At the risk of sounding overly political, we suggest that the obsession among Democratic politicians – and some Republicans to boot – with keeping Donald Trump from running for president again is out of control and keeps on bending our politics out of shape.
New York’s Attorney General continues to declare, as she did in her campaign for the office, that the only reason she ran was in order to be in a position to drive him out of public life.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland testified at his confirmation hearings that the top issue on his list of things to do was ferreting out everyone and anyone who had anything to do with the January 6 demonstrations, which most of us took as an allusion to Mr. Trump. Most recently, Mr. Garland mounted that really spectacular FBI raid on Trump’s Florida residence, purportedly to secure evidence of improper treatment of classified documents.
Rep. Adam Schiff has continued without respite his years-long practice of claiming to possess compelling evidence of Trump’s crimes against America – evidence which he never seems to be able to produce.
Finally, after her resounding nearly 40-point loss in last week’s Republican primary, Rep. Liz Cheney told an NBC Today interviewer that she is still committed to do “whatever it takes” to keep Trump out of the White House. This despite the fact that she is serving as the chair of the Congressional committee holding investigative hearings on the Jan. 6 incident. She sounds really objective right now.
Of course, this all flies in the face of the American tradition of treading carefully when it comes to investigating possible candidates to avoid the appearance of mixing law enforcement with partisan politics. It is fair to say that in earlier years, the prevailing approach employed by both Democrats and Republicans was to bend over backwards to avoid that appearance of impropriety.
That is not the takeaway from the treatment of Trump.
The dispute over the FBI raid may end up shedding some important light. The FBI wants to keep secret the affidavit containing the reasons they gave to the judge for authoring the raid. Mr. Trump wants everything released. The issue is now before a federal judge. With many questioning the need and timing of the raid, the court ruling could be significant, so stay tuned.
