McCarthy's weak sauce defense of Trump after FBI raid
It means they see Trump going down
“Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”
Those were the words of Minority House Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) after the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort with a court ordered search warrant. McCarthy also threatened oversight hearings, investigations, etc., if the GOP gains a majority after the November elections as well.
Since the GOP is an odds on favorite to regain the House after midterms (the party out of power almost always gains seats and the Democratic House majority is a mere 222 seats — 5 seats away from being in the minority), hearings and investigations are almost a certainty.
Does Kevin McCarthy not understand who Merrick Garland is?
The Attorney General of the United States has spent more than a third of his life as a federal judge. If there is one thing Merrick Garland does well, it is documenting his decisions. McCarthy seems like he’s headed to another Benghazi hearing where the GOP admits nothing untoward was done.1 Lots of noise and nonsense, though.
A little bit of realism here. Threats of investigative oversight hearings by a GOP controlled House and accusations of political “weaponizing” of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to target Donald Trump is a thin defense or as the Washington Post put it an “evidence-free” one.
A real defense of Trump would have included phrases like “fishing expedition” or “baseless warrant” or attacked the federal magistrate who approved the warrant. Actually some right-wing media sources did so2, but no GOP politicians as of yet.
Why the weak sauce defense?
The warrant is good. Between the 15 boxes of White House documents found at Mar-a-Lago by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in February of this year3, Donald Trump’s penchant for destroying documents4, and hiding evidence from legal authorities5; there aren’t any motions to suppress unlawfully gathered evidence being filed.
Also, it’s been no secret that the Republican Leadership has been at odds with Donald Trump since January 6, 2021.6 They have been wanting him gone for good and also have wanted the Democrats to do their dirty work for them.
To quote Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on what was to be Trump’s Second Impeachment, “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us.” Unfortunately, the Democrats needed 17 Republicans to do that deed and only got 7.
Given recent reports of Trump lawyers negotiating with the DOJ7, it is a certainty Trump saw this raid coming. And so did Kevin McCarthy and the rest of the GOP.
The Benghazi hearings final report admitted Hillary Clinton was blameless for 2012 attack; mostly because the State Department is not in charge of embassy security, that’s the Department of Defense’s job.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/09/judge-who-approved-fbi-raid-on-mar-a-lago-once-linked-to-jeffrey-epstein/
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/07/1078940308/trump-boxes-records-mar-a-lago-national-archives
https://theweek.com/donald-trump/1015755/photos-of-trumps-alleged-document-flushing-habit-shared-with-axios
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-letitia-james-2656671743/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/us/politics/trump-mitch-mcconnell-kevin-mccarthy.html
https://www.salon.com/2022/08/05/lawyers-in-talks-with-doj-amid-worries-he-could-be-indicted-report_partner/