Few things have made more obvious former vice president Mike Pence’s designs on a 2024 presidential bid than his tweet following the FBI search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Pence and Trump have been at political odds for months, with Trump endorsing Republican candidates who embrace his false claims about the 2020 election and Pence endorsing their opponents. Pence has good reason to be frustrated with Trump, of course, given that the former president not only attempted to pin all of the blame for the Joe Biden presidency on him but also actively stoked anger at Pence as furious rioters closed in on Jan. 6, 2021.
Yet Pence’s response to the search was not to urge Americans to withhold judgment until we learned more — any! — details of the warrant or the broader investigation that prompted it. Instead it was to echo Trump’s deeply political line of argument.
He shared the “deep concern of millions of Americans over the unprecedented search of the personal residence of President Trump,” Pence wrote. “… After years where FBI agents were found to be acting on political motivation during our administration, the appearance of continued partisanship by the Justice Department must be addressed.”
Let’s start with that assertion from Pence — deafening in the last 24 hours — that the FBI had been demonstrated to have targeted Trump politically. Set aside Pence’s self-incriminating framing (that the FBI was acting on political motivation during the Trump-Pence administration),...
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