Right-wing media erroneously claim Biden “facilitated” search of Mar-a-Lago

 CYDNEY HARGIS & CHARIS HOARD/Media Matters

In their latest attempt to dismiss the hundreds of classified documents found at Mar-a-Largo, right-wing media coalesced around a bogus claim that President Joe Biden “facilitated” the search by rejecting former President Donald Trump’s executive privilege. 

On August 8, the FBI executed a judge-approved search warrant of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence as part of an investigation into possible mishandling of classified documents. Earlier this year, reports surfaced that the National Archives and Records Administration had retrieved 15 boxes of White House records from Mar-a-Lago in January, some of which contained classified materials. 

According to a recent report from The New York Times, over 300 classified documents have been seized from Trump’s Florida property over the course of three searches since January. Trump has since filed a motion asking for a special master to review the documents seized by the FBI, which would block the Department of Justice from further reviewing the documents until that third-party arbitrator is appointed, and return any property not within the scope of the search warrant. If a federal judge approves Trump’s request, it could delay a federal criminal investigation into whether Trump violated the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act. 

The August 8 search came after months of reported resistance from the Trump team; according to a May 10 letter from U.S. Acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall to Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran released this week, Trump tried to delay the FBI’s review of the retrieved records and his lawyers consistently asked for more time to determine if the records included documents they considered protected by executive privilege. In the letter, Steidel Wall wrote that government lawyers determined that executive privilege rests with the current president, not a former one, and that Biden “defers to [her] determination” whether the FBI could view the records. After consulting with the Department of Justice, she ultimately decided not to honor Trump's claim of executive privilege, which allowed the FBI to begin viewing the documents. 

On Monday, August 22, conservative journalist and Trump liaison to the National Archives John Solomon published the Steidel Wall-Corcoran letter on his website Just the News in an attempt to prove that the Biden White House sparked the investigation by choosing to waive executive privilege. Despite zero evidence, right-wing media ran with the report and accused Biden of “siccing the FBI” on his political opposition.

Legal experts dispute Trump’s claims, and historical context confirms executive privilege can be revoked 

Conservative media have repeatedly framed rejecting Trump's claim of executive privilege as an extreme step that ignited the FBI's search of his Florida residence. This view ignores the fact that the former president was under investigation for mishandling classified documents for months prior to Steidel Wall's decision, that the current administration is well within its right to reject claims of executive privilege, and that the Biden administration is not the only one to have done it. 

• National security lawyer Bradley Moss: “Ironically, Trump’s media guy shows how NARA was bending over backwards for Trump before it finally gave the FBI access to the classified records.” [Twitter, 8/23/22]  
• Executive privilege is for the benefit of the republic, not the individual. According to forum Just Security, which provides legal analysis and is based out of the New York University Law School, the 1977 Supreme Court case Nixon v. GSA made it clear that executive privilege is “a governmental privilege, not a personal privilege.” Executive privilege, therefore, can be waived by the current president, even if it is asserted by the former president, especially when such a veto would benefit the enforcement of existing laws and statutes — such as the ones at question in the ongoing FBI investigation. [Just Security, 11/4/21]
• The Supreme Court ruled that executive privilege is not unlimited, even for a sitting president. In the 1974 case United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court found that the current president’s communications with advisers pertaining to “the process of shaping policies and making decisions” were privileged. However, that privilege yielded to a special prosecutor's need to obtain evidence as part of a criminal investigation. [Time, 10/8/21]
• Biden is not the only president to reject a former president’s claims of executive privilege. Former President George W. Bush invoked executive privilege over White House documents related to the CIA’s advanced interrogation techniques. However, in 2014, former President Barack Obama rejected the privilege claim and released the documents as part of an ongoing court case. [Just Security, 9/30/21]

Right-wing media still baselessly claim that Biden “facilitated” the FBI’s search

