Adam Serwer: Conservatives Believe Trump Is Above the Law

[Nevilledog]

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The right’s reflexive response to the Trump raid reflects the belief that law enforcement deserves support only as long as it restricts enforcement and abuses to groups conservatives want it to target, while exempting those they see as above the law.

theatlantic.com
Conservatives Believe Trump Is Above the Law
Republicans’ reflexive insistence that the Mar-a-Lago raid is politically motivated is unmoored from the available evidence.
11:17 AM · Aug 9, 2022

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/trump-mar-a-lago-fbi-raid-investigation/671087/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/7ReH6

*snip*

Again, the case against Trump here is impossible to evaluate, because we know the basis neither for the warrant nor the investigation. So the certainty that Trump is being politically persecuted cannot be supported by evidence. It is instead based on ideology: There are people against whom law-enforcement action or abuse is always justified, and there are people against whom it can never be justified. That is, if law-enforcement officials want to murder an unarmed Black man in the street, brutalize protesters against police misconduct, or investigate a Democratic presidential candidate, conservatives will insist that such officers are infallible and that any criticism of their conduct is outrageous. But when the law is used to investigate or restrict the conduct of people deemed by conservatives to be above its prohibitions, that is axiomatically an abuse of power.

This is why, for example, it was perfectly permissible for Trump to order his attorney general to prosecute his political opponents, to even campaign on that basis, but it is intolerable politicization for him to be investigated, regardless of the basis. Indeed, there is no need to know what the basis even is; it is by definition unjustified because of whom it targets. This reasoning is also why the police who defended the Capitol against the rioters on January 6 were assaulted by people who in any other context would chant “Blue lives matter.” Law enforcement is legitimate and deserving of unconditional support only as long as it enforces the law against groups conservatives want it to target and exempts those they do not. Shortly after news of the raid broke, far-right representatives such as Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Paul Gosar called for the FBI to be defunded or destroyed.

Ironically, Trump has continually received favorable treatment from the FBI. During the 2016 election, FBI Director James Comey twice aided Trump’s campaign by commenting publicly on an FBI investigation into his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, while the bureau subsequently denied to the press that the Trump campaign was being investigated for coordinating with a Russian effort to influence the election. Then, after Comey refused to reassure Trump that the president would be above the law, Trump fired him and handpicked his replacement, who is still in office today. In 2016, Trump supporters chanted “Lock her up” in reference to Clinton’s mishandling of classified emails; today the alleged mishandling of classified information is deemed by these same supporters to be a form of political persecution. This is not because one set of facts is more damning than another; it is because conservatives believe that the law does not apply to Trump. (The centrist version of this argument is that any politician with sufficient political support becomes an unaccountable caudillo who possesses legal immunity, a position that mocks the bedrock democratic principle of political equality.)

I hope that the Department of Justice and the FBI, by virtue of the seriousness of this matter, have acted as carefully as possible in obtaining their search warrant. The gravity of the situation might suggest that they would have done so, but it doesn’t mean they did. Just as it cannot yet be said that Trump is a victim of political persecution, we do not yet know that the FBI’s actions here are justified. In keeping with conservative ideology about the infallibility of law-enforcement officials when they are not investigating Republicans, conservative judges and justices have consistently narrowed constitutional due-process protections that exist to prevent potential abuses. Indeed, Trump himself publicly encouraged cops to physically assault those in their custody, while his administration abandoned any pretense of federal oversight of police misconduct. Ultimately, conservatives believe this unfairness in the justice system to be a virtue, as long as they are never on its losing end.

The Trump supporters outraged about the Mar-a-Lago raid are not lamenting that those protections have been curtailed. They simply believe that Trump should not be subject to the law at all. Political systems with such exemptions exist, but democracy is not one of them.

*snip*

[The Unmitigated Gall]

1. This is the fascist idea of how the law operates.

[Irish_Dem]

2. They believe it for a reason. The GOP elite has been above the law.

Over and over again the GOP sociopaths get away with their criminal enterprise.

We have a multi-tiered justice system.

[Chainfire]

3. The Trump cult can never admit that Trump is a failure or a criminal, regardless of evidence

for that would indicate that they had been wrong all along. They would rather wage war than admit that they had been played for suckers. It may be sooner rather than later that we have to face down the idiot army of the right.

[durablend]

4. Republicans *in general* believe laws don't apply to them.

[keithbvadu2]

5. Nixon... "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal"

Nixon...

"When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal"

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=if+the+president+does+it+it%27s+not+a+crime