The Washington Post deleted a tweet promoting one of its stories on Wednesday that suggested Attorney General Merrick Garland “politicized” the Department of Justice by authorizing an FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Garland vowed to depoliticize Justice. Then the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago,” read the headline of a story written by Justice Department reporter Perry Stein.
The headline in the tweet sparked outrage on Twitter, which apparently prompted the Jeff Bezos-owned broadsheet to remove the tweet and re-post it using a different headline.
“No, he’s in the middle of unraveling a crime spree committed by the former president of the United States. There…fixed it for you,” one Twitter user wrote.
The Washington Post deleted a tweet that suggested Attorney General Merrick Garland “politicized” the Justice Department by authorizing an FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Monday.POOL/AFP via Getty Images
“This is so embarrassing I worry for the future of journalism,” another Twitter commenter said of the original headline.
Jay Rosen, who teaches journalism at New York University, said the original headline was “painfully under-thought” because it “seemed to say that Garland was shifting course and unduly politicizing DOJ.”
The original tweet by The Washington Post generated backlash.@washingtonpost
Clarification: A previous tweet of this story had a headline that has changed after publishing. We’ve deleted the tweet.
The newspaper on Wednesday posted a tweet which read: “Clarification: A previous tweet of this story had a headline that has changed after publishing. We’ve deleted the tweet.”
The new headline reads: “FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago lands Merrick Garland in a political firestorm.”
FBI agents on Monday searched Trump’s Palm Beach estate — marking the first time that federal investigators descended on the private residence of a former president.
The raid was conducted as part of an ongoing federal investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents that were apparently removed from the White House in the waning days of his presidency.
Trump is also the subject of a federal inquiry into the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters mobbed the US Capitol as Congress was in session to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.
FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago on Monday as part of an investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents.TNS
Republicans accused the Biden administration of using the Justice Department as a tool to persecute political opponents.
Even some Democrats expressed unease with the search.
Form New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted: “DOJ must immediately explain the reason for its raid & it must be more than a search for inconsequential archives or it will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation & legitimacy of January 6 investigations.”
Trump is expected to announce whether he’ll seek another run for White House. Polls show him leading the field of GOP hopefuls.
Garland has refused to comment if he authorized the FBI’s search.
The former president condemned the raid on his home.GC Images
In her story, Stein writes that “some lawyers questioned why the Justice Department and FBI would execute such a high-profile search on a former president’s residence over missing documents, even if some of them are classified.”
The paper’s Twitter gaffe comes on the heels of an internal drama that played out on the social media site.
One of his political reporters, Dave Weigel, was suspended for a month without pay in June for retweeting a post that was deemed sexist.
Weigel’s colleague, Felicia Sonmez, who first flagged the retweet, was fired weeks later after she criticized management and other co-workers on the social media site.
Christopher Wray’s disingenuous testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, before he left early on the FBI’s private Gulfstream 550 jet, speaks volumes about the need to defund the FBI — or at least dump its unctuous director.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and his team of Republicans expected to have the chance to ask a second round of questions.
Grassley pleaded for just an extra 21 minutes.
But Wray took an early mark, dismissing the committee’s constitutional obligation to ensure he answers questions under oath to ensure the FBI complies with the law and is accountable to the American people.
What was so urgent that he had to leave after just three and a half hours?
Was he taking a long weekend in the Adirondacks where his family has a summer home?
It’s worth examining the exchange with Grassley in detail.
“We just heard a half hour ago about you having to leave at 1:30,” Grassley grizzled. “We were going to have seven minutes [each] for first round [questions and] three-minute second rounds. I’ve got seven people on my side of the aisle want their additional three minutes. Is there any reason we couldn’t accommodate them for 21 minutes?”
Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley Grassley pointed out that Wray has a private jet and can leave any time.AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta
Wray replied smoothly: “Senator, I had a flight that I’m supposed to be high-tailing it to outta here, and I had understood that we were going to be done at 1:30, so that’s how we ended up where we are.”
Grassley pointed out that the FBI director has a private jet at his disposal and can leave any time he likes.
“If it’s your business trip you’ve got your own plane. Can’t it wait a while?” I have asked Wray replied, “To be honest, I tried to make my break as fast I could to get right back out here.”
Grassley, “You took more than five minutes.”
Wray laughed and the silence that followed only emphasized the disrespect to all senators, but especially to Grassley, the president pro tempore emeritus of the Senate.
