McCarthy supports law enforcement, except for this time when he doesn’t

Kevin McCarthy has had it with this guy. No, not Donald Trump. That was last year.

This year, it’s Attorney General Merrick Garland that the Bakersfield congressman has seen enough of.

“Preserve your documents!” McCarthy says.

Again, not directed at Trump, who has been known to flush documents down the presidential toilet or, worse, take them home, in violation of the National Archives Act. Or, worse still, we may now reasonably speculate, mishandle highly classified, sensitive documents in ways never previously imagined.

Again, it’s Garland that McCarthy is talking to here, as if the nation’s top law enforcement officer might have clogged the executive washroom’s commode with high-interest affidavits had he not been forewarned by the House minority leader.

McCarthy speaks often of his

support for police, saying as recently as May 13 at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, “It’s been a rough couple of years for men and women in blue. The Republican Conference wants to ... only say, ‘Thank you.’”

He regularly slams those who would tie the hands of law enforcement, at one point tweeting, “The ‘Defund the Police’ campaign — endorsed by Democrats — has decimated our law enforcement.”

Yet when the preeminent law enforcement agency in the land, the FBI, carried out a search warrant last week at Trump’s Florida residence on the authorization of a federal magistrate, McCarthy called it a purely political maneuver. This, despite having no idea at that point what the warrant actually said or what the alleged documents were specifically thought to include.

With that in mind, McCarthy might have couched his remarks more carefully, limiting himself to a statement of general support for the former president, or, better yet, saying nothing at all until he knew what he was talking about. Instead, he said this: “I’ve seen enough. The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization. When Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts, and leave no stone unturned. Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”

If that strikes you as aggressive, even threatening, congratulations, you’re awake. The most likely successor to Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House (yes, still, but far from assured) probably figured a menacing blast of hyperbole would make its way onto several national newscasts, and he was right.

Thing is, rhetoric like that can have consequences, and it has. Palm Beach County, Fla., Magistrate Bruce Reinhart, who found probable cause based on the allegations in the DOJ affidavit and signed off on the search warrant, has been targeted with violent and antisemitic threats in the days since the FBI raid. In Cincinnati, a man with connections to a far-right extremist group tried to breach an FBI field office Thursday armed with an AR-15-style rifle. Ricky W. Shiffer was fatally shot after firing multiple times at police during a standoff. A person with an account bearing the same name as the attacker had earlier posted on Trump’s Truth Social social media platform that people should kill Florida federal agents, according to The New York Times. The next day the right-wing media outlet Breitbart News published the warrant authorizing the Mar-a-Lago search and did not redact the names of the FBI agents on the document, leading pro-Trump chat board posters to label them “traitors.”

McCarthy hasn’t been the only Republican feigning indignation over the FBI’s treatment of a president they all fully realize is capable of just about anything.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who six weeks ago blamed high crime rates on “left-wing policies of defunding the police,” on Monday declared, “Defund the FBI!” Greene really doesn’t count, I realize, but even normally reasonable Republicans were criticizing the federal agency before knowing what it was after and the gravity of what it is reported to have seized.

Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the House GOP Conference chair, accused President Biden and his appointees of “complete abuse and overreach of (their) authority” and “targeting their political opponents.”

Now that we’re learning the search may have been tied to concerns Trump absconded with documents related to nuclear weapons and so-called special access operations — valid national security issues and not politics — some Republicans are stepping back.

McCarthy is among them, but not by much.

The attorney general, McCarthy said, “has a lot of explaining to do.”

Well, yes he does. Garland undoubtedly intends to do his explaining before a federal grand jury or in a similarly appropriate venue. Some Americans will wait until then to pass judgment.

McCarthy is right about this: It has indeed been a rough couple of years for men and women in law enforcement. The irony is that his rhetoric of late continues to make it so.