No wonder Donald Trump’s lawyers were panicking
Earlier today, for the second time in a week, Donald Trump’s criminal defense attorneys tried hyping a story in the media about how they were “in talks” with the DOJ about its criminal investigation into Trump. Given that the DOJ doesn’t treat a criminal target and his lawyers as partners in the investigation, they weren’t actually “in talks” about anything. Instead it came off as a belated attempt at giving the impression that they were somehow in control of things, when they clearly were not.
Then, just hours after Trump’s lawyers pushed the “in talks” narrative for the second time, the DOJ had the FBI carry out a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. To be clear, the Feds would not have given Trump or his lawyers a heads up about this in advance – and the fact that they waited until Trump was in New York tells you that they wanted to make sure Trump wasn’t there to try to sabotage things.
But the timing suggests that Trump’s lawyers knew or feared that something was about to give. They’ve spent the past week desperately trying to give the public the impression that they were in control of the situation, which is generally what you do when you’ve completely lost control of the situation.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report