Democratic chairman Dick Durbin came to Wray’s rescue, expressing his appreciation that it was Wray’s “third appearance in two years before this committee.”
And every appearance a waste of time, that simply showcased that Wray is a master of evasion. On some of the most serious questions of national security and the politicization of the FBI, Wray had nothing to say. Like Mister Magoo, he sees nothing.
no answers
Unlike most things on Capitol Hill these days, the politicization and repeated failures of the FBI are a bipartisan concern.
Wray refused to classify the flood of illegal migration at the southern border as a “national security threat.”Getty Images/Alex Wong
In the short time they had with Wray, senators from both sides had urgent questions. Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein and Republicans Marsha Blackburn and Grassley were concerned about the FBI’s botching of the Larry Nassar case. Why, when Nassar was convicted in 2016 of sexually abusing US gymnasts, did Wray wait until 2021 to fire one of the agents involved in slow-walking the case?
Grassley complained about a lack of transparency over why the Department of Justice had decided a jury wouldn’t convict FBI agents for their handling of the investigation. Other Democrats were concerned about the FBI not investigating complaints about Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing.
Wray had no answer, nor to questions about Afghan evacuees considered significant security threats after being brought to the US in last year’s bungled withdrawal from Kabul. “I can’t sit here right now and tell you we know where all of them are located at any given time,” he said.
Wray refused to classify the flood of illegal migration at the southern border as a “national security threat.”
When asked what the FBI was doing to track down 56 suspected terrorists that have crossed the border this year he waffled about “sharing watchlist information” and “investigating any number of individuals.”
Wray also refused to agree with one senator’s assertion that Hunter Biden’s laptop was not “Russian disinformation.”The Washington Post via Getty Images
He refused to admit that the Russia collusion hoax — in which the FBI treated seriously palpably false allegations that then-candidate Donald Trump was a Russian agent — was in fact a “hoax”.
He refused to agree with Sen. Blackburn that Hunter Biden’s laptop was not “Russian disinformation,” and didn’t respond to whistleblower allegations of an FBI coverup of derogatory information related to the Bidens in October 2020.
He refused to explain to Sen. Ted Cruz why the FBI had blacklisted patriotic historical American symbols such as the Betsy Ross flag, the Gadsden Flag and the Gonzales battle flag as “militia violent extremism” in training documents.
When Sen. Josh Hawley asked why the FBI was “snooping around the concealed carry permit records” of Missourians, he had nothing.
When Sen. Tom Cotton asked why no FBI agent had thought to enforce the law broken by abortion activists parading outside the homes of Supreme Court justices, Wray was impatient: “Our agents are up to their necks enforcing all sorts of laws.”
Wray is required to reimburse the cost of a coach class airline fare for personal trips.Getty Images/Alex Wong
When the hearing ended at 1:30, Wray ambled over to Grassley to shake his hand. The microphones picked up some of the exchange.
Grassley, a courtly row-crop farmer from Butler County, Iowa, who has a shrewd Columbo-esque tendency to ask “just one more thing,” leaned forward: “I assume you’ve got other business.”
“Yeah,” Wray said.
And off he sauntered, minions in tow.
Grassley’s staff did not know where Wray was going after the hearing and FBI public affairs did not respond to an email Sunday by press time.
But the luxury FBI Gulfstream Wray uses was recorded on Flightradar24 making the one hour and 12 minute flight later that afternoon to bucolic Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, which happens to be a favorite summer destination since his childhood, when he used to hike the High Peaks and fish for trout, according to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.
Wray, 55, who attended the Buckley School on the Upper East Side and the private Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., graduated from Yale University, the alma mater of his father, Cecil Wray, who was Adirondack Park Agency Commissioner for 14 years.
The FBI’s Gulfstream made another trip to Saranac Lake on Thursday, June 2, returning to Washington, DC on Sunday, June 5.
turbulence
While there has been controversy over the FBI director commandeering a plane originally intended for counterterrorism use, Wray’s predecessor James Comey used it as his private conveyance as well.
The director is required to reimburse the cost of a coach class airline fare for personal trips, a significant discount on the several thousand dollars an hour it costs to operate the Gulfstream, which is considerably more convenient than Delta.
Wray ensured his testimony was useless, but if he did cut short his testimony to go on vacation at a time when his agency is under fire from all sides, then that is an act of disrespect and insubordination which requires a firm rebuke, or what is the point of Senate oversight?
