It’s been a week since the FBI carried out a search of Mar-a-Lago, the Florida golf club Donald Trump calls home. Agents reportedly removed 11 sets of classified documents and according to the search warrant, Trump is under investigation for (among other things) potentially violating the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to obtain or share information that could be damaging to national security.
In the week since the search, Trump has cycled rapidly through an array of excuses. The New York Times writes:
First he said that he was “working and cooperating with” government agents who he claimed had inappropriately entered his home. Then, when the government revealed that the F.B.I., during its search, had recovered nearly a dozen sets of documents that were marked classified, he suggested the agents had planted evidence.
Finally, his aides claimed he had a “standing order” to declassify documents that left the Oval Office for his residence, and that some of the material was protected by attorney-client and executive privilege.
Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters in the Republican Party and the conservative media have been tripping over themselves to justify and defend Trump’s very likely criminal actions. Many Republicans have tried to shift the narrative away from Trump entirely and are focusing on accusing the FBI of engaging in partisan politics. There’s been a lot of false equivalency finger-pointing at Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden.
Some have taken things a big unhinged step further. Rand Paul thinks the Espionage Act should be repealed, calling it an “egregious affront to the 1st Amendment.” (An argument that actually does have a lot of merit, just not when coming from Rand Paul, who has consistently proven himself to be unworthy of the benefit of any doubt.) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for the FBI to be defunded. Senator Rick Scott compared the FBI to the Gestapo.
Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio is trying to argue that it’s not actually that bad that Trump may have stolen nuclear secrets, saying at a press conference, “There are a number of things that are [air quotes] ‘classified’ that fall under the umbrella of nuclear weapons that are not necessarily things that are truly classified, and many of them you can find on your own phone.”
Obviously, we don’t know for sure because the FBI isn’t going to release a detailed list of the exact classified, possibly nuclear secrets Trump may have had in his possession, but I think it’s safe to assume they weren’t the kind of thing you or I would find on our phones.
Over on Fox News, they’ve been going even harder with their outlandish defenses and distractions. Filling in for Tucker Carlson, host Brian Kilmeade focused on Bruce Reinhart, the federal judge who signed the FBI’s search warrant—who has, by the way, been receiving death threats to the points that his synagogue had to cancel services out of fears of violence.
The next night, they went a step further and showed audiences a photoshopped version of that picture, putting Reinhart’s face onto the body of Jeffrey Epstein.
Probably my favorite reaction came from the team over on Fox & Friends, who thought it would be a good idea to quote Richard Nixon of all people.
“President Nixon said, that if the president does it, that it is not illegal. Is that not truly the standard when it comes to classified documents?” the host here says, referring to a quote Nixon made about Watergate, the scandal that was so illegal it forced him to resign as president rather than face inevitable impeachment and conviction. That statement is so outrageously wrong that it was framed as the dramatic, climactic gotcha moment in the movie Frost/Nixon.
Even Nixon’s own former counsel came out this week to condemn Trump’s actions and his supporters, saying they’re going to have “egg all over their face” when this investigation is done.
These outlandish defenses of Trump are ridiculous but they’re also lending credence to a stance that is already resulting in some truly dangerous acts. In addition to the harassment and death threats made against Judge Reinhart, extreme Trump supporters have been issuing attacks on law enforcement. One supporter with far-right ties tried to breach the Cincinnati FBI office, armed with an AR-15 and a nail gun (which is falsely thought by some to be able to penetrate bulletproof glass). Another man drove his car into a Capitol Hill barrier this weekend.
There is clearly nothing Trump could do that would not cause his supporters to twist themselves into knots trying to find a way to justify his actions. It’s so embarrassing for them but it’s also deeply dangerous, as we’re seeing in real time.
(image: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)
