... Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’ proposed damage assessment of the documents is a remake of the January 2017 intelligence community assessment which claimed, without evidence, that Vladimir Putin wanted to put Trump in the Oval Office. The extensive redactions on the affidavit the FBI used to get a warrant to raid Trump’s home are akin to the excessive redactions on the application that the FBI showed a secret court in 2016 to get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. What was true for the original Russiagate holds here, too: The redactions are designed to hide not state secrets, but government corruption.

The Mar-a-Lago raid feels like Russiagate because, well, it is Russiagate: a conspiracy theory weaponized by the country’s courtier class to serve the interests of a delirious and deracinated oligarchy, spawning daily prophesies of doom fed by an endless supply of national security “leaks” asserting that the former commander-in-chief really was and is a secret Russian agent. And proof of the president’s treachery, chant the priestly keepers of the “collusion” mysteries, will soon be revealed to the public. It is their blanket justification for every past crime and every new banana republic-style abuse of power, accompanied by a drumbeat of ever more outlandish and violent threats.

It is in this context that the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago should be understood: Government records and reports from political and media operatives and bureaucrats who previously starred in Russiagate I give evidence that the FBI raided Trump’s home to seize documents exposing the crimes that the FBI and Justice Department have been committing since 2016. The fact that Russiagate shows no signs of ending anytime soon is bad news for the republic, betrayed from within by a performative elite whose ability to project power outside its gilded bubble requires a steady supply of paranoia, fear, and hysteria.

...So was the FBI after what they believed to be Trump’s secret stash of Russiagate documents? The warrant was drawn so broadly that it allowed the agents to seize any document from Trump’s term in the White House. But an Aug. 26 New York Times story confirmed that the FBI was “spurred” to act after discovering Trump had retained “documents related to the use of ‘clandestine human sources,’”and other documents related to “foreign intercepts collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.”

Those at all familiar with Russiagate will recognize these keywords, employed by the same media organization that won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for partnering with U.S. intelligence services to destabilize and delegitimize Trump’s presidency. The descriptions in the article also line up with what Trump reportedly declassified before he left the White House.

Yet if what the FBI was after were the Russiagate documents that it imagined were hidden somewhere at Mar-a-Lago, it’s not clear if the agents found them. According to the Times story, the safe in Trump’s closet “did not contain the materials investigators sought.” Maybe the materials were somewhere else. Perhaps Trump never had them. Trump allies I’ve spoken with don’t think he has the documents.

Garland’s dilemma now is whether to risk finding out the truth. Press reports suggest that he is undecided about indicting Trump. That makes sense—it would likely sow chaos across the country and, Garland must worry, perhaps force Trump’s hand. For if the former president does have the documents, in whatever form, and posts them, it might bring the house down on the U.S. national security apparatus and the Democratic administration that it shields.

The effect of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago is therefore to obscure the real scandal: U.S. spies committed a series of crimes in their effort to unseat a U.S. president, and then ignored the lawful orders of that president in order to keep their crimes hidden from the American public.

What is preserving the stability of the United States at present is therefore something like a Mexican standoff. Does Trump actually have the documents? If so, will he put them before the public? Will Garland indict him, and risk finding out? Given the Biden administration’s tendency to instrumentalize the violence of its rhetoric and turn federal bureaucracies loose on its political opponents, it is likely that the standoff will not hold for long.