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Since the FBI executed a legally obtained search warrant on the home of former President Donald Trump Monday, there’s been an apparent race by the former president’s supporters to determine, as far as I can see, who can make the most irresponsible statement defending him.
Without evidence, Trump’s supporters have accused the leadership of the Justice Department and FBI of engaging in a political vendetta against Trump and planting incriminating evidence at his home. They’ve called for defunding the FBI, impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland and used inflammatory language, such as suggesting that the search was an act of “war” against Trump.
But the words of Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., are perhaps the most chilling:
“If the FBI can raid a U.S. President, imagine what they can do to you.”
On the surface, this might sound anodyne. But the implications of what Stefanik is suggesting are frightening: Anybody who is or has been president of the United States should never be investigated for a crime.
The fact that a former president is no less immune from prosecution than any other resident is not a bug of American democracy, it’s one of its greatest features. It means that all Americans, no matter their station, are equal under the law. But for Stefanik, it appears treating the president as if he’s no different from an ordinary citizen is a bridge too far.
While the congresswoman is obliquely making the argument that Trump is above the law, others are saying it more directly. In The Wall Street Journal Wednesday, columnist Dan Henninger said the quiet part loud:
Let’s put aside the fact that Franklin D.
