The big news concerning the FBI “raid” of Mar-a-Lago home of former President Trump has given rise to a political hubbub new to me: Trump is being badgered to release the warrant under which the FBI performed the search. Here’s Steve Benen’s lead-in on the story:
Neal Katyal, the former acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, is aware of the Republican pushback against the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago. On MSNBC today, the Supreme Court lawyer responded with a challenge to the former president:
“Donald Trump, you have a copy of the warrant. It explains what they were looking for, what statutes they think were violated, and what judge signed off on that. Release the warrant. You called on [Barack] Obama to release the birth certificate and all sorts of nonsense. If you believe this is such an abuse, let us see the warrant and let us decide for ourselves.”
Trump certainly could. But will he?
My money says he’ll publicly play with the idea, but eventually reject it. Trump’s success is greatly dependent, like any conflict, on controlling the narrative. In war, they call it shaping the battlefield. In Trump’s case, as one of the world’s greatest con-men, he’s been successful by giving out, as facts, information that plays to his advantage. Crime is climbing. He’s a genius. Migrants are rapists. The people he’s screwed over deserved it. Etc.
Is the FBI somewhere in this picture?
The warrant will spell out the facts, the legal theory justifying this intrusion into Trump’s home and properties. Facts, once out in the open, are difficult to spin, and thus are not generally of advantage to Trump.
Of course, the details of the warrant may change my analysis.
But this is my expectation. The more incontrovertible details are out there, the less Trump looks like a genius, a victim, a saviour, whatever he needs to be, and more like a mere criminal, or, even worse, an incompetent. That spins the narrative out of his control.
He may tease about it, he may claim he has no such right, he may find other excuses. In the end, it’ll remain a bit of a mystery.
