Joe Conason

Ever since Richard Nixon demanded "law and order" while overseeing what America later discovered to be an enormous criminal conspiracy, that Republican slogan has sounded ironic and faintly ridiculous.

Now, with their party firmly in the grip of former President Donald Trump -- a Nixon admirer, a convicted felon and soon to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee -- Republicans are actively undermining law enforcement and counterespionage while aiding drug cartels, human traffickers and hostile foreign powers.

House Speaker Mike Johnson vowed recently to punish the FBI, as did Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Judiciary Committee chair, because they are furious over Trump's conviction by a New York City jury in a case that did not involve the FBI at all. For many months following the FBI search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, where he had concealed national security documents that he refused to surrender, a growing chorus of Republican legislators has sought punitive action against the bureau, which suffered substantial cuts in the most recent federal budget....

Plainly visible behind the melodramatic release of a special counsel report on President Joe Biden's retention of classified documents -- and its unprofessional partisan personal attack on him -- are several basic facts that ought to be understood by every American.

First is the character of Robert Hur, the special counsel, a Trump Republican who abused Attorney General Merrick Garland's good-faith appointment of him. Hur larded his report exonerating the president with irrelevant remarks that were obviously designed to inflict political damage. By doing so, Hur clearly violated Justice Department protocols and has earned investigations of his own misconduct by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility and inspector general.

It is worth noting that Hur's ridiculously verbose, overwrought document is marred by its slovenly composition. To cite one glaring instance among many, he claims to have found "evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified documents," and then admits more than 200 pages later that "there is in fact a shortage of evidence on these points." (Did the special counsel, only 51 years old, suffer his own embarrassing memory lapse?)...

Supporters of Donald Trump often complain about the "liberal elites" who have disrespected them. It is a feeling of cultural grievance that their idol constantly exploits, both to enrich himself with their donations and to defend himself against his critics.

Whenever Trump finds himself under pressure -- in a courtroom, an impeachment or an election -- he tells those credulous followers that it is not him but they who are the true targets of the Democrats, the "deep state," the media, the Republicans in Name Only, the Biden White House or whomever. That was how he responded to the first impeachment brought against him in 2019 and that is how he answered the huge $83 million jury verdict delivered against him this week in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.

Trump makes this demagogic argument in full confidence that the MAGA cult will believe him -- and with certainty that they will never realize how deeply he is insulting them.
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In the days since Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg unveiled his office’s 34-count indictment of Donald J. Trump, arguments about the likelihood of conviction have erupted on every cable news program, as the former president spews fusillades of lies and threats.

Most of this noise is pointless and hardly worth engaging. The only opinion that matters may someday be announced by a jury foreperson in a court of law.

Yet there is one defense of Trump, repeated even by people who aren’t his sycophants, that does demand closer examination – the claim that Bragg, a local prosecutor, shouldn’t bring charges that the Justice Department already rejected....

Anyone who was cynical or dismissive about Fox News Channel before now has suddenly learned that they weren't cynical or dismissive enough. Astounding evidence emerging this week from the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox, Rupert Murdoch, his son Lachlan and others shows, in excruciating detail, how the "fair and balanced" network actively lied to its viewers about purported "fraud" in the 2020 presidential election.

In their 192-page motion for summary judgment against Fox, the Dominion attorneys cite dozens of instances of Fox hosts and news executives consciously broadcasting truly outlandish falsehoods manufactured by former President Donald Trump's election team. Nobody with any sense could possibly have believed the nonsense claims of Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and nobody at Fox News did — as the internal messages and testimony cited by Dominion prove.

If it was ever possible to believe anything on Fox News, it isn't anymore. What these documents demonstrate beyond question is that from Murdoch down, the Fox apparatus prizes ratings above all else, and in their greed will readily trash the truth night after night. They know that they're lying, and they just don't care. ...