After the FBI search for classified records at former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, his chorus of sycophants kept singing the same tune: The search was unnecessary. The government should have just asked him to return the documents. Trump had declassified them anyway. But new court filings devastate each of those arguments. The public should insist that those who lambasted law enforcement in their eagerness to defend Trump before any facts were known explain where they stand now.
Immediately after Trump announced Aug. 8 that his Mar-a-Lago resort was “under siege, raided and occupied” by the FBI, the usual suspects leapt to his defense. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a U.S. Senate candidate, vowed to “take a wrecking ball” to the Department of Justice. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., insisted that, “at a minimum,” Attorney General Merrick Garland “must resign or be impeached.”
These and other Republican responses were unleashed before there was virtually any information available about the peaceful, court-approved search (not “raid” or “siege”). Their rhetoric may well have contributed to a rash of death threats against FBI officials. So much for the “law and order” party.
