We need to talk about the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Home.
Yesterday the FBI made a surprise visit to the 45th President’s South Florida home, reportedly looking for classified documents that the Trump administration failed to turn over.
It’s an unbelievable and unprecedented event for many reasons, who would have ever thought that the Feds would be raiding the home of not only a former president, but an individual that has a realistic probability of being the next president.
That is, as long as Florida governor Ron DeSantis doesn’t split the party by running in 2024.
The real reason that this FBI raid feels so unbelievable, is that after 7 years of the Trump administration stumbling their way into legal trouble, either through ignorance or incompetence, it was starting to feel like the family was invincible.
Despite a laundry list of people that committed crimes in the process of either trying to get Donald Trump elected, trying to protect him while he was in office, or capitalizing on his presidency with an illegal grift (Shout out to Steve Bannon), it was never a member of the Trump family that had to be incarcerated or pardoned.
Not when payments were made to various women to discourage disclosures of affairs.
Not when a case could be made that the administration obstructed the investigation into Michael Flynn.
Not when the administration used the office of the president to promote commercial products manufactured by supporters.
Not when people seeking pardons were directly hiring one of Donald Trump’s attorneys to grease the wheels.
Not when a case could be made that firing James Comey was an obstruction to an investigation into Russian interference.
Not when the administration clearly pressured the Georgia Secretary of State to overturn election results.
And not, maybe until now, when the administration held onto classified documents, and turned over already destroyed documents to the National Archive and Records Administration.
After seven years of seeming invincibility, they’re gonna get this man over some paperwork.
And let’s be honest- they better get this man. You already have tens of millions of Americans that have convinced themselves that not only are we on the brink of civil war, but that they’re firmly on team Trump once the shooting starts. If nothing comes from this FBI raid, the people that believe there’s a Deep State whose sole purpose is to keep the Trump from draining the swamp, the same people that hold Ashli Babbitt up as a martyr, are going to make life in this country absolute hell.
And if there is a red-hat rebellion, you better believe those people that have spent the better part of the last seven years calling for law and order when it comes to Hillary Clinton’s emails, Hunter Biden’s substance abuse, Nancy Pelosi’s bank account, Asylum seekers at the border, Brittany Griner in a Russian airport, Eric Garner, Mike Brown and George Floyd at convenience stores, or a 12-year-old Tamir Rice on goddamn playground, will abandon their back-the-blue principles in the name of their orange savior just like Ashli Babbit did.
Because if we’re being honest, support for law enforcement from the populist right has never been about the welfare of the people behind the badge. To them, protect and serve means ‘protect me,’ and ‘serve me.’
Cops take three months to make an arrest in the Ahmaud Arberry murder case because they took the word of the killers? Unbothered. Back the blue. But let cops attempt to stop Trump supporters from hunting down the Vice President? Back the Blue becomes black and blue real quick.
When Donald Trump said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody without losing support, it wasn’t a metaphor. And if that scenario did play out in reality, do you think Trump’s most aggressive supporters would simply let a homicide detective slap cuffs on the Donald?
I’m not out here to cape for the FBI. That organization has done nothing to deserve anyone’s unrelenting support, and some of the people on the left that are cheering them on right now were almost certainly criticizing them a couple of years ago for failing to act on a tip about Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz. There’s a chance the Feds screw this up, and I hope they understand the full gravity and danger of pursuing a case against a former president in a country that is already at a boiling point.
To quote Omar Little, “You Come at the King, You Best Not Miss.“
Let that sink in.
