If President Joe Biden wanted to find a way to discredit the FBI and his Department of Justice, he couldn’t have done a better job than Monday’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.
The search, essentially over a dispute with the National Archives and Records Administration over whether Trump improperly took classified information to his Florida estate, could end with the former president being charged under U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2071, which prescribes criminal charges to anybody who “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record.”
More importantly, anyone convicted of the charge “shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”
It almost feels too transparent.
And don’t just take it from me, a random conservative writer. Take it from former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 election.
In an interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Tuesday night, Gabbard said the raid was a “serious escalation” of the Biden administration’s weaponization of federal law enforcement against its enemies.
“This is something that every American should be extremely concerned about,” Gabbard said.
“Because this raid is just the latest serious escalation of this disturbing trend that we have seen of blatant abuse of power by those in power, to not only protect their friends, but to target their political opponents — or, frankly anyone who dares to dissent or challenge or disagree or even question what this administration is doing.”
Was the Trump raid an act of political targeting?
She went on to say that “there are a number of examples that we can point to — not only abuse of power within the Department of Justice, within the FBI or law enforcement agencies, but also the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS.”
“You know, look to the FBI investigation of Trump for the Russia hoax that didn’t turn out to be anything,” she said, in reference to the Steele dossier and subsequent investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“You look at the IRS and Lois Lerner directly targeting conservative organizations under the Obama administration,” she continued. “You look at this administration’s Department of Homeland Security’s creation of a ‘Ministry of Truth’ to go after us, everyday Americans across the country, to tell us, ‘Hey, here is what we say the truth is and is not and what you are allowed to say and what you are not allowed to say.’”
She also took issue with the “deeply concerning” fact the Biden administration was beefing up the IRS again — something that could affect “everyday Americans,” not just former presidents.
“We should not, as Americans, have to be thinking, ‘Hey, the IRS, the Biden administration just passed a bill with more big spending, giving the IRS $80 billion to go after entrepreneurs, everyday Americans who are working hard. And, hey, maybe I should think about what I’m posting on Facebook — and if I criticize the administration, does that make me a target for an audit by this IRS?’”
Gabbard was referring to the Democrats’ hilariously named “Inflation Reduction Act,” which has passed the Senate and will likely pass the House of Representatives. Among the provisions to raise revenue under the tax-and-spend program is beefing up the IRS by hiring roughly 87,000 new agents.
“These kinds of things should not be running through our minds in a democracy,” she added. “These things are what happened in banana republics.”
Mind you, this isn’t the first time that Gabbard has called out the administration for targeting its opponents.
After former White House official Steve Bannon was found guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to obey a subpoena by the Democrats’ Jan. 6 House committee, Gabbard said the Biden administration had turned federal law enforcement into a “political hit squad” that was “weaponized” against its opponents.
In the tweet, she wondered why the Department of Justice hadn’t pursued charges against former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan, Obama appointees who have both been very credibly accused of lying to Congress.
Whatever you think of Bannon, the fact he was charged with contempt of Congress, but Clapper, Brennan & others who lied to Congress have never been charged, shows how the Biden admin / elite have shamelessly weaponized law enforcement into a political hit squad.
— Tulsi Gabbard ? (@TulsiGabbard) July 23, 2022
“Whatever you think of Bannon, the fact he was charged with contempt of Congress, but Clapper, Brennan & others who lied to Congress have never been charged, shows how the Biden admin / elite have shamelessly weaponized law enforcement into a political hit squad,” Gabbard tweeted.
However, that was relative child’s play when compared with Monday’s raid. Gabbard is right — this is the kind of thing that happens in third-world banana republics, places where 50-foot billboards of the president-for-life line the highway from the capital’s airport and where all former presidents-for-life live under house arrest — if they’re that lucky.
Should the FBI not come up with serious goods on Trump from Monday’s raid — and it’s worth noting that, despite a cycle of nearly constant investigations since the moment Trump announced his candidacy, none has yet been produced — it will stand as nothing more than a monument to the debasement of the bureau and the Department of Justice as a whole. All over a purported records squabble. Nice work.
