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Notes -
True. I was thinking of Thug Shaker Central guy: low level military.
A better natural comparison is Biden, who had 25-30 documents around his house and office. The report on him concluded with a Hillary-worthy lack of “why, how or whom.” Why didn’t Trump get that benefit of the doubt?
I’d say 2-5 could count as lawfare, but most people using that term mean something more like 4 or 5.
1 is almost certainly true. Look how much the warrant focuses on specific people. They were definitely more confident in who was actually handling the boxes and giving the orders.
Same for 2. I have to stress—NARA did have reason to believe Trump was holding out on them. Biden’s team bent over backwards to avoid that.
3 is implausible; it’s not like there’s a lack of other cases to use. Including actual RICO charges.
4 and 5 are more credible. I’d be very surprised if people on these teams didn’t dislike the man or even think he’s a danger to the country. Enough to fabricate their entire job (e.g. planting classified docs)? Probably not. Enough to push when they wouldn’t for anyone else? Much more likely.
In short, I think there are a lot of reasons. The ones which I find most likely are the least “lawfare” of the bunch.
I think that's a fairly good summary of why this is a scissor statement.
Ultimately, one's view of the situation is dependent on how much respect they have for the institutions in question. And the object level facts of whether this was or wasn't technically illegal don't matter except to us nerds.
They may not even really be what decides this case, ultimately.
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