Suddenly, news screens throughout our land are flooding us with new fears. Once again, it feels like we may be trapped in a reoccurring national nightmare that threatens to divide us and shatter our democracy.
It all seems frightening, yet familiar – like a melding of the shocking violence of Jan. 6 and the looping lunacy of Groundhog Day.
Except this week our news screens seemed to have become de facto radios. No videos of shocking violence against our government’s protectors of law and order. Just words of anger, attacking our government’s law and order protectors – and inciting violence against them from the most easy-to-stampede militants in our midst. Those inflammatory words gushed from our news screens all week – all spoken by Famous Name Republicans. The famous names of what we once hailed as the party of law and order attacked the U.S. law and order establishment for having done something awful at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
There could be no pictures of those horrible things the Republican leaders so vehemently denounced – because they made it all up. The Famous Name Republicans who rushed to attack this week didn’t wait to find out the truth about what really happened down there. They just heard the accusations made by the leader and perpetual liar they inexplicably still follow: defeated President Donald Trump. Why? Because they fear his wrath. Also, they think that’s how they can retake the Senate and House in November – and the presidency in 2024.
Those famous leaders of the former party of law and order used inflammatory words they knew could incite violence – just as those words did on Jan. 6.
In 2016, they chanted “Lock her up!” after Hillary Clinton arrogantly used her private email for government work. Now they promoted false claims to incite you to vent your rage against America’s attorney general and FBI – the protectors who merely sought to retrieve apparently-highly classified government documents Trump took to his Florida home and deliver them to the National Archives, as the law requires.
Thursday night The Washington Post broke the news that the Republicans hadn’t waited to learn before attacking: The documents the FBI obtained from unsecure Mar-a-Lago included nuclear documents that are among America’s most carefully guarded secrets. Early Friday, the Post reported Trump just claimed the nuclear weapons issue a “hoax” and accused the FBI of planting evidence – without offering any verifying info.
This week, we couldn’t tell the Republican famous names from the fringe fanatics as they attacked the AG and FBI, throwing around words like “Gestapo” and “Marxist dictatorship!”
“An intolerable state of weaponized politicization,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested the “fake FBI” may have “planted” evidence. House Republican Whip Steve Scalise told Fox News everyone is concerned when agents go “rogue.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has a shameful new cause: “DEFUND THE FBI!” And of course they all used their attacks on law-and-order to raise money. Big-time.
Soon, social media began buzzing with hate messages: “Lock and load!” “Civil war!” Calls for assassinations. In Cincinnati on Thursday, an armed man who reportedly had ties to the Jan. 6 protest leaders tried to break into the FBI’s Cincinnati headquarters. There was a chase, gunfire and he died.
None of the above needed to happen as it did. The problem was caused because top Justice and FBI officials allowed Trump and his Republican backers to initially define and characterize for the public what happened when the FBI went to Mar-a-Lago Monday. Trump said the FBI “raided” his home, adding: “Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland, a figure of admirable legal principles, clearly did not appreciate the damage Trump and his Republican followers could create distorting reality and deceiving America.
Finally Thursday, Garland understood. He explained the need for what he and the FBI had done. Justice officials were negotiating with Trump’s lawyers all year to obtain classified documents Trump kept. In January, Trump gave them 15 boxes of documents. Then U.S. officials learned there were more. In June, they met with Trump’s lawyers in Mar-a-Lago, even shook hands with Trump and got more documents. Later an informant reportedly told officials Trump had other undisclosed classified documents. So a judge issued a search warrant.
Trump had to be in New York Monday for another legal matter. So that was the ideal time to search Mar-a-Lago with minimal embarrassment to the ex-president. On Monday the FBI notified the Secret Service they were coming and also informed Trump’s attorney, who reportedly was there during the search. The agents carried no guns and wore civilian clothes, forsaking their windbreakers lettered “FBI.”
So Monday’s FBI search of Mar-a-Lago was nothing like the “raid” and “assault” Trump described in portraying himself as the ultimate victim, yet again. But the real victims could have been all of us. The FBI agents reportedly left with 12 more boxes of documents that would be delivered to the National Archives for safe keeping: Lock them up.