• Fox host Sean Hannity: “The Biden White House in fact actually facilitated the DOJ’s probe against” Trump. During the August 23 edition of his Fox News show, Hannity cited Solomon’s article to claim that the White House “facilitated” the search at Mar-a-Lago by waiving Trump’s claim of executive privilege. Hannity said that in doing so, the Biden administration “was actively paving the way for the FBI’s investigation into documents from Trump’s time as president that Trump had every legal right to possess.” [Fox News, Hannity, 8/23/22]
• Fox’s Tucker Carlson: “If you have a political opponent, you just imprison him.” During the August 23 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, host Tucker Carlson implied the Solomon report confirmed what he knew all along — that the Biden administration coordinated with the DOJ on the criminal probe into Trump. Carlson concluded that Trump is running for president in 2024 and “they want to stop him. It’s what you do in the third world. If you have a political opponent, you just imprison him.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/23/22]
• Fox’s Jesse Watters: “Joe Biden has now been directly implicated in the raid on Mar-a-Lago.” Fox host Jesse Watters cited Solomon’s article during the August 23 edition of his show, Jesse Watters Primetime, to try claiming the president was “implicated in the raid” in Florida. Watters asserted that because Biden waived Trump’s claim of executive privilege, “that set the raid in motion.” Watters went on to say that “Biden’s White House had the chance to calm things down, but instead they set fire to Trump’s executive privilege and triggered a raid on his house.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/23/22]
• Hannity: Biden personally intervened “to undermine President Trump’s claims of executive privilege.” During the August 23 edition of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Sean Hannity Show, Hannity baselessly claimed that John Solomon’s documents conclusively prove that Biden pushed his Department of Justice to “investigate records stored at” Mar-a-Lago with “President Biden personally intervening to undermine President Trump’s claims of executive privilege.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 8/23/22]
• Hannity asked Solomon if the DOJ’s “ultimate goal” is to arrest and charge Trump. During that same episode, Hannity conducted an interview with Solomon, asking if the Biden administration’s “ultimate goal here is to arrest Donald Trump and charge Donald Trump.” Solomon replied that there isn’t enough evidence to know yet, but laid out a timeline that implied the administration waived Trump’s executive privilege in order to “[raid] his home.” Hannity responded that the people running this investigation are “the same liars that have been there since the day he came down the escalator.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 8/23/22]
• Solomon: “Joe Biden himself was at the ignition point of this investigation.” During the August 23 edition of War Room: Pandemic, Solomon told host Steve Bannon that Biden “was at the ignition point of this investigation.” He went on to baselessly claim that Biden was “involved in siccing the FBI on his — on the leader of the political opposition party.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room: Pandemic, 8/23/22]
• Mark Levin: “I knew it; Biden knew, the White House knew, they’re all behind it.” On his show Monday night, Mark Levin spoke about Solomon’s article, saying that “the memos provide the most definitive evidence to date of the current White House’s effort to facilitate a criminal probe of" Trump. He continued to dramatize the extent of the White House’s involvement, such as “eliminating one of the legal defenses that Trump might use to fight the FBI over access to his documents,” referring to the Biden administration’s denial of Trump’s claim on executive privilege. [Westwood One, The Mark Levin Show, 8/22/22]
• Trump: “They Knew Everything.” In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, the former president stated that he was told the White House “[was] NOT INVOLVED. … & that they didn’t know anything at all about the Break-In of Mar-a-Lago.” Trump also praised the “great reporting” of Solomon, saying that Solomon’s reporting on the subpoena documents revealed how the Biden administration in fact “led the charge” on the searches of Mar-a-Lago. [The Gateway Pundit, 8/23/22]
• The Daily Caller claimed the White House “was involved with the DOJ probe” into classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The Daily Caller relied entirely on Solomon’s reporting in an August 23 article that claimed Biden was involved in the FBI search. The Daily Caller went on to write that waiving executive privilege “effectively eliminated a legal defense” for Trump. [The Daily Caller, 8/23/22]

Right-wing media promise to harass Anthony Fauci in retirement if Republicans win back control of Congress

 ERIC KLEEFELD, BUSHRA SULTANA & SHELBY JAMERSON via Media Matters

 When presidential medical adviser Anthony Fauci announced h

is plans to retire in December after five decades of public service, right-wing media personalities predictably attacked him, calling him a “sociopathic liar and political hack” who “needs to be held accountable for all of the lies and misdirections.” 

