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| Government Corruption |
| The Trump-FBI Whodunit Only Gets More Embarrassing |
| 2022-08-12 |
| BLUF: [National Review] Now, consider a second possibility: If the search was really the result of a tip from inside Mar-a-Lago that offered the FBI a detailed and irresistible bread-crumb trail to specific boxes in specific rooms, was it a set-up? Did Trump, or someone in his orbit, want an FBI search precisely to set up what followed it? It seems a little too clever to be Trump’s idea, but there may be enough conspiracy-minded Roger Stone types around Trump that one of them either pitched Trump on it or did it on his own initiative, heedless of the fact that handing over evidence of a potential federal crime to the FBI is playing legal Russian roulette in the hopes of winning a political battle. Third, was this search really just aimed at retrieving classified documents, and if so, was that really all that three dozen federal agents found in ten hours? Andy McCarthy has argued that, most likely, the classified documents were a pretext, and the FBI was looking for something else. That theory is bolstered by the FBI’s seizing the cellphone of Representative Scott Perry the next day as part of the January 6 investigation. There is also the theory that a search this broad might have turned up incriminating evidence against Trump that nobody went in specifically looking for. I have some skepticism. Even if you think of Trump as a man of many crimes, this isn’t like a raid where you’re going to find piles of cocaine and Tommy guns with the numbers filed off just lying around. Mar-a-Lago is a big place (I confess that I picture Trump’s personal safe as looking something like Scrooge McDuck’s vault, although it apparently is just a normal safe). Trump wasn’t there, so it seems unlikely that his cellphone was confiscated. Financial records are unlikely to be a target: The IRS, the Manhattan district attorney, and the New York attorney general have had all sorts of Trump financial documents for years and have never made much use of them. The Times report suggests that the agents took away a fair number of empty envelopes that they’d prepared, suggesting that they found less than they arrived looking for. Trump isn’t much of an email user. His DVR probably just shows that he watched a lot of Fox, Newsmax, and OANN during the times in the fall of 2020 that he was in Florida. The idea that he had some sort of Beer Hall Putsch memo lying around that nobody has seen yet strikes me as fantastical. Frankly, the "stop the steal" people around Trump in 2020-21 seem scarcely to have bothered covering their tracks, as evidenced by the Eastman memos. All of which leaves us with the distinct possibility that Garland is seriously considering a Trump indictment limited to a violation of the Presidential Records Act. But precisely because nothing was ever done to Hillary Clinton for mishandling government secrets on her personal property, that would be a terrible idea. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #5 The insider tip theory seems to be coming from Mulvaney, who hasn't been an insider in quite some time. The misinformation strategy seems to be aimed at churning up dissention within Trump's inner circle. I don't think that will work. There doesn't seem to be any drama coming from the Trump camp since he removed himself from DC and deloused his operation. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2022-08-12 12:24 |
| #4 Should have had someone call Wray and tell him a bunch of teenage girl gymnasts were being molested at the place. Agents wouldn't have gone near. |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2022-08-12 07:53 |
| #3 National Review - "Our best and brightest". Deep State Never-Trumpers who drove a formerly great magazine into the ground. Bill Kristol applauds |
| Posted by: Frank G 2022-08-12 06:38 |
| #2 people around Trump in 2020-21 seem scarcely to have bothered covering their tracks That's because they did nothing wrong. |
| Posted by: Dron66046 2022-08-12 04:28 |
| #1 Did Trump, or someone in his orbit, want an FBI search precisely to set up what followed it? It seems a little too clever to be Trump’s idea.... Thank you National Review, for once again suggesting Trump is a dullard just like the rest of us. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2022-08-12 02:10 |