In Wild Coincidence, FBI Raids Virginia Dem Leader's Office Two Weeks After Redistricting Vote

It's a totally legitimate revenge-stigation of 'corruption' we're sure.

Fox News graphic after Virginia’s April 21 vote. Thank goodness she didn’t write that out in seashells! Image: Denny Carter on Bluesky

The FBI on Wednesday raided the business office and a marijuana business co-owned by Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D), the president pro tempore of the state Senate, a central player in getting Virginia’s recent redistricting referendum before voters. The plan, giving Democrats 10 seats in Congress and Republicans just one, is currently tied up in state court.

According to insiders, the raids in Portsmouth, Virginia, were allegedly related to a federal “corruption” investigation, although the details have yet to come out. The New York Times reports that two anonymous sources said “the search was related to an investigation opened during the Biden administration that has continued, examining possible corruption and bribery related to marijuana dispensary businesses.”

By complete coincidence, the raids happened to come two weeks and a day after voters passed the constitutional amendment striking back against Donald Trump’s attempt to gerrymander enough red states to hold on to a Republican majority in Congress.

Lucas made a lot of Republicans mad when Ted Cruz whined on Twitter that the referendum was “a brazen abuse of power” and she replied with “you all started it and we fucking finished it.” How very unseemly, a Democrat fighting back.

For some reason, a lot of people today are really fucking skeptical about the claim that this is a serious criminal investigation. It’s certainly possible that there’s a “there” here, but with the current run of creeps in the DOJ it only makes sense to assume there’s some heinous fuckery going on. Our guess is that we’ll eventually find out that the DOJ under Biden investigated a tip, found nothing, closed the investigation, and then the Trump DOJ reopened the probe when it saw an opportunity to go after an enemy. Is there some prediction market action we should get in on with that?

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In a statement released Wednesday evening, Lucas said,

Today’s actions by Federal agents are about far more than one state senator; they are about power and who is allowed to use it on behalf of the people. What we saw fits a clear pattern from this administration; when challenged, they try to intimidate and silence the voices who stand up to them.

The FBI issued a statement yesterday saying it was executing a “court-authorized federal search warrant” and that “There is no threat to public safety,” although video from the raid showed the FBI agents tumbling out of an armored truck in full battle rattle as if they were attacking Fallujah, pointing automatic rifles at the bewildered workers it ordered out of the cannabis business via a bullhorn. After they entered the building, guns at the ready, the agents were later seen carrying boxes and bags out the front door.

Screenshot. Fox 5 Washington on YouTube

Fox News’s DC affiliate also just happened to have a crew on site for the raid, probably because they’re just really lucky and happened to have a full camera crew and Fox’s London correspondent, Alex Hogan, staking out the business at the time. No way would the DOJ tip off Fox just to call attention to the raid, that’d be unethical!

After all, according to DOJ rules, the DOJ isn’t supposed to tip off media outlets before an important law enforcement action, at least not without approval from the attorney general or the local US attorney’s office. Maybe someone will ask (acting) Attorney General Todd Blanche about that?

Blanche isn’t offering any details, of course, because this is a very important investigation and they’re probably still trying to find a ham sandwich in the US Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia to get the case, whatever it is, before a grand jury. Trump actually ran out of turns to appoint pet lawyers as interim US attorneys in both the state’s judicial districts.

After the Lindsey Halligan debacle, the district’s judges appointed James Hundley as interim US Attorney, but the DOJ promptly fired him. The office is now being run by the office’s former administrative head, Frank Bradsher, who is at least a former federal prosecutor in a different district, but the actual US attorney job is still vacant. Maybe Marco Rubio could do that, too.

As for the potential reason for the investigation, it’s possible that there’s a case here, but far more likely that if there is, it’s really thin. As Jay Kuo points out, it looks like Biden’s DOJ

assessed there was sufficient basis to open an investigation. That context matters, but it still does not explain why, four years into a slow-moving inquiry, the Trump administration suddenly executed more than ten search warrants just two weeks after the redistricting vote threatening Republican House seats. It does not answer why Fox cameras were on scene before local reporters. It does not explain why the search warrants remain sealed while the political spectacle plays out in full public view.

So far, no charges have been filed, but the most important outcome of the raid, trashing Lucas’s reputation, is already well underway, as Fox News crows that her old social media posts mocking Trump are “coming back to haunt her,” and that’s what she gets, ha-ha! In particular, wingnuts on Twitter are pointing out that back in 2023 she tweeted “No one is above the law” in reference to … Oh, hey, the article doesn’t mention any context for that tweet, what could it be?

Anyway, Lucas also wrote a tweet in 2022 that said, “I want to see voters showing the kind of overwhelming numbers at the polls that the FBI showed today at Mar a Lago!” Again, Fox doesn’t mention what that was about for some reason, but it does note that a former Trump fundraiser retwote it with “This aged well,” haha, because isn’t revenge sweet?

A more recent tweet by Lucas, in which she boasted about the redistricting vote by saying “Ten to fucking one,” also prompted a very funny take from former Virginia legislator Nick Freitas, who wrote, “@SenLouiseLucas: ‘10 to f-ing 1’ / FBI: ‘How about 10 to f-ing life.’”

And really, that’s what matters here: They’re all crooks, so don’t worry too much if the Trump DOJ makes up charges to go after his enemies. As Trump made clear when he shook down Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to smear Joe Biden, actually getting a conviction is far less important than saying there’s an investigation. Trump’s people and Fox News can take it from here.

OPEN THREAD!

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You All Started It And Virginia F*cking Finished It

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[AP / WaPo (gift link) / NYT / Democracy Docket / Cardinal News / New Republic / Virginian-Pilot / Fox News / Status Kuo]

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