 So, we have now more information about the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. I don't know that we have a huge amount of information, but we have some. We have the actual document that specifies why they're going in, the wants, and we have a list of the materials that were recovered in the home in Mar-a-Lago. It's hard to tell at this point, again, how serious any of this is, you know, what the nature of these documents really is, how bad the situation is. It also, I think, is yet to be determined to what extent the Biden administration went to try to get these documents before the raid, although it looks like they met with Trump people, they went to the villa, they took a bunch of stuff, they subpoenaed them, they tried to get all these documents on several occasions and did not get them, did not get the full support, and there are indications, again, we don't really know, that somebody close to the president instructed the FBI that there were still boxes of top-secret materials in the home being stored, being stored inappropriately, well, the fact that they were where they were was inappropriate, and actually disclosed the exact whereabouts of these documents, so that the FBI knew exactly where to search. Now, again, I don't know if any of that is true, but that is certainly the story coming out right now. I haven't seen Trump denying any of the idea that there were top-secret documents there, although he is insinuating that maybe some of these documents were planted by the FBI, that this is part of a big conspiracy to discredit him before the election, so that they are planting material. I think a lot of people believe that. I think a lot of people are trying to believe that. I mean, as I said the other day when we talked about this for the first time, the real tragedy here, I think, is that I don't trust either of them. I don't trust any of them. I mean, the FBI has shown itself to be untrustworthy over the last six years. The Justice Department has shown itself to be politicized over the last six years, politicized both by Democrats and by Republicans, although I will give bar credit for the fact that when it ultimately came to the ultimate act of politicizing the Justice Department, which would have been to claim that the election was stolen, Bar refused to do that and maintained at least that bit of his integrity, but not being willing to lie about the nature of the election. Although I suspect he had lied about all kinds of other things in the Justice Department before that. So we're in a situation, oh, and so that's on one side. We don't trust the Biden administration. We don't trust the Justice Department. I think justifiably. We don't completely trust the FBI. Again, I think justifiably, even though the head of the FBI right now was somebody that Trump appointed to that position after he'd fired the previous set of the FBI, it's somebody who, at least for the latter years of the Trump administration, I don't think caused Trump any problems from the FBI. So we don't trust the FBI. We don't trust the Justice Department. We don't trust the Biden administration. We generally don't trust the left because, again, there is this notion that they will do anything to maintain power. And while I think that's exaggerated, because I don't think they stole the last election, I think there's a lot of truth to it. This certainly is an aspect of it that is true. In a sense that our politics are now so corrupt as people are willing to do anything to maintain power. But of course, the flip side is also true. I don't trust anything Trump says. And it's completely conceivable to me, given Trump's character and given Trump's behavior, that he might have taken top secret documents tomorrow. Who knows why? Partially for his own ego, maybe their documents that he could use. Suppose he wanted the documents taken was a memo or some kind of write up on the president of France. Who knows what Trump wanted to do with these documents, why he kept them. Maybe some of them related to him. Maybe some of them related to his behavior. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe they related to actions that the administration took or the military took or the CIA took or somebody took that Trump would rather not come to light. I don't know. But the point is, it's completely believable to me that any of that would happen. I don't know that it happened, but it's completely believable to me. And it does look like, and I don't think that these things were planted. I think that's unlikely. It's too easy to catch them. It's too easy to show that it's a lie. It does look like, and I don't know the nature of these. There's a box of, that there was a box of top secret material taken from Margo Lago. There was a box of secret material. There was a bunch of other stuff that just doesn't belong there. It belongs by law in different archives related to different departments of the government, including the National Archive. And it doesn't strike me at all as unlikely that Trump took those documents and didn't give a damn about the procedure or the law or the exact thing and just took them home and used them at home and said, screw you. I don't care. And he never thought it would be enforced. He never thought anybody would care. He never thought it was that important or that big of a deal. And even when, and this is what surprises me, if they'd already taken a bunch of top secret stuff from the home, if they'd already, you know, subpoenaed the stuff. And why didn't he just give it back? What is in there? That he is, is it just incompetence and stupidity? Is he trying to hide something? Or is it all made up by the FBI? And this is, this is the real challenge that we face. I mean, I was accused earlier of not being objective about, about Trump, something about, you know, how could I not be not objective? I am the ultimate objectivist of something ridiculous like that. Stupid like that. I'm trying