On Monday, Fauci announced he intends to step down as President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser and as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In response, right-wing media mounted a public onslaught, claiming that Fauci is stepping down to avoid investigations if Republicans take control of Congress in November, directing the GOP to investigate Fauci if the party should take control, proclaiming Fauci should face criminal charges and be sent to prison, and generally attacking his character.

Even Fox anchor Neil Cavuto, who had previously served as a seeming voice of reason and who has previously interviewed Fauci at the network, pressed the retiring public servant about whether his retirement was really just “a way to avoid Republican investigators.”

Right-wing media, especially Fox News, have been maligning Fauci since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz noted, then-President Donald Trump’s “media supporters could not or would not try to directly challenge the president,” whose administration’s response included recommendations of stay-at-home orders and other social distancing measures, “and settled instead on targeting Fauci, who was a face of the administration’s response.” The smear campaign against Fauci didn’t stop; over a roughly 10-month period in 2021, Fox News personalities attacked him over 400 times.
 
Fauci may plan to retire at the end of the year, but the right-wing echo chamber is prepared to hound him for years to come if given the opportunity.

Claims that Fauci is stepping down to avoid oversight

• Fox prime-time star Tucker Carlson speculated that Fauci may have resigned because he thinks the Republicans are going to take over Congress in the midterm elections and does not want to be investigated by them. “So it's possible that Tony Fauci might want to resign before he has to explain all of that to a new Congress,” Carlson said. “He might want to get out of town now and move to, say, Cambridge, find a safe place to hide before the reckoning. Just a thought. Because honestly, there's a lot to answer for.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/22/22]
• Fox prime-time host Laura Ingraham speculated that “Fauci thinks this retirement would save him from a congressional investigation or a subpoena.” She then interviewed Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who said congressional Republicans would want to investigate Fauci based on the conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 virus was human-made. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/22/22]
• Right-wing radio host Buck Sexton claimed, “Sociopathic liar and political hack Fauci is making a run for it before Republicans can take over the House.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]
• Right-wing radio host Dana Loesch claimed Fauci “doesn't want that GOP-controlled House oversight.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]
• Fox prime-time host Jesse Watters claimed that Fauci “seems to think stepping down before Republicans take the House will get him off scot-free.” Watters made this pronouncement just hours after Fauci appeared on Fox and told Neil Cavuto that he would not avoid appearing before Congress. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/23/22]
• The National Pulse’s Raheem Kassam: “BREAKING: Fauci to step down right before Republicans are expected to take control of Congress and commence investigations into his funding of the Wuhan Lab and pandemic response.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]
• Conservative pundit Mercedes Schlapp claimed “it's no coincidence” that Fauci announced he will step down in December, noting that it “is right after Republicans will take back the House and immediately plan oversight into our pandemic response and his funding of gain of function research at the Wuhan Lab.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]

Calls for congressional Republicans to investigate Fauci 

• Fox prime-time host Sean Hannity declared that “Fauci still needs to be held accountable for all of the lies and misdirections.” He then interviewed Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who predicted that if there is a Republican-controlled Congress, it would subpoena Fauci to testify next year. [Fox News, Hannity, 8/22/22]
• Fox’s “news side” presented a more respectable face for the right’s determination to investigate Fauci. Fox contributor Marc Thiessen discussed the need for an “after-action study” of the nation’s COVID-19 response, while blaming Fauci for various aspects of both the pandemic response and its economic consequences. Concluding the segment, co-anchor Bill Hemmer said that in “2023, I think we’ll see him again.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 8/23/22]
• Fox anchor Sandra Smith asked Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS): “What do you want to see happen as far as holding Dr. Anthony Fauci accountable for his actions during this pandemic?” Marshall then repeatedly and falsely accused Fauci of covering up the supposed creation of COVID-19 in a lab, statements which Smith did not challenge. [Fox News, America Reports, 8/23/22; FactCheck.org, 5/19/22]
• Former White House adviser Peter Navarro said on Newsmax that the government should to “take that SOB’s passport” so Fauci cannot flee a Republican-led congressional investigation. Navarro himself was recently indicted for a charge of contempt of Congress over his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. [Newsmax, Eric Bolling: The Balance, 8/22/22; NPR, 6/4/22]

