In what everyone – including Donald Trump – is calling an unprecedented act by federal law enforcement authorities, the Trump compound at Mar-a-Lago was the subject of a search warrant by FBI agents in connection to Trump’s potentially criminal removal and possession of classified documents from the White House.
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Republicans and right-wing media are fixated on the unprecedented nature of this operation, while desperately seeking to ignore the criminal part. But the only reason it is unprecedented is because no president has ever acted so brazenly in the commission of crimes as Trump. And even while he rages over the indignity of being held accountable to the law like any other American, Trump frantically scrambles to shift attention away from his legal troubles, to unrelated matters about everything from the his Russian collusion scandals to Hillary Clinton.
RELATED: Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Bunker Has Been Raided by the FBI, and His Reaction is Predictably Bonkers
As soon as the story of the FBI visit to Mar-a-Lago broke, Fox News went to work obediently excusing Trump’s legal malfeasance and baselessly accusing President Biden and the Democrats of engaging in an improper persecution of The Former Guy. In an Olympian feat of projection, they likened it to third-world and/or fascist tactics. Never mind that they couldn’t provide a shred of rational support for their wild charges.
The usual suspects at Fox News launched into hysterical defenses of Trump, affirming their role as boot-licking sycophants. It began with Jesse Watters who presented a parade of Trumpist Fox contributors such as Dana Loesch and Dan Bongino to malign the “radical leftists” at the FBI.
That led into Will Cain, sitting in for Tucker Carlson, who somehow managed to book Lara Trump on a moments notice. The thrust of her attempt at whitewashing the affair was that her sugar-daddy-in-law just “loves to save things like newspaper clippings, magazine clippings, photographs.” Yeah, that’s the ticket. He was just scrapbooking. She went on, of course, to divert the low attention span Fox viewers, directing them to “Look at Hillary Clinton. the 33,000 emails that she just deleted.”
Lara Trump: Look, my father-in-law, as anybody knows, who's been around him a lot, loves to save things like newspaper clippings, magazine clippings, photographs, documents that he had every authority, will, to take from the white house. pic.twitter.com/WydLLLjo8r
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 9, 2022
The headliner for the night was Sean Hannity. And he didn’t disappoint, so lang as your analysis is based on flagrant deception and hostility. Hannity brought on another unbiased guest, Eric Trump, who said that…
“Going back to Hillary [Clinton], There’s a whole lot of other things. How about the Benghazi scandals? How about the Clinton Foundation? I mean, how many shady oligarchs from Russia were contributing to that? How about Uranium One? You want to talk about scandals that were never investigated, never vetted?”
''How about the Benghazi scandals? … you want to talk about scandals that were never investigated?" — Eric Trump pic.twitter.com/5YAAZVduMi
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 9, 2022
Literally every item that Eric uttered was a non-scandal that was indeed investigated and had been proven to be fabricated. Clinton testified under oath for eleven hours (something Trump is too cowardly to do), and no evidence of wrongdoing was found. The Clinton Foundation is a pillar of the charitable world, receiving the top rating from charity watchdogs. As opposed to Trump’s foundation that was shuttered by New York authorities for committing fraud. The Uranium One matter was a wholly contrived sham created by Fox News and the GOP.
Eric also explicitly accused Biden of being at the head of the imaginary cabal against his father. And for an added serving of comedy, Hannity punctuated his propaganda by dementedly messing up the old adage about dotting i’s and crossing t’s…
Hannity: If you are associated with Donald Trump in any way, you better cross all your i’s and dot all your t’s pic.twitter.com/DdNSgzKMwv
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 9, 2022
Much of the wingnut argument on Fox News has been centered on a campaign to literally defund the FBI. That’s quite a reversal from their prior position attacking Democrats for being anti-police. What’s more, they have entirely – or conveniently – forgotten that the FBI director, Chris Wray, is a Trump appointee. They even brought in felon Steve Bannon, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, but was later pardoned by Trump. Bannon advocated for cutting off funds to the agency that he lied to:
“The House leaders right now need to step up and recommit Jim Jordan. Full investigation, I think, cutting off appropriations to the FBI to get to the bottom of this. This is gonna continue on. The FBI right now is the Gestapo.”
Bannon: The FBI is the gestapo pic.twitter.com/nLnEQ4ZOwp
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 9, 2022
At least Bannon didn’t insult the FBI as being gazpacho. However, this take by Fox’s Todd Starnes may truly be the most deranged…
I think this one is my favorite. pic.twitter.com/X55DE7LWAg
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 9, 2022
One thing all of this Trump-fawning settles is the question as to whether Fox News is still on Trump’s side. Clearly they are as worshipful of Trump as ever. There may have had a brief moment wherein a couple of Murdoch’s newspapers went off script, but Fox News itself is still a fully indoctrinated mouthpiece for the Trump cult.
RELATED: WOAH! Rupert Murdoch’s Right-Wing New York Post Scorches Trump as ‘Unworthy’ to Be President
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