Washington and Miami thought that denying the former president a photo opportunity or a platform from which to grandstand (or to attempt to thwart the raid) would lower the profile of the event, says one of the sources, a senior Justice Department official who is a 30-year veteran of the FBI.
The effort to keep the raid low-key failed: instead, it prompted a furious response from GOP leaders and Trump supporters. "What a spectacular backfire," says the Justice official.
"I know that there is much speculation out there that this is political persecution, but it is really the best and the worst of the bureaucracy in action," the official says. "They wanted to punctuate the fact that this was a routine law enforcement action, stripped of any political overtones, and yet [they] got exactly the opposite."
I have no doubt it was intended to be a “routine law enforcement action” without all the ominous legal results for Trump that his passionate opponents across the mainstream media are saying it could mean. The Justice Department, FBI and the National Archives just wanted to retrieve documents they believe belong to the government and not to Trump. Months of discussions with Trump and his lawyers have gone nowhere, so the feds finally got a warrant from a judge allowing them to go in and get them. Barring any surprises in the documents they retrieved, it’s doubtful they intend to follow up with any charges against Trump.
Somehow, they didn’t count on Trump doing what was completely predictable — playing the victim card. It was Trump who took it upon himself to announce the raid, which allowed him to take control of the narrative — a narrative that was parroted by GOP allies across the media spectrum.
I was interviewed by the BBC Tuesday evening and discussed the mistake of allowing Trump to control the message in this situation.
Trump not only got out front with the messaging, he was fundraising off of it within hours, and before long there were even people completely opposed to Trump, like Andrew Yang, who were criticizing the raid.
I wouldn’t put it past Trump to have anticipated the raid. (And yes, it was a raid, even if the FBI doesn’t like the term. As legal as it no doubt was, showing up uninvited with a warrant to come into a home and search for documents is still a raid.) Trump may well have decided to force the feds’ hand by refusing to budge on handing over more documents, knowing they would eventually do what they did on Monday. Was it a coincidence that his safe was apparently empty? Do you think he always keeps it empty? The agents apparently left with several boxes, but it will be surprising if anything too newsworthy or sensitive is found in them. I could be wrong.
For me, it’s too soon to call this a politicized raid by a weaponized Justice Department. I want to see what they came away with. But these things can be politicized and vengeful. When I was still with The Times-Gazette in Hillsboro, Ohio, I covered a highly politicized investigation on the local level of Mayor Drew Hastings in 2015 and 2016. Hastings was a well-known comedian who had become Hillsboro mayor in 2012 and upset the status quo in the process. For casual reading, here are links to three things— a news story I did at the time on a raid of the mayor’s residence, my follow-up commentary on that raid and my story on his acquittal.
https://www.timesgazette.com/news/5534/search-warrant-served-on-mayors-hillsboro-home
https://www.timesgazette.com/opinion/5526/drews-father-in-law-visits-hillsboro
https://www.timesgazette.com/news/11351/2-counts-dismissed-hastings-case-goes-to-jury
And here’s a follow-up Associated Press story a few months later by AP reporter Dan Sewell on Hillsboro’s “lost year.”
https://www.mymcmurray.com/2017/03/04/small-town-led-by-comedian-tries-to-recover-from-lost-year/
Hastings recently wrote a memoir about it all, as well as other aspects of his unconventional life.
Parallels between Hastings on the local level and Trump on the national level have always been striking. Time will tell how serious this turns out to be for Trump. For now, he hardly seems surprised by any of it and he’s playing it to his complete advantage. As the source in the Newsweek story said, so far the Mar-a-Lago raid was “a spectacular backfire.”
Mueller’s fate a cautionary tale for Merrick Garland
It was by complete coincidence that I had written a Washington Post column posted early Monday morning advising Attorney General Merrick Garland to be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the two-year investigation by Robert Mueller into the notion of “Russian collusion” repeatedly claimed by Donald Trump’s enemies. That same morning, the feds raided Mar-a-Lago.
As I had written in my Post piece, rather than relentlessly try to find something on which to charge Trump…
“The better course for everyone — including Democrats — would be to lower expectations rather than subject the nation to a months-long overdose of media conjecture based on a murky brew of leaks and background reporting, as happened during the Mueller investigation.”
Of course, the Mar-a-Lago raid has resulted in another “overdose of media conjecture based on a murky brew of leaks and background reporting.”
In Ohio, underdog Tim Ryan has reasons to play to win
In my new Post piece out today, I note that despite those who believe Ohio has become a solidly red state, there are still reasons to think otherwise.
Just before Trump — who drew atypical voters — Ohioans twice voted for Obama. And Republicans’ statehouse and congressional dominance likely owes more to the GOP’s control of redistricting than to a lopsided party preference among voters. In fact, as of last October (the most recent figures available) registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans, although Ohio’s method of party identification — based on participation in primaries — is misleading.
In the race between Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Ryan for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Rob Portman (R), Vance should win — but Ryan has plenty of reasons to believe a few things could tip it his way.
To keep Democrats enthused, there are frequent comparisons of Ryan with Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat serving his third term in the Senate. Brown has consistently bucked the state’s Republican trend, and Ryan is clearly trying to follow in Brown’s blue-collar, borderline-populist footsteps. Ryan’s a natural people person, a contrast to Vance’s more elitist persona despite his humble roots. But Brown’s success was bolstered by the good fortune of running in strong years for national Democrats — 2006, 2012 and 2018. And Brown’s last two races were against particularly uninspiring opponents, including Josh Mandel in 2012, who was the GOP front-runner this year until Trump endorsed Vance.
And instead of focusing like a laser on inflation, Republicans are tripping over themselves to cause unforced errors.
Also in Ryan’s favor is the GOP doing and promising to do things few voters really want, from pledging revenge investigations to Republican-controlled state legislatures overplaying their hands on abortion to a Republican senator even suggesting that Medicare and Social Security should be subject to annual renewal.
It’s hard to escape Facebook even when you try
On a personal note, I closed down my Facebook account several months ago. But it turns out, escaping its reach is not that easy.
On Tuesday, I started getting texts from friends wishing me a happy birthday. Then, my wife Lora told me that some Facebook feeds were being populated with people wishing me the same.
Very nice. Except my birthday is several months removed from August.
Turns out, someone — not sure who — had reposted some pictures which included me from decades ago, along with a repost of a “Happy Birthday” message. Others, thinking it was new, began sending along their good wishes.
It’s very nice to receive good wishes from friends and acquaintances. It’s also aggravating when Facebook interjects itself into your life even when you’ve closed down your Facebook account.
My sister told me yesterday that she had received a Facebook message advising her to update my birthday. Next time I go to renew a driver’s license or prove my date of birth, I won’t be surprised if I have to argue about it with someone looking me up and telling me that Facebook says I’m wrong. That is our world today.
Happy Thursday, everyone! Unless Facebook says it’s Tuesday, of course.
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Wow, Gary, I almost feel bad criticizing your terrible arguments after finding out about how difficult you find something as boomer-friendly as facebook.