Calls for Fauci’s to face criminal charges and/or prison

• “Stop the Steal” organizer Alex Bruesewitz wrote that Fauci “should be investigated, and quite frankly arrested, for what he put our country through.” [Twitter, 8/22/22; Media Matters, 7/27/22]
• Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk declared that Fauci “belongs in prison.” He continued, “Seize the passports. Freeze his pension, distribute it to his victims. Lawyer up. Time to hold him accountable for the last 3 years.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]
• Right-wing radio host Clay Travis wrote that Fauci “belongs in prison,” claiming he is the “most destructive bureaucrat in United States history.” Travis also said Fauci’s “‘leadership’ on covid will — in the decades ahead — come to be seen as one of the greatest and most destructive failures in our nation’s history.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]
• Right-wing podcasters Diamond & Silk: “Fauci doesn't need to just step down, he should be arrested for Crimes Against Humanity!” [Twitter, 8/22/22]

Attacks on Fauci’s character

• In his opening monologue, Fox's Carlson said, “On some level, even Tony Fauci knows that Tony Fauci is in fact a dangerous fraud.” Carlson further elaborated that Fauci “has done things that in most countries at most times in history would be understood perfectly clearly to be very serious crimes.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/22/22]
• Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy called Fauci an “authoritarian monster.” She claimed Fauci “led our country on a Chinese-style approach instead of an American-style where we look at science.” [Fox News, The Five, 8/23/22]
• Washington Examiner’s Haisten Willis described Fauci as someone some people “feel is … self-promoting, unaccountable, and even liable for helping start the pandemic.” [Washington Examiner, 8/22/22]
• Fox News contributor and Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen: “Never has anybody been so wrong about so much for so long and been so lionized as Anthony Fauci.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 8/23/22]
• Sean Duffy, Fox News contributor and former member of Congress, repeatedly accused Fauci of having “Chinese” principles instead of American ones in his supposed use of the power of government. [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 8/23/22]
• Fox News’ Katie Pavlich said it is “sickening” the way Fauci supposedly let “power and fame” go to his head. Pavlich tweeted, “In March 2020 Fauci actually told the truth about who Wuhan coronavirus was deadly for, the elderly and those with comorbidities. He said it was ‘very clear.’ He also said drug store masks don’t work. Then, he got a taste of power and fame he just couldn’t let go. Sickening.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]
• New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz on Fauci: “His half-century of ‘public service’ was a disaster for us. His handling of covid should be studied in the future as a blueprint of what not to do.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]
• Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro called Fauci “a true douchebag.” [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 08/23/22]
• Right-wing media gadfly Benny Johnson called Fauci “the most evil and malevolent character in my lifetime.” [The Benny Show, via YouTube, 8/23/22]

Tucker Carlson uses enforcement of food safety laws as occasion to attack trans kids

 John Knefel via Media Matters

On Monday evening Fox News’ top star Tucker Carlson used the federal    



government’s enforcement of food safety laws as an opportunity to attack trans kids, arbitrarily conflating two unrelated issues for the sole purpose of maligning children and the LGBTQ community.

Carlson’s guest was Jeremy Loffredo, reporter for the far-right Canadian outlet Rebel News, which has spread Covid vaccine misinformation and has a history of climate change denialism. Carlson invited Loffredo on to discuss the story of Amos Miller, an Amish farmer who has violated food safety regulations for years. Carlson and Loffredo framed the issue as an example of government overreach in violation of Miller’s “religious beliefs.” In fact, Miller’s farm is a public health risk; the Food and Drug Administration found listeria in his raw milk in 2016 and has been attempting to get him to comply with regulations since then, according to Lancaster Online.

Loffredo argued that the Biden administration was singling out and punishing Miller because his farm doesn’t use fertilizer or gasoline – two commodities whose price has been affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Amos has completely eliminated any risk coming from the international or domestic politics of the Biden administration and they're coming after him for it,” Loffredo said.

“Maybe if he promises to put more chemicals in the milk that turn kids trans, they'll lay off,” Carlson responded. As the Daily Beast notes, Carlson’s bizarre comment echoed his friend Alex Jones’ infamous remarks about chemicals turning frogs gay.

