The affidavit worked but global hawks will scrutinize cracks in American justice

Serious issues have been raised in the affidavit used to justify the August 8 search of former President Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago but much more will be needed to convince people around the world, even America’s friends and allies, that this unprecedented step is not influenced by politics.

The international credibility of US justice and legal process is vitally important if President Joe Biden and the American people want to lead the world in a contest between liberal democracy and autocracy. Especially now that US has engaged an existential struggle with Russia in Ukraine and an emerging cold war with China, while power balances are in flux in the Middle East which is the center between the West, Eurasia and the East.

Hawks from America’s authoritarian rivals will scrutinize each wrinkle in the legal process following the FBI search to find ways of worsening tensions among political factions within the US and with its many critics in the global south, Asia and Eurasia.

The long term contests are already on their way to reshaping America’s influence in the Middle East and Asia where most of the world’s people live. They are the new generators of global wealth rapidly catching up with and surpassing the US and its allies in Europe and Australasia.

Biden has framed the uncertainties attendant on these emerging challenges to American leadership as a historic contest between authoritarians and US-style democracy that respects human rights, individual freedoms and open market economies.

But American credibility among those sitting on the fence or suffering under authoritarians is fundamentally influenced by the rule of law and impartiality of legal process in the US because they sorely lack such lawful guarantors of their own rights and freedoms.

Their life’s experience is of politically motivated, arbitrary and far from impartial justice. It is easier for them to believe Trump’s accusations of witch hunts and political skullduggery because those are nearer to the truths of where they are.

The ambitions of Biden and his supporters to lead Americans and the world’s people to a better place cannot get off the ground if American democracy loses its rule of law moorings in trying to politically neuter Trump, particularly as there is no dearth of others like him who may get energized.

More so, at a time of war in Europe, potential war involving Iran in the Middle East, war in the Far East with China over Taiwan, and heightened international Islamic terrorism emerging from safe havens in a chaotic Afghanistan ruled by the triumphant Taliban.

The Department of Justice and FBI are at the core of the credibility of American legal process. Their behavior will be under a microscope because the Trump issues are now being framed in the US as instigation of insurrection, obstruction of justice and extreme carelessness with national defense secrets punishable under laws covering secrets of State and espionage.

These issues are driving stakes through the arms and legs of US democracy and, equally importantly, are shaking the ground below those seeking to establish viable democracies in their less fortunate countries.

The FBI’s heavily redacted affidavit’s first page states, “The government is conducting a criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records.”

Elsewhere it adds, “The FBI’s investigation has established that documents bearing classification markings, which appear to contain National Defense Information (NDI),were among the materials contained in the FIFTEEN BOXES and were stored at the PREMISES in an unauthorized location … Further, there is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI or that are Presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the PREMISES. There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES.”

Apparently, the affidavit provided enough justification, including in its redacted sections, to convince Judge Bruce Reinhart to approve the search warrant. Yet, these are remarkable criminal suspicions against a former President who was elected under applicable American laws, however undeserving his critics might hold him to be.

Hopefully, the FBI will be able to justify its criminal investigation to not only Trump’s opponents inside the US but also America’s opponents around the world. They are watching like hawks to find cracks in US rule of law to argue that Washington can no longer be trusted because its legal system is politically biased.

Their goal is to undermine American leadership by reducing the number of nations in the global south and Asia that currently have enough trust in Washington to work with it in global affairs. Dangling carrots may be less effective than in the past because working with America may mean being treated as enemies by Russia, China, Iran and their friends.