HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher highlighted on his show Friday how the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago could politically backfire and benefit former President Donald Trump.
What did Maher say?
Maher addressed the controversial raid at length, questioning whether it will eventually be justified or will be like Al Capone’s vault and thus a “political nightmare” for the government.
Guest Piers Morgan agreed the optics could “play into [Trump’s] hands” if the raid is not fully justified.
“If it turns out to be the real deal, if it turns out that Donald Trump has violated the Espionage Act, that is a serious crime, and he should be held to account,” Morgan said. “If it doesn’t turn out to be that, there are legitimate questions, I think, from the Trump supporters about the different standards applied to Donald Trump, hasn’t been applied to Hillary Clinton, to James Comey, to Hunter Biden, and the others.”
In response, Maher suggested Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray did not want to approve the raid because of the possible political ramifications.
“Trump, he did sell his soul to the devil, because he is the luckiest man in the world,” Maher said.
“His fortune was finally falling. The Big Lie was finally losing momentum. [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis was beating him in the polls. You know who hates this more than anybody? DeSantis,” he continued. “‘I had this in the bag, and now I got to run against President Martyr.'”
According to Maher, the raid “is saving Trump politically” because Republicans have rallied around him and his supporters have been re-energized .
Interestingly, Maher suggested he does not believe that Trump was intentionally violating the law.
“I don’t think he even knew what was in those boxes or cared,” Maher said of the boxes the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago. “I just think he was like, ‘They’re mine! I live here! I put it in those boxes! I get to take my boxes!'”
Real Time With Bill Maher Season 20 Episode 23 | HBO Bill Maher Aug 12, 2022 FULL 720
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FBI agents removed about 20 boxes of items from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, according to documents unsealed by a federal court on Friday.
Among the items that agents seized were documents marked as “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” which refers to top-secret/sensitive compartmented information. The court documents also confirmed that Trump is being investigated for potentially violating the Espionage Act.
Trump, however, argues he declassified the seized items before he left office and is thus not guilty of breaking the law.