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Legal experts explain why FBI Mar-a-Lago search was a triumph for ‘checks and balances’
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Legal experts explain why FBI Mar-a-Lago search was a triumph for ‘checks and balances’
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In right-wing media outlets — including Fox News and Fox Business — countless pundits have been slamming the FBI’s Monday, August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago as politically motivated government overreach. But many pundits at liberal-leaning MSNBC, on the other hand, have applauded the search, hoping that former President Donald Trump will face something they believe he has escaped much too often: accountability.
An op-ed published by Fox News’ website on August 22 is considerably different in its viewpoint from the ultra-MAGA commentary typically offered by far-right Fox News pundits such as Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity. The op-ed was written by three legal experts: Laurence H. Tribe, Dennis Aftergut and Jeffrey Abramson, who view the FBI search and the investigation that goes with it as an example of “checks and balances” working in U.S. democracy.
“The U.S. Constitution is grounded in skepticism about government,” Tribe, Aftergut and Abramson explain. “That’s why it creates three branches that ‘check and balance’ each other. Our revolution was a fight for independence from a king who could do no wrong. The Constitution’s underlying message was that power in a single person corrupts. In that spirit, whatever our political orientation, each of us should apply a critical mindset to all the powers at play in the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.”
READ MORE: The FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search was Donald Trump’s ‘Al Capone moment’
The legal experts continue, “On one side are current government officials. Safeguarding liberty calls for skepticism toward every exercise of power. That is exactly what Judge Bruce Reinhart displayed in last Thursday’s hearing on releasing the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit. He did not uncritically accept the government’s position that nothing could be disclosed. Rather, he ordered it to submit a redacted copy of the affidavit so he could decide for himself what could safely be released.”
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