The rhetorical temperature over the investigation into the former president rises significantly.
It is generally understood that any indictment of former president Donald Trump would be rejected out-of-hand as corrupt by many of his most fervent supporters. There are further widespread worries that some of those supporters might engage in acts of violence in response.
This is not idle speculation. The revelation that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort had been the target of an FBI search earlier this month led to a broad backlash against the bureau, with a spike in threats against agents and at least one attempt at violence. The political right’s view of the search began with it being an unwarranted overreach, a position that has been left largely unmodified as more details emerge.
There’s an obvious parallel here: Trump and his allies repeatedly insisted that the 2020 election was tainted and, on Jan. 6, 2021, his supporters violently pushed past law enforcement and overran the Capitol.
That this risk exists is unquestionably a complicating factor for the Justice Department as it picks its way forward in its investigation into Trump. Attorney General Merrick Garland reportedly spent weeks considering the Mar-a-Lago search before ultimately approving it, a consideration that certainly included the anticipated response.
In an interview on Fox News Sunday evening, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) rationalized why Trump supporters would be furious at an indictment.
“There’s a double standard when it comes to Trump,” Graham told host Trey Gowdy. He articulated this “double standard” in familiar ways, including disparaging the investigation into Russian interference. “I’ll say this,“ Graham continued, referring to Gowdy’s former role leading the House investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of an email server while secretary of state as part of the probe of the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, “if there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle, which you presided over and did … a good job, there’ll be riots in the streets.
