Washington, Aug 9 (IANS) Ex-president Donald Trump's Florida residence raided by the FBI.
Former US Secretary of State and Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton trolled ex-President Donald Trump, implicitly reminding people of some of the reportedly brazenly destructive impacts of Trump's time in the public spotlight.
Those impacts contrast with what was available from a hypothetical, Hillary Clinton-led Presidential administration. Clinton, of course, faced years-long antagonism to a feverish degree from many voices on the Right over her handling of government materials while serving as Secretary of State.
Now, what's the basis for the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, asks a Bipartisan Report.
Founded in 2012 by Justin Brotman, the Bipartisan Report is a news and opinion website with a liberal bias. The website states, "We Bring the News".
Justin Brotman is the son of co-founder and chairman of Costco Wholesale Corporation, Jeffrey Brotman. Bipartisan Report provides emails for their writers.
As per Bipartisan Report, besides the hypocrisy, Trump's team is responsible for something in which Clinton never engaged: Taking classified materials to a former President's southern Florida resort.
Over a dozen boxes of records that federal law mandated be provided to the National Archives at the close of Trump's term instead went to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence, and once the agency recovered the materials, it found classified documents and referred the matter to the Justice Department, the Bipartisan Report said.
"Every 'But her emails' hat or shirt sold helps @onwardtogether partners defend democracy, build a progressive bench, and fight for our values. Just saying!" Hilary Clinton tweeted.
It's remarkable, of course, that so many of the same folks who demanded the powers of federal law enforcement be used against political enemies like Clinton are now furious that federal law enforcement went against their own side, even though, unlike what they hoped for with Clinton, there's what seems like substantial real-world evidence this time, she said.
The FBI agents who conducted the search of Mar-a-Lago didn't just wake up on Monday and decide to pester Trump: The pre-raid process likely included judicial approval and the backing of high-ranking department officials, and the lengthier the process gets, the more far-fetched that notions of a conspiracy become, the Bipartisan Report said.
Clinton herself was investigated by federal authorities, and she was never charged with any criminal offence, although Trump, when in office, still sought Clinton's prosecution anyway.
As for Trump, The New York Times outlined how the FBI would've "needed to convince a judge that it had probable cause that a crime had been committed, and that agents might find evidence at Mar-a-Lago, to get a search warrant".
One aim of the search of Mar-a-Lago was evidently to see whether government records that federal record-keeping authorities were meant to obtain were still there. At this stage, Trump no longer possesses any power to declassify documents, so if something remains classified but gets shipped off to Mar-a-Lago, that's a problem, the Bipartisan Report said.
Throughout his presidency, he routinely mishandled federal records. Trump administration records that were obtained from the Archives by the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riots were taped back together. It's unclear at this point whether Trump himself will get charged for the federal documents' mishandling, but it's clear the raid shows how serious things are, the report said.
It is unclear which criminal investigation prompted the raid, but a warrant signed by a federal judge to search the home of a former US President is not easily or arbitrarily obtained.
The search may be related to the classified documents Trump reportedly removed from the White House and took to Mar-a-lago, some of which he reportedly flushed down toilets at the golf resort. It may also be the result of the Department of Justice acting on what has been discovered by the January 6 committee about Trump's attempted coup or his attempts to pressure Georgia officials to overturn an election, the Bipartisan Report said.
Meanwhile, Trump took to his social media website, Truth Social, to "whine" about the raid, create some drama, and stir up his supporters. The last time he worked to rile them up, the Capitol Building was attacked, so Trump's efforts to do so this time could be even more dangerous by the trapped ex-President, the Bipartisan Report claimed.
"These are dark times for our nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents they even broke into my safe!" Trump tweeted.
With any luck, that safe was full of classified documents. None of his "Hillary Clinton did it too!" or "The Democrats are so corrupt, lock them up!" rhetoric was going to help him now, as a Twitter war raged with Trump as Democrats and supporters riled the ex-President after the FBI raid on his Florida home.
It was inevitable that the right-wing would freak out over the FBI raid of Trump's home on Monday, it was outrage wrapped in fear when it came, the Bipartisan Report said.
Meanwhile, Fox News hosted Trump's middle son, Eric, and Newsmax interviewed Trump's TV attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
"While Newsmax went full crazy, Fox News didn't even bother to report the news of the raid. Jesse Watters just ranted endlessly about how unfair everything is and how everyone in the Democratic Party has done something worse," the Bipartisan Report said.
Eric drummed up the old "lock her up!" talking points, throwing around old debunked scandals about the Benghazi attack and the Clinton Foundation, the Bipartisan Report alleged.
"Going back to Hillary, there are a lot of other things. How about the Benghazi scandals? How about the Clinton Foundation? How many shady oligarchs in Russia were contributing to that? How about uranium one? You want to talk about scandals that were never investigated, never vetted," Eric said.
For the record, the Benghazi scandal never underwent multiple investigations and Hillary Clinton sat for testimony for over eight hours. No wrongdoing was ever uncovered by the Republican-led committees, the report said.
Eric "whined" his way through the entire interview, screaming about the unfairness of his father's alleged crimes being investigated. Ignoring the country's history of slavery and colonisation, Eric swore that the Trump family had undergone more hardship than any family in the country.
"They went after him. They went after all of us, there is no family in American history that has taken more arrows in the back than the Trump family," Eric said.
Incensed that Trump's home was searched prior to the midterms, Watters listed all the scandals Eric seemed to have forgotten as some sort of a what-about-ism defence for Trump's crimes, the Bipartisan Report said of the interview.
Eric said that they were told that the FBI wasn't going to get involved in any politically charged search warrants, investigations, announcements, indictments before an election.
"We were told that. I mean, remember what they did with the 'crooked' situation with the server. They made all sorts of announcements; they investigated the Trump campaign then. You saw what they did in October by covering up the laptop, and now they are gonna send agents into Mara-a-Lago before the midterm election. This is not what we were told that the FBI was going to do," Eric said.
He went on to list alleged scandals involving Nancy Pelosi's husband, tax fraud by Joe Biden's youngest son, something about diamonds being exchanged and suspicious wire transfers from China. At no time did he address the stolen, classified documents Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago, the reason behind the investigation, the report said.
Rudy Giuliani, for his part, just seemed confused and spouted some worn conspiracy theories in response, the report added.
Photo courtesy of Facebook.
