Republican hypocrisy is over the top out of control given the former guy's criminal activity

Echoes: The Washington Post Opinions
Republicans’ response to the Mar-a-Lago search is disturbing and dangerous! In fact, the "trumped up" rhetoric has already caused the death of a cult acolyte of the former guy, who was killed in Cincinnati when he tried to enter an FBI building.   

“Lock her up, lock her up.”

Potentially in violation of the Espionage Act for retaining illegal documents at his Mar-a-Lago evil palace.

Donald Trump’s supporters lobbed this rallying cry at Hillary Clinton in 2016, — hoping for the imprisonment of a political opponent for allegedly mishandling classified material. 

Now, however, some of the same people appear to believe that even a rule-of-law investigation of Trump for a possible violation of the same set of rules is out of order.

The FBI (legally!) executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida this week as part of what The Post reports is an investigation into the potential mishandling of White House documents. The National Archives discovered about seven months ago that the former president had taken more than a dozen boxes of files with him when he left office, some of them marked “top secret” — and suspected, it seems, that the documents he handed over to investigators this spring represented only a portion of the trove. 

Republicans went crazy over the (legal!) Trump probable cause search. Now they look idiotic.

A (cult) supporter of the former guy Trump (wrong-mindedly) drives past his Mar-a-Lago estate on August 8, in Palm Beach, Fla. (Wilfredo Lee/AP) IMO, this is a very threatening image.

Republicans are proclaimed outrage over the search, arguing that no president has ever been subjected to such a proceeding. 

They may be right. But then, no modern president has been the subject of as many and varied investigations as Mr. Trump — who invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 440 times, in one of the inquires, in New York, on Wednesday.

Of course, criminal investigations of presidents shouldn’t be undertaken lightly. The warrant was quickly made public; but, only a sealed affidavit can tell the full story about the evidentiary basis for the search. The improper retention of records is a serious offense that shouldn’t be dismissed, but it is so far unclear whether Mr. Trump’s retention of these records constituted a violation of national security, a threat to democracy, or any other grave abuse. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland, then, found himself in a tricky position: Eventually he might be summoned before a  potential GOP-controlled congressional committees and ordered to explain himself for allowing the FBI’s actions — a job that will prove more difficult if the inquiry doesn’t lead to criminal charges or evidence of major wrongdoing- like a violation of the Espionage Act!

Republicans are behaving with gross irresponsibility: from talk show hosts urging violence that seems all-too-possible after the events of Jan. 6, 2021, to Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and former Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon (aka, "passed over for advancement" in the US Navy) comparing the FBI to the Gestapo, to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) (aka "Charlie McCarthy's evil twin") declaring the Justice Department in “an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.” This rhetoric is disturbing and dangerous — not to mention hypocritical. 

In fact, it is Trump’s administration and acolytes who sought to weaponize the Justice Department, and it is they who today are attempting to turn what to all appearances is a legitimate inquiry into a political circus.