Eric Suwall, Minot

A quick rebuttal to two recent letters to the editor, re: Warrant on Trump was Wrong, and Protection from Federal Government Needed.

First, WoTwW. Allis claims, without evidence, that the present administration (aka “regime”) weaponized the government, i.e. the FBI, to raid Trump’s Mar a Lago compound. He points out that nothing like this has been done before, which erroneously leads to his conclusion that it must be an illegitimate abuse of Biden’s presidential power.

Let’s pay attention to what Allis has left unsaid. Allis is indirectly claiming that no president should be investigated regardless of evidence, and the FBI should not be able to investigate republicans if a democrat is president (and, we must assume, vice versa). Allis is also asking us to ignore the fact that Donald Trump was already compelled to return 15 boxes of government property in February, at which point his lawyers swore that there was nothing else to surrender. The FBI knew this was untrue, and pursued other avenues to retrieve documents from Trump before finally resorting to a search warrant. Allis is ignoring these facts in order to argue that the FBI search was nefarious. But why did Trump have top secret documents that he no longer had legal access to at his personal residence, why did he say he returned them when he hadn’t, and what was he planning to do with those secrets? Given that the FBI surely has more facts about this case than we do, is it not problematic to rush to Trump’s defense without knowing all the information?

Rather than confronting the serious evidence emerging about Trump, the raid, and his numerous associates who keep pleading guilty to a variety of crimes, Allis resorts to an old logical fallacy: ad hominem attacks against the judge who approved the search. It must be that Judge Reinhardt is acting politically because he donated money to the 2008 Obama campaign! Well, Trump himself donated more money to democrats than republicans before 2011, so according to Allis’s logic, Trump too cannot be trusted. But let’s focus instead on a distinctly American tradition: our legal system is predicated on respecting judges regardless of their political affiliation. If democrats can only be tried by democrats and republicans by republicans, then our entire judicial system has failed. However, settling legal disputes via self-identifying ideologues would likely not be enough to satisfy Allis, since the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, is a Trump appointed Republican. Conservatives should remember that the FBI they are currently calling to defund and accusing of being an arm of the Biden administration has always been overseen by a republican director, even during democratic administrations. The FBI is one of the most conservative institutions within the federal government.

A few quick facts about Hunter Biden’s laptop story: First, no evidence has been produced connecting Joe Biden to any nefarious activity by his son. More importantly, changing the subject to Hunter Biden does not excuse Donald Trump’s actions; indeed, this is just another argumentative trick to obfuscate the real story: Trump’s treatment of national security secrets. But since Hunter is such an (unrelated) point of interest, republican’s should note that independent forensic analysis has shown that hundreds of file modifications were made to Hunter’s laptop after it was turned over to GOP operatives by the computer repair store where it was mysteriously discovered. More than a year after Hunter dropped off the laptop, i.e. while it was in republican hands, there were over 145 drive modifications and emails created. I don’t trust Hunter Biden, and he may well have been up to no good; but anyone concerned with Hunter (who we did not elect and who was not serving in the Biden administration) should also be concerned about the alterations to Hunter’s machine. You should also assess questionable dealings within the Trump administration. For one example, there’s the 2 Billion dollars the Saudi’s gave to Jared Kushner’s inexperienced “private equity firm.” Are we to believe the Saudi’s expected no quid pro quo from that donation to the Trump family? And where is that money now? Coincidentally, Donald himself began agitating for US nuclear technology to be given to the Saudis after that money was “invested” with Jared. And while the US never agreed to share said technology, one may wonder, was it one of those secrets that the FBI recently found in Trump’s residence?

Finally, to Gary, and our needed protection from the Federal Government: Gary says that the government went into a private home without provocation. Clearly Gary means Trump’s home, with the insinuation that if they can do that to Trump, they can do it to us! Well, yeah Gary, that’s how law enforcement works. Trump ended up having secret documents at MaL, and no one, not even former presidents, are above the law. We all know that if we engage in illegal activity, the police could come to our door. That does not make the government corrupt; it means that law enforcement is doing their job. Our country is founded on equality before the law and faith that government institutions operate neutrally no matter what party happens to be in power. We used to have such faith in America, before the GOP, the grand party of political (and social) grievance, branded democrats as un-American traitors intent on destroying our country. But drawing absolutes and painting fellow citizens with differing political opinions as evil is only perpetuating our divisions. It’s time for real adults to come together, cooperate, and move this country forward. It’s time for republicans, especially when confronted with a growing mountain of evidence, to question their loyalty to Donald Trump and consider instead their loyalty to America.