What’s Kevin McCarthy trying to hide?

| 12:01 pm EDT August 9, 2022
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After the FBI carried out a search and seizure warrant at Donald Trump’s home last night, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy promptly announced that he’ll retaliate against Attorney General Merrick Garland if the Republicans win the House in the midterms. If McCarthy were smart, he’d be trying to distance himself from Trump right about now. Instead McCarthy is getting even more emphatically on board with Trump’s sinking ship. So what gives?

Two possibilities come to mind. The first is that McCarthy could be caught up in this himself. There has never been any specific indication that he was involved in Trump’s classified document theft scandal. But it’s known that Trump and McCarthy were communicating on January 6th. And if the DOJ is carrying out search warrants against Trump in this scandal, it’s probably also carrying out search warrants against Trump in his other scandals. Just how far down the rabbit hole did McCarthy go?

There is also the more pedestrian explanation, which is that McCarthy knows he’s a dummy, and that he fears his entire career trajectory will fall apart if Trump isn’t there to hold his hand. In such case McCarthy may be making these desperate overtures just to try to help keep Trump afloat – not that it has any chance of working. If McCarthy had any sense, he’d resign now and turn state’s witness against Trump. But we all know McCarthy doesn’t have that kind of sense.