OVERREACH BY FBI AGAINST TRUMP!

Monday, August 15^th, 2022

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

OVERREACH BY FBI AGAINST TRUMP!

Was the FBI raid on President Trump’s Florida home justified? And even if the former president had in his possession classified documents, was it necessary for his private residence to be invaded by swat team FBI agents holding AK 15 assault rifles like they were swooping in on drug dealers or mafia dons?

No former US. president in American history has ever been treated in such a manner. One can imagine how America is being ridiculed worldwide by the nation’s adversaries. “America is no different from any other banana republic or dictatorship” they are saying.  “Destroy you opponent once he or she leaves office.”  To say our democracy has suffered a huge creditability loss would be an understatement.

We don’t know at this time what efforts the Biden administration made to get any supposedly classified documents back from Trump. Remember that when he was in office, he had the power to both classify and declassify such information.  Is this little more than a records dispute? Did the Attorney General, or even better yet President Biden, reach out to Trump in order to reach some accommodation?

Both former Presidents Obama and Clinton removed from the White House thousands of documents and even furniture when they left office. The National Archives requested and retrieved numerous items form both former chief executives.

Needless to say, the FBI raid has unleashed a torrid of criticism from Trump supporters as well as a number of more natural legal experts. "A raid is supposed to be a last resort, but this administration has used the weaponization of the justice system against its political enemies," Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz observed last week. " (The FBI has) arrested people, denied them bail, put them in handcuffs – used all kinds of techniques that are not usually applied to American citizens, and I just hope this raid has a justification.”

Tom Nichols, The Atlantic writer, noted Friday on “Morning Joe that “‘The F.B.I. is the enemy, the F.B.I. is the Gestapo, the F.B.I. is the enemy within.’”  Nichols also observed that this was the same criticism used against the FBI during liberal attacks against the agency in the 1968 Viet Nam protests. 

 

Actually, Trump may relish in this FBI overreach.  He has solidified his conservative base and has gained widespread sympathy from Republicans across the nation. Louisiana’s senior U.S. Senator John Kennedy lamented: “Given the (FBI’s) history, I think many fair- minded Americans are going to say: “Wait a minute, this looks political; this looks personal. This doesn’t look like an aberration; this is beginning to look like a pattern,” Kennedy told Fox news.

 

Whatever comes out from the Trump document seizure, the fact remains that the FBI has a major credibility problem. Take a look at just some of the newspaper headlines across America.

“Evidence Suggests a Massive Scandal is Brewing at the FBI”-New York Post

“Wanted: An Honest FBI” -Wall Street Journal

“The Massive Case of Collective Amnesia at the FBI”-National Public Radio

“Scandal Ridden FBI-Must Be Abolished”-Boston Globe

“The FBI Is in Crisis. It’s Worse Than You Think”-Time Magazine

History shows that from the creation of the FBI under President Teddy Roosevelt, the agency has been used, misused, and by their own actions, insubordinate in many administrations. How long could we talk about the shenanigans of J. Edger Hoover, Watergate, Deep Throat, Sen. Joe McCarthy, investigations of Martin Luther King, and LBJ having the FBI harass Vietnam protesters, and major FBI failings in Louisiana?

Time will tell the seriousness of the charges against President Trump. But there is little doubt about the continuing justifiable attacks by respected voices against the FBI.  Our nation needs and deserves much better than it is receiving form the nation’s top law enforcement agency. The initials FBI should not stand for Federal Bureau of Incompetence!

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also look over a list of books he has published at www.thelisburnpress.com.