Is it too much to ask for a thread of internal logic? For just a scrap of sense instead of overwrought emotion? Having a search warrant carried out on your home can be disruptive, intrusive, off-putting and intimidating. There's no question about that, and it's why -- barring exigent circumstances -- law enforcement isn't allowed to go searching on a whim; they've got to convince a judge there's good reason for it, they've got to say what they're looking for and where.
These are all true things. And in ill-intentioned hands, search warrants have certainly been abused.
But having the FBI show up with a duly executed warrant and go looking for papers you were supposed to have left in the office, papers that were never your personal property, papers the Feds had been asking to have returned and which you or your people had been equivocating about for months is not "A political attack on America."
Assuming the worst, there's still no way to spin it as an attack on the country. Hey, let's caveat some combination of Congress, or the Biden Administration, the Department of Justice and/or the FBI Director Mr. Trump personally appointed to the job is out to get him. For the purpose of analysis, say that they trumped up the warrant and sent a gaggle of FBI agents down to the winter home Mr. Trump was not at, to gnaw the locks off a storage room and chew their way into a safe, and grab boxes and boxes of files that had originated in the Trump White House. Say they did it to screw him over, ruin his chances of running for the office again and just generally mess with the man: grant all that, and it's still not "A political attack on America."
"L'etat c'est moi" has never been the way things work in the United States of America. In fact, the Founders and Framers were very directly opposed to that notion. No man embodies The State here -- and while the President is the closest we get to one person standing for the whole, A) it's not especially close and B) the role goes with the office, not the man. At the end of your term(s), back you go to the plow or whatever, just like Cincinnatus and George Washington, who are supposed to serve as good examples of how the thing is done.
The available evidence I have seen and read, going way, way back, tells me the Federal government, whatever its failings -- and they are many -- is not in the revenge and retribution business against former Presidents. But even if it was, that wouldn't be an attack on America, political or otherwise -- it would be domestic politics, ugly, damaging and unwise.
But that's a thought-experiment. The reality is, whatever his intent, Mr. Trump (or people acting on his behalf) did take paperwork that belonged to the Federal government when he left office, including some "burn before reading" material,* and the subsequent talks, subpoenas, letters and other legal back-and-forth did not produce results that the Feds believed were adequate or timely. A judge agreed, the warrant was executed, and now there's a lot of sound and fury from Mr. Trump's side and a little noise and bustle from the government side, and we still don't know the whole story. Maybe this was all about securing the files. Maybe they're ginnin' up for an indictment. We'll find out when we find out -- if we find out at all -- and not a moment sooner. Nothing on social media is going to speed that process. This is no more opaque than any other case at the same point and the only reason it makes headlines is it was an (extremely voluble) ex-President who had his house searched and items seized, and not an ex-truckdriver, ex-con or current farmer.
______________________
* I continue to maintain that most such secret stuff is deadly dull -- which doesn't keep it from being deadly deadly, too. Knowing our spy satellites can spot things the size of a gym locker but gets fuzzy about stuff as big as a breadbox is valuable to hostile nations. Learning what we do and do not know about needle-bearing production in Enemyistan can reveal who our sources are in their home-grown bearing industry -- and get that person killed. And so on. The devil is in the details and it's not always obvious which ones. (P.S., our spy satellites are way better than that. How much better? I don't know. It's a secret.)
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
3 comments:
The truth be known all presidents have taken various amounts of documents with them. So where are the FIB raids on them? Oh wait. They're our people.
Again, you make more sense than a good 75% of the talking heads, and probably all the people tweeting about this issue.
Truth be known, Jay Dee, you don't know what you're talking about -- because the rules changed in 1978, taking effect in 1981.
Presidents since then don't get to take much when they leave office, though they can request copies; and things like love notes to the First Lady and reminders to walk the dog are usually exempt: "The PRA requires the President to ensure preservation of records documenting the performance of his official duties (44 U.S.C. § 2203(a)), provides for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to take custody and control of the records (44 U.S.C. § 2203(g)), and sets forth a schedule of staged public access to such records (44 U.S.C. § 2204). Records covered by the PRA encompass documentary materials relating to the political activities of the President or members of the President’s staff if they concern or have an effect upon the carrying out of “constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President” (44 U.S.C. § 2201(2))."
So nope, you're wrong. You can thank Richard M. Nixon for it; breaking long-established tradition, he sought to destroy a lot of his Presidential records instead to donating them to the National Archives. Congress stymied him ("Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974") and glommed onto the Watergate tapes and written material, and set about turning tradition into law.
Nobody went after John Adams or Woodrow Wilson for taking files when they moved out, because they were clever enough to get elected before 1981.
Then there's the most recent FISA Act reauthorization, which made unauthorized removal and retention of classified information of the United States government a felony crime punishable by five years imprisonment and/or a fine. That's pretty serious stuff! The President at the time signed that one onto law, and presumably he'd read it, or at least a summary. That was in 2017. I believe you know who was President then.
The tl;dr is, Mr. Trump screwed up. How badly, we don't know. Maybe he just circumvented Federal archivists, which is a far more serious matter than it sounds -- thanks, mostly to President Nixon. Maybe he did much worse. Time will tell.
Post a Comment