It took four days for Americans to find out why FBI agents raided Donald Trump’s private golf club in Mar-a-Lago, South Florida, on Monday morning. Why did the Justice Department give conspiracy theorists four days, earning Trump the instinctive sympathy of millions of Americans? It is not clear. There is no escaping the assumption that good lawyers do not understand politics. They let professional politicians write the narrative. what a mistake
In the course of these four days, the American right has rallied to Trump’s side. Many who preferred to keep their distance from him rallied against what they saw as political use of law enforcement. Relatively sane and cool-headed people have promised a day of vengeance and payback if and when the Republicans return to power. Prominent figures in the party called for a “purge” of the Justice Department and the FBI. It is doubtful whether such statements have been heard in the history of the USA.
But as it is, it is doubtful whether there was a precedent for a raid on the residence of a former president. Even Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign from the presidency almost 50 years ago under criminal suspicion, did not see FBI agents rummaging through his drawers and breaking into his safe. Monday’s raid was dramatic by any standard. Didn’t the Minister of Justice understand that he had to explain it to the American people?
The Minister of Justice did not ask for permission
It should be pointed out here that the Minister of Justice did indeed act autonomously. This minister, whose American title is “Attorney General”, has extensive powers. He is not only equivalent to the Minister of Justice in Israel, but also to the Attorney General and the Minister of Internal Security. Long-standing tradition frees him from presidential interference. It has been a source of frustration and gnashing of teeth for many presidents, including Trump. But apart from Trump, presidents have not dared to fire their justice ministers even when they felt like it.
There is no reason to doubt the White House’s version, that neither of them had advance knowledge of the Mar-a-Lago raid. Perhaps precisely because the politicians were not privy to the affairs, they could not give political advice to the Minister of Justice. If they could, they might have urged him to hurry up and explain, before the Trump camp hijacks the narrative, and turns the outgoing president into a martyr. For years, Trump has considered himself the victim of a “witch hunt” on the part of the left and the government bureaucracy. He usually describes this bureaucracy as the “deep state”, meaning the state behind the state.
It was only on Thursday afternoon that the Secretary of Justice, Merrick Garland (who incidentally is the most senior Jewish member of the Biden administration), decided to open his mouth. He announced that he would ask a judge in South Florida to lift the secrecy on the details of the search of the Trump home. He also condemned the vicious attacks on Justice Department and FBI employees One of Florida’s two Republican senators called the FBI the “Gestapo”; a former Republican speaker of the House called it the “Stasi” (after East Germany’s communist secret police).
Donald Trump’s mansion in South Florida / Photo: Associated Press, Steve Helber
Just as Garland was speaking to the press, a violent attack took place on an FBI office in Cincinnati, Ohio. She ended up exchanging fire with an extreme right-wing man. He fled, the police chased him, he shot, she shot, he was killed. Before embarking on the latest adventure of his life, he posted a call on social media for Trump supporters to “prepare for battle.” Dozens of Trump’s supporters, including those carrying weapons (by law), appeared at the gates of the former president’s golf club, in a gesture of defiance and resistance.
He had nothing to hide?
Trump could have opposed the declassification of the search. He chose not to do so, probably because such an objection would have raised the suspicion that he had something to hide. His claim since Monday was that he was not trying to hide anything; that he cooperated with the Ministry of Justice in the gradual return of documents; that there was no need to raid the FBI, because he would have willingly responded to any inquiry.
But this claim did not stand the test of reality or common sense. He removed a huge amount of classified government documents from the White House when he vacated it, in January 2021. Furthermore, a year and a half later, even after he started returning documents, a very large amount of documents continued to be housed in his offices. The law prohibits a president from releasing any documents, regardless of their classification. The law is particularly strict with highly classified documents.
Since the lawyers of the “45th president”, as he is careful to call himself, did not object, the Florida judge accepted the request of the Department of Justice and lifted the secrecy on Friday afternoon. The lifting of the secrecy in itself did not reveal the full reasons for the FBI raid Or the full content of the documents that the FBI confiscated from Trump’s offices.
But the leaks during the Friday race gave an idea of what it was about. From them comes a possible violation of the law that protects the national secrets of the USA. The name of this law is the “Espionage Act”. It does not mean that the former president is accused of espionage. It is only the technical name of the law. But the qualification of this word, “espionage”, Trump’s name may evoke unhelpful associations with his political ambitions. He continues to be considered the frontrunner for his party’s presidential nomination in 2024. Polls show him in a tie with Joe Biden, or even a slight lead.
“Knowing alteration, destruction or concealment”
From the receipt that the FBI agents gave to Trump’s lawyers, it appears that they confiscated 11 “files” (sets) of documents, some of which were marked with the highest classification of secrecy by the US government. According to one report, some of the documents dealt with nuclear programs Trump denies, and charges that the FBI “planted” such documents in his body.
(The receipt and the search warrant can be read in the PDF file linked here)
The search warrant, which was signed by a district judge in Washington, authorized, among other things, the Federal Bureau of Investigation to seize “any evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction or concealment of government or presidential records or of any classified document.” The suspicion implied here is that the US president, in the last hours of his term, stole documents that legally belong to the government he headed. A suspicion is, of course, just a suspicion, but the severity of this suspicion is unprecedented.
The FBI reception refrains from detailing the contents of the documents in almost all cases. She is content with designations such as “collection of top secret documents”, “various secret documents”, “top secret documents of various types”, “various classified documents”, “classified documents”, “binder of photographs”, or casual characterizations of “marked box ” (and below come letter letter and number). Only two documents appear by their names. One of them is “Information about the President of France”. Trump murmured a grudge against President Macron, and it is therefore possible to assume that the information is not flattering to the Frenchman.
Like Shaquille O’Neal’s shoes
The incredible scope of the exorbitant documents silenced the chorus of condemnations on the right for at least a few hours. On Monday, Republicans threatened that if they win the congressional elections in November they will open impeachment proceedings against the Minister of Justice. A Wall Street Journal columnist threatened Democrats with “brutal revenge” when Republicans return to power. A columnist in the New York Times, who opposes Trump, wrote that the raid on the golf club may have ensured Trump’s re-election as president in 2024.
All of this could very well happen: the Republicans might win in three months or less, and they might try to oust Merrick Garland; And Trump may return to the White House in January 2025, and then alas for all his political opponents because his revenge will indeed be “brutal”. But Friday’s revelations cast at least a little chill on both the lust for revenge and the cheers of victory.
The pending question is why did a former president knowingly break the law (at least in the sense that he returned and was warned not to return the documents), and why did he accumulate original secret documents in his vaults. One intriguing answer is that this is what he does: he is famous for collecting memorabilia. His office in Trump Tower in New York, for example, is full of memorabilia, such as the huge sneakers of basketball star Shaquille O’Neal (according to the New York Times). It’s possible. Everything is possible. Except that a document on nuclear weapons isn’t exactly the equivalent of Shaquille’s sneakers.
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