Ex-prosecutor shreds Trump's new 'raid' as blatantly timed 'political stunt'

On Tuesday, a former federal prosecutor warned that the raid on a Democratic lawmaker’s home over the weekend may be a “political stunt” in which President Donald Trump has once again “abused” the justice system by using it to target his opponents. This is according to law professor and MS NOW legal analyst Joyce Vance, who highlights the suspicious timing of the search of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) residence in D.C.

Vance begins by noting that while she typically pushes back when the execution of a lawful, court-ordered search warrant is deemed a “raid,” in this case, it’s difficult to characterize it as anything else. As she writes, “We do not yet know what charges the government may be contemplating; we haven’t seen the affidavit accompanying the warrant. There are a lot of unanswered questions. Omar came to this country in 1995 — she was 12 — and there is a five-year statute of limitations on most federal crimes. There’s a possible way around that because some immigration offenses are treated as continuing crimes for statute-of-limitations purposes. But that doesn't necessarily help the government here. Anonymous sources have characterized this investigation as involving her original immigration paperwork, perhaps some type of false statements case.” But that raises still more questions, says Vance. The government would already have all her immigration paperwork, so why raid her home? And why her temporary residence in D.C. and not her permanent one in Minnesota? What’s more, her age at the time of her immigration makes it “hard to establish criminal intent,” and while her father could technically hold some form of liability if there were a crime, he’s deceased.

The timing makes Vance particularly skeptical. As she writes, “Why now? DOJ has a longstanding policy against taking overt steps, like executing a search warrant or announcing an indictment, this close to an election. Often referred to as the 60-day rule, it’s meant to prevent prosecutors from using their power to unfairly influence an election's outcome. The concern is that the target has little meaningful opportunity to clear their name of the damaging insinuations before voters cast their ballots.” And as Vance notes, voting is already underway in Minnesota, and Omar is on the ballot.

In this context, asserts Vance, “It’s difficult to assess whether this is another rank political investigation that will never develop into an indictment, a pure political stunt, or whether there’s more to it. But given the bad faith with which this administration has abused the criminal justice system to go after people Trump considers enemies, it’s hard to rule it out. Given the timing, you’d expect the government to make it known if there was some risk of evidence being destroyed, one situation that might warrant an action like this. But it hasn’t offered any explanation despite the unusual circumstances.”

Even if this is a legitimate investigation, notes Vance, there is no clear justification for breaking the 60-day rule as the alleged “crime” is decades old, and it’s hard to imagine that DOJ just learned about the existence of evidence it so urgently needed to recover that it couldn’t wait the few weeks for the election to be over. With that in mind, she warns, “It seems more likely that this is about politics than legitimate prosecution. And isn’t that what the Trump administration has turned the Justice Department into? A political tool in the president’s toolkit, no longer a bastion of the rule of law.”