to be objective, but it's really, really hot. Because to be objective about these things, and you know, I'm doing my best to be objective, but to discover the truth, to discover what's really going on, one needs reliable facts. One needs reliable evidence. And there is such a degree of distrust now that I think most of you haven't. And certainly I have towards the authorities and towards Trump, and towards anything comes out of Trump's mouth, and really anything that comes out of the authorities' mouth about these kind of things that it's very, very hard, it's very, very hard to know what it's true. Now, I can tell you what my, my, my suspicion is. My suspicion is that Trump's at fault here, and he's an idiot, and that he took documents for whatever reason. And, you know, didn't think they would ever follow up on it, and stuck his middle finger at the Justice Department, and ignored their request. And maybe there's something in these documents that he would rather not come to light, so he wanted to protect them. And, but I think mostly it's incompetence. He probably had a bunch of stuff laying around in different places, and it wasn't too worried about it, and didn't care, and thought that just the problem was making a big deal out of this when it shouldn't be. And he was former president, so who the hell are they to even tell him where he can and cannot put the documents? I mean, that sense, I mean, Trump gives up the sense of he wants to be a dictator, he wants to have the authority to be able to do whatever the hell he wants. He wants to be able to keep whatever documents he wants. He wants to be able to use whatever documents he wants. He gives that aura of who the hell is gonna, I'm the president of the United States. Will you to tell me what I can and cannot do? What I can and cannot fire? I mean, people who worked for him, he had that, I don't know if you read this, there's a new book out where he said to General Miley, I think, he said, why can't you generals be like Hitler's generals? Just support me with whatever I want, because he wanted a, you remember he wanted a parade on 4th of July, a big military parade through the streets of Washington, D.C., massive show off the power of the American military. He made a big deal out of this for about a year. He spoke about this a lot. And like the military didn't want this, and they were against it throughout, and he said to the generals, he said, why can't you guys be like the German generals? They did everything Hitler told them. And I think the general said back to him, he said, or somebody said to him, but you know, the generals try to kill Hitler. And Trump was like, no, no, they did everything he said. They loved Hitler. But that's what he wants. He said the same thing about, that he loved the fact that when Xi spoke, everybody stood up, everybody showed him respect, everybody, there was this amazing respect to Xi and to Putin and to Hitler, I guess. And that, I mean, I don't know if you really said that, but certainly that's what people are saying. That's what's in this book that he said, but it's completely reasonable to me to imagine Trump saying it. It's exactly his character. It's exactly who he is. So I can completely see him saying, I completely see him saying, you know, who is anybody to tell me what I can and cannot do with these documents? And so I think he's done that. I think the Justice Department was trying to clean this up and trying to get all the documents back. I think they'll also relish the opportunity to go after Trump and to humiliate them and to make him look ridiculous. I think that a lot of that is gonna backfire against it. Right? I think ultimately Trump is gonna benefit from this, not be heard by it. We'll see, but that's my impression. I also think that the Justice Department is headed by, what's his name? The former judge. And he's got it in for Republicans because if you remember, he was supposed to be the Supreme Court Justice that was gonna replace, I think Scalia, he was gonna replace Scalia and they refused to bring into a vote in the Senate. And he basically got denied his chance, Mary Garland got denied his chance of being a Supreme Court judge because of Republicans. And so you'd expect him to be quite bitter towards Republicans and try to get back at Trump. So I think that it's completely feasible that Trump has broken the law here and is doing stuff that is unprecedented in terms of other presidents. It's completely conceivable to me that the FBI and the Justice Department, at least some people in the FBI and Justice Department are just trying to clean this up and get to the bottom of it and follow the law. And it's also completely conceivable to me that this is being used by the political element within the Justice Department starting with Mary Garland to get back at Trump and to make Trump look as bad as possible and to score significant political points. All of that I think is all consistent and probably actually what's going on. And that's me being objective, trying to tease out what is actually going on here. Now, sadly, I think this is gonna help Trump, particularly in the Republican primaries. I'm not sure if this will help him win a general election. I'm not sure he can win a general election, but I do think it'll help him among Republicans. And that's a tragedy, because I think they're much better candidates out there than Trump who can win a general election and who can beat Biden. I think almost any Republican can beat Biden right now, except Trump. Trump is the one Republican who might lose an election. So, all right, that is my spiel. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening, you get value from watching, show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbrookshow.com slash support, by going to Patreon, subscribe star, locals, and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those channels. 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