It looks like we are witnessing the implosion of American democracy live, in slow motion.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
And since we’re leaning against it, want it, don’t want it, it doesn’t bode well for us, nor for what we called “the free world”.
Ladies and gentlemen, the former president of the United States is suspected of violating the Espionage Act. Not necessarily by giving information to the enemy. Perhaps simply by being careless or destroying hypersensitive documents.
But the federal police released 11 sets of confidential, top secret or top secret documents from his home. Is there a single justification for having had them in his possession? Obviously not.
The search was authorized by Attorney General Merrick Garland in person, given the historical gravity of the event.
I remind you that Garland was Barack Obama’s choice to replace Antonin Scalia as Supreme Court judge, given his reputation as a “centrist”, with little political influence.
But whatever. Do you think this man wants to go down in history as having authorized the first search of the residence of a former president without good motives? Do you think that he is not aware, in the current aggressive and conspiratorial climate, of the serious consequences of a search that would not be well founded, or that would be made for oblique reasons?
The reason why excavations in the house of an ex-president must be authorized at his level is precisely because we must consider their political impact. We must assess the risks, the importance of the legal and security issues. In other words, we are not faced with a minor infraction of a regulation on the storage of official documents…
Merrick Garland knew very well what would happen after this search: the rallies, the flags, the outraged protests. Trump would strike back. Denounce the politicization of justice and the FBI.
The only way to counter these attacks is with a concrete case. That is, evidence. Reliable witnesses.
In the United States as in our country, before breaking into someone’s home, you need a search warrant. And to obtain this warrant, you have to show that you have reasons. That a crime has been committed, first. And that to solve this crime, it is necessary to violate a person’s privacy by forcibly entering their residence.
To demonstrate this, the police produce an “affidavit”, which is a sworn statement summarizing the investigation and the evidence. On this basis, the judge will issue or not the warrant. It is often a formality. At this point, it is sufficient to fulfill the criteria. The search doesn’t always yield results, and the results don’t always result in a charge.
But in such an incredibly explosive case, no one has room for error. There is an obligation of result of the police, the prosecutor and the judge. No one wants to be the weak link in the chain. Questions are asked and asked 5, 10, 25 times.
Under these conditions, not only must the search be justified, it must give rise to a serious accusation against Donald Trump.
In the meantime, it’s not just the conspiratorial or far-right networks that are unleashed against the FBI. These are several elected Republicans. Senators. Representatives.
These people are saying that the federal police are “corrupt”, that they may have fabricated evidence against Trump for the benefit of the Chinese. That this is an anti-American political operation.
We are still talking about an ex-president who left with secrets (on the nuclear arsenal in particular) which should not even be consulted outside the White House or certain hypersecure places.
But in a perverse (and genius) twist of facts, very official politicians are now saying that a foreign power may have generated this investigation. To the point of denigrating all the federal police, and justice with it.
A fan of Trump, a big user of his “social network”, called for the killing of federal agents. He was shot on his way to an FBI establishment, armed.
What was made public on Friday is the type of documents seized and the laws under which the FBI is investigating. I would be surprised if the file on Emmanuel Macron is terribly secret. But the top secret documents, what do they contain?
The answer can only come in a court of law. A place where every statement must be supported.
The catch is that the undermining has gone so far that much of the public will continue to follow and believe Trump, against all the evidence.
That’s why this event goes beyond the partisan quarrel. What is at stake is the American political system itself. A system that, despite everything that may have happened since the first election in 1788, no one had questioned so fundamentally.
This is also why we must fear that it will be ugly, very ugly. And that right here we pay the price.