The government is seeking $305,065 in total costs related to Miller’s regulatory non-compliance and subsequent refusals to pay his initial fines.

Miller has also associated with a group the Department of Justice describes as part of the sovereign citizen movement, which neither Carlson or Loffredo mentioned. The group, Prairie Star National, claimed to represent Miller in court despite not being licensed to act as court officials, and the judge forced Miller’s actual lawyer to remain on the case. Sovereign Citizens hold to an anti-government ideology that claims its adherents aren’t bound by state or federal law. Members of the movement are typically associated with tax avoidance and the kind of regulatory malfeasance Miller has engaged in, although some in the movement have also been involved in acts of violence directed at state actors.

Carlson incorporated the enforcement action into a broader persecution narrative that he offers his viewers every night. “So they went after gyms, organic farmers, and churches,” Carlson said, referring to the Biden administration. “So maybe they’re against anything that’s wholesome and edifying, that makes you stronger and healthier, and in favor of everything that diminishes you and makes you more dependent.”

“Amos would have been past this a long time ago had Amos not been listening to extreme advice,” Miller’s lawyer told Lancaster Online. “He has this extreme group of people who are very antigovernment. They really bent his ear.”

Carlson has repeatedly claimed that the Biden administration is deploying armed agents of the state to target and jail conservatives for their political beliefs. Most recently, he incorrectly told his viewers that new funding for the IRS would be spent on militarizing the agency to audit and raid the homes of Biden’s political enemies and working-class conservatives. In reality, the funding is directed towards increasing the agency’s capacity to investigate and prosecute extremely rich individuals and corporations for tax avoidance. Approximately 1 percent of the new funding is going towards hiring agents who are allowed to carry arms, according to the New York Times.

This segment is more evidence that Carlson will use any occasion to reverse-engineer an attack on an outgroup, be that trans children, migrants, or any of his other regular targets.

Conservatives use Trump’s Mar-a-Lago search to scare audiences into falling in line behind their proto-fascism

 From Media Matters by JOHN KNEFEL 

Right-wing media figures have reacted to the news that the FBI searched former President Donald Trump’s home at his Mar-a-Lago resort by calling for mass purges of any individual or agency they deem responsible for holding the former president, his associates, or his supporters accountable for their potentially criminal actions.

This new development turns the right’s recent history of election denialism and January 6 revisionism into an all-encompassing electoral strategy in the coming midterms and 2024 presidential election. Conservative media is drawing a line in the sand and calling for total fealty to Trump. Any deviation is tantamount to treason.

“The next president of the United States needs to prosecute everyone. Needs to clean house everywhere,” conservative YouTuber Steven Crowder said. “Any Republican right now in office or running for office who does not actively champion the defunding, the dismantling of our intelligence agencies, I will not vote for.” 

“The term skeleton crew should be a generous application to what the FBI will be when the next president is through with him,” Crowder continued.

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CitationFrom the August 9, 2022, edition of Louder with Crowder, streamed on YouTube

Right-wing radio host Jesse Kelly simultaneously called for defunding the FBI and investigating Republicans’ political enemies.

Russ Vought, a Christian nationalist and former director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump, echoed the point on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle.

“They are now telling with clear and convincing evidence to a Republican political class that has been unwilling to fight back against this with the leverage that they have,” Vought said. “And I think this is a wake-up call for those in Congress to be able to use the tools at their disposal to defund the FBI, to ask the right questions, and to prepare for a Church-style commission next year, if given a Republican majority, to dismantle the FBI into a thousand bits.”

Fox News was also quick to link the Mar-a-Lago search with recent news that the IRS is getting additional funding to go after wealthy individuals and corporations.

CitationFrom the August 8, 2022, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Though those topics appear disconnected, right-wing media outlets have spent months claiming that conservatives are being singled out by the FBI and IRS for politically motivated prosecution, a manufactured narrative with no evidence to support it. They’re now latching onto this latest development to escalate that rhetoric and whip conservative voters into a frenzy in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections, with many claiming that President Joe Biden targeted Trump personally or that Trump was the victim of a deep state “witch hunt.”

