Raid On Mar-A-Lago Tells Us All We Need To Know About The DOJ

Within the last week, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has undertaken two controversial actions and taken inaction on other notable cases, that point to the overt politicization of our nation’s top law enforcement agency.

On the evening of August 7, the DOJ approved an unprecedented search warrant executed by the FBI to search former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. The warrant was reportedly issued for taking home materials at the conclusion of his presidency that were meant for the National Archives, which may have contained classified information. Just three days prior, on August 4, the DOJ filed civil rights charges against three former and one current Louisville Metro Police officers in the 2020 shooting of Breonna Taylor, who was caught in the crossfire when her boyfriend fired through the door at officers serving a search warrant on her apartment – a case that was presented to a grand jury and declined by local prosecutors and the Kentucky Attorney General when video emerged showing officers returning fire during the incident. 

For many who have served in the criminal justice system, the way these two cases were pursued, and the timing of them, exposed political conflicts within the justice department that have been suspected since 2013, when thenAttorney General Eric Holder called himself [former President] Barack Obama’s “wingman”, as opposed to being an impartial arbiter of justice. Nine years later, a myriad of highly political cases pursued by AG Merrick Garland are calling many Americans to question the integrity of the DOJ and other federal law enforcement agencies. 

“When I was at DOJ, the left screamed about [AGs] Sessions, Gonzalez, and Ashcroft on independence, but now they want the AG to be in lockstep in this board game they are playing – to be on the same page and narrative with the White House,” said Brett Tolman, former United States attorney for the District of Utah. “Fifteen to twenty years ago, something like [a raid on the residence of a former president] would never have happened. This show is important to Democrats, to me it’s one of the most overplayed hands in history.”

To the increasingly polarized Democratic base, the Mar-a-Lago raid and Taylor charges are a signal that the Biden Administration is determined to demonstrate their authority over former President Trump and state governments that oppose their views. The pinnacle of this perceived abuse of authority is with the Mar-a-Lago raid, which the White House claimed to have no knowledge of, but Tolman said from first-hand experience as a federal prosecutor, “Attorney General Garland, FBI Director Wray, the Deputy AG, and both the DOJ and FBI liaisons to the White House would have had knowledge of and approve the Mar-a-Lago search warrant application.”

Tolman also addressed the fact that the federal magistrate judge who issued the Mar-a-Lago warrant was an Obama donor and former defense attorney on the Jeffery Epstein human trafficking case, saying that “securing a warrant is one of the few circumstances where judges can be shopped, instead of issued at random.” Adding to speculation that the warrant was politically staged was the fact that FBI agents were sent in wearing tactical body armor, despite the fact that Mar-a-Lago is a sterile environment secured by the U.S. Secret Service. Tolman notes that “in looking at a comparable case, the Hillary Clinton email scandal, no warrants were issued nor agents in tactical gear sent.” This is noteworthy considering the fact that the Clinton and Hunter Biden cases are far clearer in a legal sense. Considering that the president of the United States has the authority to classify and declassify information – Trump was President when the materials in question were removed from the White House.

The Taylor case raises even more questions about politicizing the justice system. According to Tolman, for generations, the DOJ has had a petite policy, which prevents the agency from prosecuting someone on the same facts and circumstances as a state case. Therefore, when the grand jury declined to indict the officers in Taylor’s death, in the absence of new evidence, the DOJ would normally defer to the state and decline to prosecute as well. Considering there is bodycam footage from various angles showing officers being fired upon through the door of Taylor’s apartment after knocking and announcing themselves on a legally-issued search warrant – the prospect of a conviction in this case does not bode well for the DOJ. 

Suspicious Timing

Considering President Biden’s abysmal poll numbers, looming recession, and a rise in crime throughout the nation, pundits feel that these legal actions by the DOJ are serving to distract the public into focusing on the January 6 and Black Lives Matter riots, both of which energized the Democratic base. The Mar-a-Lago raid and Taylor charges are the most recent attempt to use the DOJ’s color of