My superpower is an ability to make quick connections between data points across space and time. It comes in handy when something completely random or seemingly nonsensical happens in the Trump era: My brain is able to reach back into prior seasons of this unending live series and connect some dots that may actually offer a method to the madness. (I use “method” very loosely here.) This is why, when reports emerged that the FBI had executed a search warrant in Fulton County, Georgia for ballots from the 2020 election, a few lightbulbs/alarm bells went off. What triggered my mental rolodex was this picture:
As the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard is an odd person to be on-site for the execution of a search warrant. The ODNI is an oversight/coordinating role among the 18 intelligence agencies — it is not, in itself, a law enforcement or investigative agency. So her presence means that whatever was happening ostensibly has a connection to intelligence and national security. And that’s when I remembered the draft EO that was never issued in 2020 because it was too crazy then, and frankly would still be too crazy even under today’s standards. You may be forgiven if you have no idea what I’m talking about — most of this came to light well after the 2020 election, during the January 6 Committee’s investigation and hearing. Specifically, the Jan. 6 Committee, which was basically doing God’s work, went down a lot of wacky rabbit holes. One of them was a 38-page power point presentation circulated in late December 2020 among Trump’s staff by a self-proclaimed “information warfare expert” and former Army colonel named Phil Waldron, entitled, “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN.” According to The New York Times, “[t]he document recommended that Mr. Trump declare a national emergency to delay the certification of the election results and included a claim that China and Venezuela had obtained control over the voting infrastructure in a majority of states.” Note: Venezuela. We’ll come back to that. The power point became the basis for a draft executive order (which was never issued) that would have authorized the military to seize voting machines on the pretext that they had been targeted by foreign adversaries. The executive order was drafted with the help of the more extreme elements in Trump’s circle at the time, like General Mike Flynn and Cleta Mitchell, after Trump’s efforts to find other ways to seize the voting machines were unsuccessful. He reportedly asked Rudy Giuliani, his lawyer at the time, to request the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines in swing states. Giuliani did so, but the acting director of DHS at the time said he had no authority to do that. The DHS came after Trump himself asked then Attorney General Bill Barr if the Justice Department could seize the machines, which Barr said was not possible since there was no probable cause that a crime had been committed. So the executive order was drafted authorizing the military to seize the machines as sort of a last resort since DHS and DOJ weren’t playing ball. Remember that Kash Patel was then Chief of Staff to then acting defense secretary Chris Miller in the Department of Defense. And Miller was willing to place calls to the defense attache in Rome to investigate yet another foreign interference conspiracy theory: that Italian defense satellites had flipped votes from Trump to Biden. I’m sorry, I know all of this is batshit insane — here is a diagram if it helps:
Anyway, the point is that the adults in the room were (mostly) saying no; even Giuliani told Trump that the military could not be brought in unless there was “clear-cut evidence of foreign interference in the election.” Well, there are no more adults in the room. And the person who was most willing to get on board with these conspiracy theories — Kash Patel — is now the director of the FBI. So here we are. I should note that the search warrant was issued by a federal magistrate judge, Catherine M. Salinas, who as far as I’m aware, is just a normal judge. And search warrants are only issued if the government can provide probable cause that evidence of a crime will be found in the places to be searched. In this case, the crimes are 52 U.S.C. 20701 and 20511, which deal with improper retention of records (a misdemeanor) and election officials involved in voter fraud (a felony), respectively. So something was presented to the judge that provided enough probable cause for her to authorize the search warrant. On this point I will note, in addition to Gabbard’s presence, a few other anomalies:
And don’t forget! Under the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, Trump has “absolute immunity” even for ordering his Justice Department to conduct sham or improper investigations. It’s true that the immunity doesn’t extend to his underlings, so in theory, there should be a deterrent effect for them to, say, lie in affidavits or court filings. But guess who would have to prosecute a crime of making false statements or committing perjury? Yes, you guessed it, the Justice Department. And, of course, Trump has his, er, trump card, which is the pardon power. This is all to say that there is not a lot besides their own conscience to stop people in his ambit who are willing to make up “evidence” from whole cloth — and conscience seems to be in short supply. (You can read more about why the Supreme Court’s decision only emboldens bad actors, and does not protect good ones, in my piece here.)
So, I will wait to learn more about how this search warrant was granted. But there are enough abnormal things here that there should really be no presumption of regularity in anything we are seeing. In the meantime, choose YOUR own adventure:
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