veritable pastiche: TGIF 8/12/22

August 12, 2022

TGIF 8/12/22

I'm taking a different approach to the good week/bad week list today; bear with me.

Everyone knows that Mar-a-Lago, the permanent residence of the most recent former president of the United States, was searched - not raided, not occupied, just searched - by the FBI on Monday. Had the president not told us, we would not have known, just as we don't know perhaps hundreds of times each week when the FBI executes legal search warrants, because they aren't obligated to tell us they're working.

We've heard a lot of BS this week, from the former president; from the media trying to be first to know a little bit more than anyone else; from anonymous sources hell-bent on getting famous while not letting us know who they are; from the right-wing pundits who cannot contain their outrage; from those on the left who reacted gleefully; from the alleged leadership of the GOP, at once apoplectic and salivating at the prospects of the wrath that will rain down upon the Attorney General, the FBI, the DOJ, the lunch ladies at every government facility, and who knows who the heck else if - but only if - the Rs retake the House and Senate; and the immediate rising to the defense of the former president by the rank and file of the GOP - all before anyone (other than Trump himself) knew anything other than the FBI visited Mar-a-Lago.

All of that can stop now, for at least a little bit, while people contemplate the documents that have been unsealed at the request of AG Merrick Garland and the DOJ, and what they tell us.

Here they are: where to search, what to look for, and the specific parts of the US Code that are in play.