Think the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago was just about former President Donald Trump? Think again, says Kari Lake.
Lake, the Trump-endorsed GOP nominee for governor in Arizona, noted the unprecedented nature of Monday morning’s raid, first reported via a statement from Trump in the evening.
After all, he’s a former president — and if President Joe Biden’s federal apparatus can barge into a former president’s home, what should we make of the fact that it’s also beefing up every American’s most hated national agency, the Internal Revenue Service?
Granted, the raids came from different sources. According to Fox News, the search warrant that was executed by the FBI was prompted by a referral from the National Archives and Records Administration to the Department of Justice, in which NARA claimed it had found 15 boxes of White House records at Trump’s Florida residence that contained classified material.
“Federal law bars the removal of classified documents to unauthorized locations, though it is possible that Trump could try to argue that, as president, he was the ultimate declassification authority,” Fox News noted.
In a statement, Trump denounced the raid as a “weaponization of the Justice System.”
“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” the statement said.
“It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections.”
He also said it was akin to the kind of thing one saw “in broken, Third-World Countries” and compared it to the Watergate break-in 50 summers ago.
“What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee?” he said.
“Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.”
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 8, 2022
Lake, however, noted that any American who thinks this is just part of the power games involving the Biden administration trying to keep the former president from entering the 2024 contest for the White House ought to consider what was in the Democrats’ hilariously misnomered Inflation Reduction Act — the tax-and-spend bill Biden’s party got through the evenly split Senate on a party-line vote Sunday, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.
The bill spends $433 billion on various Democrat agenda items — but, perhaps most importantly, seeks to raise revenue to cover it by increasing taxes and tax enforcement. That includes hiring 87,000 new IRS agents.
As Lake, a former television journalist, noted, couple that with a raid on the former president’s home and pretty much everyone should be afraid of the boundaries this administration is crossing.
“If they can target a former President, they can (and will) target you,” Lake, a former television journalist, wrote in a tweet.
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that they hired 87,000 IRS agents the day before this raid?”
“Not a single one of us is safe,” she added.
If they can target a former President, they can (and will) target you.
Do you think it’s a coincidence that they hired 87,000 IRS agents the day before this raid?
Not a single one of us is safe.
— Kari Lake for AZ Governor (@KariLake) August 9, 2022
(To be clear, the Inflation Reduction Act and its beefed up IRS hasn’t yet passed Congress. It still has to get through the House, where Democrats hold a paper-thin majority.)
In a more complete statement, Lake said she would “fight these Tyrants with every fiber of my being” if elected governor.
“This is one of the darkest days in American history: the day our Government, originally created by the people, turned against us,” the statement read.
“This illegitimate, corrupt Regime hates America and has weaponized the entirety of the Federal Government to take down President Donald Trump.
“Our Government is rotten to the core,” she continued. “These tyrants will stop at nothing to silence the Patriots who are working hard to save America. This is an incredibly horrendous abuse of power. If we accept it, America is dead.”
FULL STATEMENT: ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/5yFEdelAW0
— Kari Lake for AZ Governor (@KariLake) August 9, 2022
Lake cited the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which puts express limits on the powers of the federal government: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
How that would apply specifically to an action like the FBI searching Trump’s home is questionable, given the Constitution’s “Supremacy Clause,” but Lake makes a powerful argument for why everyone should care about this raid, and not just because it reeks of politics.
Was the raid on Trump’s home political?
This is an administration that has made it clear it plans to swing the big stick of federal government around a bit in order to achieve its agenda.
Part of that agenda is going after Donald Trump. Another part involves raising revenue so they can spend it. Think those 87,000 IRS agents are going to be focusing only on plutocrats with super-yachts? Think again.
However, that big stick of federal power can be swung selectively. In particular, Lake pointed out one person they aren’t interested in hitting — the son of President Joe Biden:
Hey, @FBI — any interest in Hunter Biden’s Laptop?
Asking for a friend of mine that was raided today.
— Kari Lake for AZ Governor (@KariLake) August 9, 2022
“Hey, @FBI, any interest in Hunter Biden’s Laptop?” she wrote. “Asking for a friend of mine that was raided today.”