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CitationFrom the August 9, 2022, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

But beyond the defenses of Trump as an individual, many on the right attempted to turn what appears to be a lawful investigation of a powerful person into a story of David and Goliath, with the former president cast as the underdog against an all-powerful state set on eliminating its opponents.

In this Bizarro World version of events, Trump is the canary in the coal mine. If the FBI could search his house, the argument goes, then that meant that no conservative was safe. “The real target of this investigation isn't Trump,” said Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “The real target of this investigation is you or anyone who dares to call out and take on the rank corruption of the D.C. establishment.”

Right-wing radio host Buck Sexton offered almost the exact same talking point. “They’re sending a message now to President Trump and his supporters that they’ll come for you if you stand against the machine,” Sexton said. “This is a chilling moment in the country's history.”

Others on the right put forward a related argument that Trump is being targeted by the FBI specifically because he stands as the lone protector of the forgotten man.

Both of these claims are a way of turning any attempt to hold Trump accountable for crimes he may have committed into an imagined assault on his faux-populist supporters. If “they” – an unnamed, state-sponsored enemy – can target someone relatively as powerful as Trump, then “you” – the right-wing media consumer – will soon be ground to dust by the same forces. Trump’s legal battles, then, aren’t his alone. They belong to his entire movement.

Conservative pundits have spent months recently laying this groundwork, though a larger persecution narrative on the right goes back decades. In the days prior to the Mar-a-Lago search, conservatives reacted to news that landmark legislation known as the Inflation Reduction Act would include $80 billion for the IRS by claiming the new funding would turn the agency into a militarized, political police force. 

The reality is the exact opposite. The new funding is specifically designed to provide the IRS the resources it needs to target powerful people and organizations, instead of the low-hanging fruit the agency has gone after following decades of conservative sabotage. Just like in the responses to the Mar-a-Lago search, however, the right reflexively transformed the issue from one of higher tax collection aimed at billionaires and transnational corporations into a wholly manufactured narrative about a supposedly out-of-control government bureaucracy coming for Trump supporters.

“They’re going to weaponize the IRS, use the government to intimidate every single Trump supporter and MAGA supporter in America,” conservative pundit John Fredericks said.

In July, Tucker Carlson devoted his entire opening monologue to similarly arguing that prosecution of anyone associated with Trump’s January 6 attempted coup was, by definition, an example of totalitarian overreach. Carlson spent about 16 minutes of the most watched cable show on prime time mischaracterizing 14 investigations into right-wing media figures or politicians, positioning the FBI as an explicitly political secret police force targeting conservatives. 

“The signature tactic of the Biden administration … has been the criminalizing of American politics,” Carlson said. 

Again, this characterization could not be more absurd. Both presently and historically, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have disproportionately targeted, investigated, and prosecuted left-wing people and organizations. The FBI is more conservative than the population in general, and current FBI Director Christopher Wray was appointed by Trump. If anything, the United States has a history of allowing rampant lawbreaking by powerful people to go unchecked. No high-level officials involved in the torture program under President George W. Bush were ever prosecuted, for example, and many went on to successful careers inside and outside government.

The conservative response to all of these developments – the Mar-a-Lago search, new IRS funding, the prosecution of insurrectionists – underscores a basic tenet of their philosophy. As the classical music composer and internet commentator Frank Wilhoit wrote in 2018: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” 

This pithy remark has almost become a cliche at this point, but it explains a great deal about the last several years. Conservatives constantly claim to “back the Blue,” but when a movement can seamlessly pivot from Blue Lives Matter to Defund the FBI, there is clearly an operating principle at work other than an abstract respect for “law and order.” Their real commitment is to a certain kind of order – one defined by social hierarchies across race, class, and gender.  

Neither the FBI nor the IRS actually threaten to subvert those hierarchies, but the conservative imagination transforms them into all-powerful entities that can. Conservative pundits reacting to the Mar-a-Lago search are arguing for a system that protects them, their donors, and their sponsors, no matter the charges against them. The David versus Goliath narrative they’re now pitching to viewers is merely a useful fig leaf toward that end.