Both the New York Times and the Washington Post were out with Editorial Board editorials Friday night lamenting the raid on John Bolton’s home and office and they both read like they came from the same talking points.
Both the Times and the Post frame it the same way: the investigations into Bolton, Letitia James, Adam Schiff, etc., are “weightless,” clearly just “revenge” on the part of Trump, and (boo-hoo) financially and reputationally destructive to those targeted. However, both did concede that there may well be a good reason for the raid, as you will see in the two excerpts below.
Via the Times:
It is too early to know what the F.B.I. will claim to find in all of those boxes, but not too early to surmise that the search for incriminating documents was not the real goal of Friday’s raid. Even if the search turns up documents that should not be there, the administration has damaged any presumption of good faith by flinging weightless accusations of criminality at those who challenge it. [Emphasis added]
“Weightless”? I think not. Consider this as it specifically regards the (alleged) mortgage fraudsters:
Fraudulently obtaining preferential interest rates is exactly what the media accused Trump of, portraying it as the crime of the century. The difference is that in Trump’s case the entire dispute rested on property valuations, which are inherently subjective. In the cases of Schiff, James, and Cook it comes down to whether they claimed multiple primary residences, which is an entirely objective matter.
Now via the Post:
The pursuit of 76-year-old Bolton underscores the danger of putting partisan hacks in top law enforcement jobs. The government needed to show probable cause to get a judge to sign the search warrant, so it’s possible there was a rock-solid predicate for the search. But Trump’s promises of retribution and revenge make the government’s motives suspect.
The government’s “motives” can be “suspect”? You don’t say.
Letitia James explicitly ran on “getting” Trump. For something. Anything. Yet, still, the Post makes the cliche Lavrentiy Beria reference -- just not in reference to Big Tish — who has very real document problems with her mortgages.
Via WaPo:
It is a valid fear that the case against Bolton is a fresh instance of the old Soviet saying, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” It comes against the backdrop of federal investigators looking for dirt on other Trump critics: New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California), former FBI director James B. Comey and former CIA director John Brennan.
Both papers, to their credit, acknowledge that there may be some “there” there, but to their infinite discredit, frame it as though this is just another example of Trump’s “vengeful,” “authoritarian” impulses.
What they fail to grapple with is that it is possible for two things to be true at the same time: Trump was absolutely unfairly targeted, and Trump’s targets are now being fairly targeted for evidence of real, actual crimes. Both can be true.
It can be additionally true that Trump finds their legal troubles immensely satisfying to watch -- but that’s not a crime. It’s not even unethical. It simply is. It’s just human nature to want to see your tormentors tormented. But orange-man-bad, so according to the gravity-defying Editorial Boards of the New York Times and the Washington Post, it’s all bad.
Boo-hoo.
Image: AT via Magic Studio