Voters should encourage, reward those who pursue justice

Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022 | 2 a.m.

Monday’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home has implications beyond Trump’s 2024 campaign. With less than 100 days until the November midterm elections, the raid also provides an opportunity for Republican Party leaders to showcase their willingness to hold Trump accountable.

So far, it appears the GOP will not rise to the occasion.

Justice Department officials, working in cooperation with the Secret Service and executing a warrant signed by a federal judge, targeted at least 15 boxes of documents, some of which were classified “top secret,” that were taken illegally from the White House and stored in Trump’s basement.

Given their continuous rhetoric about ending the corruption in Washington and restoring responsibility and accountability to the people, we expected GOP leaders to applaud the Justice Department for doggedly protecting U.S. national security interests — including the lives of intelligence agents abroad — against Trump’s questionable judgment.

We expected them to be outraged, or at least mildly bemused, to learn that classified materials were being stored in an unlocked basement of a private home that regularly plays hosts to international political and business leaders, many of whom could profit handsomely from the acquisition of those materials.

And we expected them to support the law enforcement officers who were doing their duty and, in a rare display of nonpartisan interdepartmental cooperation, worked together to properly execute a warrant against a person who many of those officers likely support.

Instead, GOP leaders offered yet another example of their desire to tear down any element of government that harms them by protecting the people from corruption

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted “I’ve seen enough. The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization. When Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts, and leave no stone unturned.”

Similarly, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. and a MAGA darling, showed just how much she cares about America’s federal law enforcement officers and intelligence operatives by tweeting “DEFUND THE FBI!”

Meanwhile, the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee decided that scare tactics would be most effective, tweeting, “If they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you.”

This shouldn’t be surprising; Trump has a long history of silencing his dissenters. And since his election, GOP leaders have become co-conspirators in an effort designed to ensure that any entity with the power to investigate and hold the GOP accountable is silenced.

GOP members of Congress have refused to investigate politically motivated firings at the office of the Inspector General, even though staffing at the Inspector General’s office was beefed up to respond to the risk of presidential abuse of power following the Watergate scandal.

Text messages and emails have been deleted across multiple law enforcement and internal investigative agencies, including the Secret Service and Homeland Security — an outcome that baffles national security experts from previous administrations on both sides of the political spectrum. The issue is so serious, it’s well past the point of being suspicious.

And the abuse of official documents is sprinkled across the Trump administration.

Presidential documents, almost all of which are supposed to be gathered and preserved under law, have been shredded, thrown in the garbage, flushed down the toilet (seriously, we’re not making this up), and now, apparently, stolen and taken to Trump’s basement.

And now, as the Justice Department attempts to unravel the convoluted web of lies, deceit and missing documents, Trump’s GOP and MAGA cavalry are riding in using scare tactics to strike fear in the public and discredit the investigators for doing their jobs.

It all makes a reasonable member of the public ask: If Trump and the GOP have nothing to hide, why this wanton effort to destroy evidence?

No one, not even the president, is above the law. And the GOP’s failure to hold party members accountable is so blatant it’s embarrassing.

While the differences in the current leadership are striking, this is not a partisan issue. Republicans like Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, with whom we disagree on almost every issue, are doing their part to create accountability. Now it’s up to the voters to decide if they will be rewarded for their responsibility.

American government has an obligation to ensure that laws are obeyed, and the higher one’s position in the government, the more serious the obligation. GOP leadership has forgotten that responsibility. We should all be thankful that the Justice Department, without showing fear or favor, appears determined to safeguard our system of laws from those who would subvert it.

Let’s make America responsible again, by holding our elected officials accountable for their words and actions and rewarding those who pursue justice. And let’s all agree that the basements of private homes are no place for classified government documents.