GOP Will Defend Trump No Matter What

What an increasingly terrified role it must be to continue blindly supporting the criminal who used to occupy the Oval Office. ESPECIALLY when you, yourself consider him to be a megalomaniac psychopath, WHICH ALL OF THEM EXCEPT THE insurrectionists think is true. Mitch McConnell once again showed himself to be the smartest Republican politician in Washington, DC, keeping his counsel and avoiding over-the-top statements about “rogue operations” and “worse than Venezuela” or “Gestapo tactics.” In general, the Republican reaction to the routine operation of the rule of law was hysterical.

  • Kevin McCarthy: "The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization… When Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts, and leave no stone unturned."

  • Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., tweeted "DEFUND THE FBI!"

  • A Twitter account for Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee run by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, tweeted: "This is what happens in third world countries. Not the United States." Another tweet read: "If they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you."

  • Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tweeted that the raid "is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies," then said: "Banana Republic."

  • Senator Blackburn: “Politically motivated witch-hunt.”

  • Sean Hannity: If you’re associated with Donald Trump in any way, you better dot all your eyes and cross every t because they’re coming for you.

  • Bernard Kerik: I wouldn’t put assassination beyond these people.”

  • Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel also released a statement asserting -- without evidence -- that the search was an attempt by Democrats to "weaponize the bureaucracy against Republicans." "Countless times we have examples of Democrats flouting the law and abusing power with no recourse. Democrats continually weaponize the bureaucracy against Republicans," McDaniel said. "This raid is outrageous. This abuse of power must stop and the only way to do that is to elect Republicans in November."

We were also treated the day after the search to the initial stages of the “who was the rat?” search. We’re not just living in a country where a substantial amount of the population believes you only accept election results if you won and that threats of violence are an appropriate way to resolve political differences. Now, they also believe that the execution of a legal search warrant approved by the Attorney General and signed off by a judge are “gestapo tactics” And now we’re learning that the cooperation with people exercising due process of law is itself a major scandal where the “guilty” party should be found and punished.

These are people who used to claim that the Democrats were anti-police. It's truly charming to see people who have no problem whatever with schemes to manufacture votes or create fake slates of Presidential electors suddenly discover that the FBI is a threat to the Constitution.

How scary must it be to go out on that limb – knowing that there is no reason to trust this man. We’ve all seen – and so have they – his plain contempt for security rules as well as his refusal to be bound by any rules and norms. They KNOW he routinely ignored security rules, refused to be bound by ANY legal processes, refused to comply with any legal request, and attacked civil servants for doing their jobs. And who has shown, time after time, a willingness to undermine the political system to save his own hide. They all know that it would be totally in character for him to bring home massive quantities of highly classified information and to ignore all requests to return it.

So it's becoming increasingly apparent that this was a serious breach of national security and that Trump’s people had been told the government needed the information and had blown by several deadlines to return it. The position of his defenders is increasingly untenable, yet they’re becoming increasingly strident.

This is a time for politicians to react in a measured way. Instead, we’re getting what we’ve come to expect: over the top statements, Nazi analogies, accusations without any evidence, and incitements to violence. And in the end, we can almost guarantee that Trump indeed had highly classified documents which he refused to return. And the feral underbelly of the party continues to respond to the dog whistles and appeals to violence, the attitude at the top isn’t getting better.

PS. This piece was written in the immediate wake of the announcement of the FBI warrant. And sure enough, the situation for trump was FAR worse than even I thought. Massive quantities of classified material, including SCI material. Possibly nuclear weapons information. And let’s be clear: there’s no reason for anyone to give Trump the benefit of assuming comparatively benign motives, like writing his memoir. There is every reason to assume he kept this material with the intent of using it.

And so, after the DOJ met their demand to release the warrant and it turned out to be REALLY bad, did all those Republicans sheepishly admit their error? Of course not. They just kept digging. Hillary did worse [no she didn’t]. Obama did worse [no, he didn’t]. The FBI planted it [no, they didn’t]. Trump declassified it [no he didn’t and even if he did it wouldn’t make any difference]. Well, maybe it wasn’t really all that classified.

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