Monday, after the news of a raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, FL, conservative talker Mark Levin appeared on FNC’s “Hannity” to offer his reaction.
Levin called it the “worst attack on this republic in modern history.”
Partial transcript as follows:
HANNITY: On the phone line right now is the great one, Mark Levin.
Mark, I quoted you earlier. You have said many times I’ve asked you about it a number of times, a post-constitutional America. Let me put your legal hat on and ask this question — is there any thing that you can possibly think of that warranted this raid on a former president’s residence as it relates to archives potentially of classified material when the president according to his son Eric was working hand in hand, in tandem with the Archives, people to get — to get them anything that they might need?
LEVIN (via telephone): All right. First of all, I’m a former chief of staff to United States attorney general. We never ever have done this, never. That’s number one.
Number two, it’s 90 days before midterm election. That’s outrageous.
Number three, everybody pretty much knows that Donald Trump is going to run in the Republican primary for president of the United States.
And so you have a sitting president wants to run against him and his attorney general acting like this. Here’s how this worked. Everybody is guessing, I will tell you what happened.
This is in the jurisdiction of the U.S. attorney in District of Columbia who is also overseeing the January 6 prosecution. Why? Because that’s where the national archives is buried in the District of Columbia.
They need to send FBI agents from the Washington office down there, they would have used FBI agents in South Florida, and it would have coordinated with the U.S. attorney’s office down there if they are playing it by the book.
Number two, he wouldn’t have done anything without the signoff of the attorney general of the United States. Period.
Number three, this was well orchestrated, so this is been going on for weeks. You keep asking your guests what’s the justification. There is no justification. What’s he going to say tomorrow, the attorney general?
Here’s my guess. We’ve been negotiating with Trump and his lawyers since February when we found out they had this information. We were getting nowhere, and then we know or we heard that some documents were being destroyed.
Maggie Haberman of “The New York Times” was on CNN. They’ve been running pictures of hers that she’s going to have in the book of documents being flushed down the toilet. That doesn’t mean a damn thing. It could be anything.
HANNITY: With Elise Stefanik’s name on it, that’s all it was.
LEVIN: OK. But what I’m saying is you asked what with a pretext be.
HANNITY: Correct.
LEVIN: So it is a — pretext is exactly right. There is no justification for sending 30 fricking FBI agents to the former president’s compound in Mar-a-Lago in early morning and conducting themselves this way or in any other cases in which they’ve done exactly the same thing. The FBI is corrupt.
This guy Garland goes after parents. He goes after Republican state legislatures, he goes after states he disagrees with their abortion positions, he doesn’t do a thing to protect the border, which is compelled by the Constitution. Nothing.
So let’s be clear. Newt is right, they are all right. This is the worst attack on this republic in modern history. Period.
And it’s not just an attack on Donald Trump. It’s an attack on everybody who supports him, it’s an attack on anybody who dares to raise serious questions about Washington, D.C., and the establishment in both parties.
I haven’t heard a thing from the Republican leadership in the Senate, have you? Not one of those guys has put out a statement, because they are weak. That’s why. Every Republican —
HANNITY: Hang on, we did hear from the leader — the minority leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy.
LEVIN: I said in the Senate.
HANNITY: I know you said the center but I just want make sure people know — he said: Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear calendar.
Ron DeSantis said: The raid on Mar-a-Lago is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the regime’s political opponents while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves. Now the regime is getting another 87,000 IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana republic.
LEVIN: Yeah, and he’s right. Let me tell you something, watch how this attorney general conduct himself. Politicize everything.
The parents he goes after, he doesn’t enforce the border, he goes after the men he claims were whipping immigrants. They weren’t whipping anybody.
Look how they went after those four cops who were found innocent in Kentucky but now they bring civil rights charges against them. Look how they are nationalizing police forces across the country.
Just look at this Department of Justice. It’s the most corrupt thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been there, and I worked there, they have ruined that department. Look at the newest attorney in Washington, D.C. — yes.
HANNITY: And, by the way, Mark — I do — there was a senator who has just comment on this, Mike Lee, who’s running for reelection, and I know we both support him out in Utah. He said as a lawyer, former federal prosecutor, the current member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have a few questions about the FBI’s raid to Mar-a-Lago.
First, did the attorney general personally sign off on this action? Mark, he had to have, as did Director Wray. He had to, right?
LEVIN: I’m going to tell you what happened. They sat around the conference table in the attorney general’s conference room like we used to, and I suspect in there was the attorney general, the deputy, and the associate attorneys general, the head of the criminal division, the head of the public integrity section.
Mr. Wray and one or two of his either assistant directors or associate directors and perhaps other people with the U.S. attorney, and they made the decision. The bottom line, the buck stops at the attorney general.
And I just want to say I thought this was a farce that somebody put this on the Internet that President Trump’s home had been raided by the FBI.
HANNITY: Mark —
LEVIN: Yeah?
HANNITY: We are just out of time, but we will be — we will have you on later this week I’m sure. Mark Levin, thank you, my friend, the great one.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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