Victor Davis Hanson
Donald Trump was three months away from announcing his presidential candidacy on August 8, 2022, when Merrick Garland ordered an FBI raid on the ex-president’s private residence.
The swoop-down was the first time in presidential history in which an archival bureaucratic/civil dispute with an ex-president over the storage and possession of presidential papers, among them classified documents, would escalate into an FBI raid and later criminal indictment. And these actions were brought against the then front-running, though undeclared, oppositional presidential candidate and likely 2024 opponent of the incumbent president Joe Biden.
Trump may or may not have had reasons to remove presidential papers. He may have been unduly resistant to cooperation with the National Archives. And of some 13,000 documents the FBI removed from Mar-a-Lago, there may well have been about a remaining 102 of a classified nature.
But Trump had good reason to suspect the impartiality of either the National Archives or the FBI or the Biden DOJ. Rumors had already spread that the Archives was not treating Biden in the fashion of Trump. After all, the FBI had hired Christopher Steele to help its Operation Crossfire Hurricane to destroy Trump’s campaign (cf. Peter Strzok’s revelations of his conversations with Andrew McCabe, who was second in command of the FBI at the time, to stop Trump). The agency already had helped promulgate the lie of “51 intelligence authorities” that Hunter Biden’s laptop was a product of Russian disinformation. And earlier the Obama DOJ had helped to spread the Steele dossier. And the Biden DOJ was already looking at ways to indict Trump on charges of “insurrection.”
But note that prior to the raid, Trump had already surrendered a series of classified documents. So, to resolve the remaining classified files (that constituted .007 percent of the documents in Trump’s remaining possession), Merrick Garland sent in a SWAT-like FBI team of some 30 agents who canvassed the private residence and rifled through the rooms of First Lady Melania Trump and son Barron Trump.
The Left became furious when Trump supporters countered that the Archives had not seen the Obama-Biden disputed removal of documents in the same criminal light. But prior to such Trump charges, the Archives certainly had been frustrated with the stonewalling on the part of Joe Biden. And presto, about three months after the increasingly controversial Trump raid, in November 2022, suddenly Joe Biden contacted the Archives to reveal in fact that he had for decades removed and been in possession of classified files.
But unlike Trump, Biden had stored classified documents for decades and in at least four separate locations—his garage, his library, his Washington office, and at the University of Delaware, all places far less secure than Mar-a-Lago.
And unlike Trump, Vice President Biden had no statutory right to declassify his personal papers. Trump may have exaggerated or misled that he had previously orally ordered his papers declassified, but he certainly had the right to do so. And if he had not done so formally, then he was guilty of a bureaucratic impropriety, not a felony. Biden had no such authority.
No matter: the Archives, the media, and Biden spokespeople quickly contrasted Biden’s supposed “compliance” with the despised Trump’s resistance. But here again, they essentially lied. We would learn later that Biden only contacted the Archive because otherwise he would have been revealed as an utter hypocrite, as Biden’s DOJ was soon to indict Trump for the very same criminal exposure of a sitting president.
(To be continued…)
Discussion (6)
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It was an obvious political hit. The press and show of force were both to paint a picture of something serious when it wasn't. They used hyperbolic language (nuclear secrets and selling them to our enemies) and took propaganda pictures then leaked them (unknown documents on floor with classified cover sheets and boxes of [unclassified] belongings in the bathroom), and implied any guest anywhere in Mar a Lago had access to them. Never were we given the chain-of-custody or were told if Trump had any involvement with their packing.. Later we learned the GSA had stored them and sent him a letter requesting he accept delivery of the boxes. We don’t know if GSA had certified the storage area at Mar A Lago before or after delivery but we know they did some sort of review and recommended a lock of some sort. We know presidents own their papers and populate their libraries with them. The raid happened inside the window when Trump still had control over their release to the public. We know the ex presidents are provided funds to establish an office and are expected to advise future presidents. It is safe to assume this advice would often be classified and the ex president would want copies of certain documents to be able to give this advice. The DOJ didn’t include the unclassified titles/subjects of the documents and refused to let Trump see what they took. I assumed the documents taken were rather benign, not “nuclear secrets” as we were told, and thus the raid was a farce.
this is great. We all know it. The problem is that half the country remains in its NYT, CNN, MSLSD, demoncat party induced coma denying the reality of what is going or as Bezmenov said, are so 'demoralized'' as to not understand the danger we are all in.
No one has said if the documents in question were properly secured. There was a point system used to determine if the facility can store documents of certain classification. There are points for restricted access, locked rooms, safes. The most points are for guards and alarms. I’m sure the Secret Service qualifies.
No one has said if the documents in question were properly secured. There was a point system used to determine if the facility can store documents of certain classification. There points for restricted access, locked rooms, safes. The most points are for guards and alarms. I’m sure the Secret Service.
Thanks Victor! I also thought the fbi added a nice touch to the raid by scattering the more sensitive documents on the floor (of a secure room they broke into) and then photographing them to show the American people how careless Trump was with the documents. Another nice touch was the notice to the media that a raid was to take place so that it could be televised. They are masters at character (and maybe other forms of) assassination.
In that turning point, was the key mental image that of hostile men rifling through the former First Lady's underwear drawer?