 |
| Kevin Foley |
In 2020, a Black man named George Floyd allegedly tried to pass a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill at a Minneapolis store. Within one hour, a city police officer named Derek Chauvin murdered him, with the entire crime caught on video.
Black and white people across the country and even around the world were outraged and many on the right were outraged at their outrage.
That was two years ago, and thanks to the ubiquity of video phones and police body cameras, we have since witnessed even more police violence targeting minorities. “Back the Blue!” chanted the right, despite the visual and audio evidence before them.
Their chief cheerleader, of course, was the “law and order” ex-president.
Before he left the White House, Trump did something illegal, packing up dozens of boxes of official documents and shipping them, not to the National Archives under the Presidential Records Act as required, but to his private residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
Official documents—that is, materials associated with the president’s duties—don’t belong to the president after he leaves office. The American people own the presidency, not the man in the Oval Office. Thus, an ex-president is not entitled to haul off official documents and do whatever he wishes with them.
I wasn't surprised to learn the former guy ignored the law because he violated virtually every presidential norm and many laws for the four years he was in office. Twice he was impeached for it, the first time for trying to blackmail a foreign leader and the second time for inciting an attempted coup.
The National Archives knew Trump took the documents and demanded they be returned. Earlier this year, some materials were sent back to the archive, where officials realized there were many more documents missing. These were eventually subpoenaed, but as the ex-president seems to always do, he ignored the subpoena, triggering the FBI search that took place a week ago Monday at Mar-a-Lago.
According to the property receipt the federal agents gave the former guy’s attorney, many of the documents and files seized were marked top secret with some reportedly relating to nuclear weapons. Why these documents were withheld is under an Justice Department investigation to determine if the ex-president violated the Espionage Act.
Everything the DOJ and FBI did was lawful and necessary, the proper procedures followed by law enforcement officials, aka, The Blue.
Trump, his media minions, and his cult members went ballistic. It was no longer Back the Blue, it was Bash the Blue: the FBI are "gestapo," they're Biden's dupes, the DOJ is "weaponized," and all the other nonsense coming from MAGA world.
Someone in the Trump camp released the names of the lead FBI agents at the search to Brietbart, and very soon, their addresses and the names of their spouses and children were posted by crackpots on the far right.
The implication is obvious: get ’em!, not unlike the Jan. 6 call for violence against those adhering to the rule of law when Electoral College ballots were being counted. Police officers guarding the lawmakers were viciously beaten by the law and order MAGA mob.
Attorney General Merrick Garland was also attacked, with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) drafting impeachment documents against the AG for “persecuting” the former guy while demanding the FBI be defunded.
Wait. Wasn’t it MTG who screeched the loudest when far left activists were talking about defunding the police?
The FBI has reported its agents and offices have received numerous threats of violence with one deranged guy attacking the FBI field office in Cincinnati before getting himself killed in a gunfight with police. Then armed MAGA goofballs showed up at the Phoenix FBI field office.
By Monday, even Fox News was telling the ex-president to call for an end to the violent threats.
By now, it's clear just how far Trump and his MAGA cult are willing to go to damage or even destroy every institution in our democratic republic, from Congress to the Supreme Court to The Justice Department. With his crimes finally catching up to Trump, it's law enforcement's turn to get defamed for just doing its job.
***
Kevin Foley owns KEF Media in Atlanta.
A huge PR opportunity looms for a firm that is willing to take some heat by promoting Immigration & Customs Enforcement... Disgraced New York mayor Eric Adams couldn't wait to make another pilgrimage to Israel to stick it to his successor Zohran Mamdani... Hats off to Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett for writing his always engaging and witty annual reports over the years.
The ADL plans a Mamdani Monitor to track down any whiff of antisemitism from the policies and appointments made by his administration. It should have given him a chance to live up to Election Night promise... Brendan Carr, Alden Global Capital, Alphabet, Meta and Elon Musk make Reporters Without Borders' roster of Press Freedom Predators.
Andrew Cuomo's political career is not dead yet... Steve Bannon says Republicans should learn from Zohran Mamdani and his Working Families Party and Democratic Socialists of America, instead of mocking them... Internet advertising model is on the way out, says Tim Berners-Lee... Gannet rebrands as USA Today Inc. What about its other 200 papers?
Thomas Jefferson warned about the dangers of an imperial president who would deny an election loss in a bid to cling to power. Sound familiar?... Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says reporters don't need his permisson to take a photo of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial, as long as they are not on the job... Kirkland and Ellison lawyers need some negotiating tips. 
Shareholder activitism is poised to hit an all-time high for 2025... Kamala Harris’ “107 Days” reads like an autospsy of her failed presidential run. Democrats need to look forward, not backward... The Reagan Foundation dishonored The Gipper by providing PR cover to tariff-loving Trump.
