Exposed For Stashing State Secrets, Trump, Pals Spew Nonsense

In response to the FBI search of former President Donald Trump's home in Florida on Monday, Trump and his allies in Congress and right-wing media have returned to his preferred strategy for communicating in a crisis: say a whole bunch of nonsense in rapid succession.

Photo Insert: Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky echoed this question on Wednesday, wondering on Fox how we know "they won't put things into those boxes to entrap him."

From his battles against impeachment to his effort to limit the political fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump has attempted to flood the zone with such a quantity and variety of lies, conspiracy theories, and distractions that Americans will tune out, turn away or cease to know what is true and not.

And, he has regularly been joined by a large cast of eager defenders, Daniel Dale stressed in an analysis for CNN.

Using his familiar just-asking-questions style of promoting conspiracy theories, Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday a suggestion that the FBI could have planted evidence.

His legal team had already been suggesting the same thing. One Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, said on Fox on Tuesday: "I'm concerned that they may have planted something; you know, at this point, who knows?"

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky echoed this question on Wednesday, wondering on Fox how we know "they won't put things into those boxes to entrap him."

Fox host Jesse Watters had gone further on Tuesday, saying the FBI was "probably" planting evidence, and Paul's campaign had adopted the "probably" by Friday. There is just zero basis for any of this.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida offered up a different baseless conspiracy theory about federal malfeasance, saying on Fox on Tuesday that he didn't think they were looking for documents at all but were probably using that as an "excuse" to root around Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence for "whatever they could find."

Rubio's comments were at least more plausible than the hogwash offered up Tuesday by Anna Perez, a host for right-wing media outlet Real America's Voice, who uttered a QAnon-style monologue, falsely claiming the search was a conspiracy to prevent Trump from carrying out a (nonexistent) plan to expose criminals serving in government.

Another Real America's Voice host, right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, claimed Thursday that the FBI "occupied Trump's home -- a military occupation." Though it's odd to describe the execution of a search warrant as an "occupation" of any kind, it's flat false to claim the military was involved in this search.

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