{"id":477442,"date":"2021-05-06T09:40:37","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T13:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=477442"},"modified":"2021-05-06T09:45:48","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T13:45:48","slug":"fbi-raid-appears-to-be-political-retaliation-against-giuliani-trump-basham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fbi-raid-appears-to-be-political-retaliation-against-giuliani-trump-basham\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI Raid Appears to Be \u2018Political Retaliation\u2019 Against Giuliani, Trump: Basham"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffbi-raid-appears-to-be-political-retaliation-against-giuliani-trump-basham%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=477442&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The FBI\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/federal-investigators-search-rudy-giulianis-apartment-seize-laptops-lawyer_3794871.html\">recent raid<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-rudy-giuliani\">Rudy Giuliani<\/a>\u2019s apartment and office appears to be a form of retaliation against him and one of his clients, former President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-donald-trump\">Donald Trump<\/a>, the Democracy Institute\u2019s Patrick Basham says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom the outside, it appears crystal clear that this is a political retaliation against Giuliani and against Trump and the Trump inner circle, more broadly defined,\u201d Basham, director of the think tank, told NTD, part of Epoch Media Group, in a recent interview.<\/p>\n<p>FBI agents seized devices belonging to Giuliani in the April 28 raid, according to court filings.<\/p>\n<p>Giuliani\u2019s lawyer has said the search warrants suggested Giuliani illegally neglected to register as a foreign agent. He and Giuliani <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/giuliani-disputes-accusation-that-led-to-raid-i-never-ever-represented-a-foreign-national_3797309.html\">have disputed<\/a> the accusation.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI declined to comment via email.<\/p>\n<p>Basham said the FBI has increasingly been used as a political tool in recent years, with Trump and those close to him bearing the brunt of the impact.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat has happened with the FBI clearly over the past several years\u2014at a minimum\u2014is that the FBI has been weaponized for political purposes. In recent years, that has been primarily against Trump and those surrounding him,\u201d Basham said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat the FBI is trying to do here is not I think so much get Rudy Giuliani, but get compromising information if it exists on Donald Trump and others in Trump\u2019s inner circle, and most importantly, to scare off, to warn off anyone connected with Donald Trump \u2026 so that they steer clear of him and they do not do or say anything in public to support the president,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3796145\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-464019\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/trump-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1017\" height=\"496\"  style=\"display:none\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/trump-2.jpg 1017w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/trump-2-300x146.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/trump-2-768x375.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/trump-2-922x450.jpg 922w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/trump-2-675x329.jpg 675w, https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/trump-2-480x234.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1017px) 100vw, 1017px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3796145 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Giuliani-1200x675-1.jpg\" alt=\"Giuliani\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" \/><\/noscript><\/figcaption>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks during a briefing at the White House in Washington on Sept. 27, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figure>\n<p>Prosecutors in the case <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/federal-prosecutors-ask-for-special-master-to-look-over-seized-giuliani-records_3803264.html\">asked a judge this week<\/a> to appoint a special master, or an outside judge, to sift through the records seized from Giuliani and another lawyer, Victoria Toensing, in a bid to combat accusations of political animus. Quoting a judge who agreed to appoint a special master after agents raided Michael Cohen, who at the time was a lawyer for Trump, prosecutors said the appointment of a special master would be \u201cfor the \u2018perception of fairness, not fairness itself.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Basham also reacted to New York Times editor Dean Baquet <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/new-york-times-editor-says-paper-wasnt-rigorous-enough-in-checking-giuliani-sources_3803156.html\">acknowledging<\/a> the paper failed to verify information from anonymous sources in falsely stating that Giuliani was briefed by the FBI on allegedly being the target of a Russian intelligence operation.<\/p>\n<p>The New York Times and two other media outlets <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/nyt-washington-post-nbc-retract-incorrect-reporting-on-giulianis-contact-with-fbi_3798971.html\">later corrected their reporting<\/a> on the matter, though the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/misinformation-lingers-after-incorrect-reporting-about-giuliani-fbi_3800533.html?utm_medium=social&#038;utm_source=twitter&#038;utm_campaign=digitalsub\">misinformation still lingers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is what happens when the media don\u2019t check their sources, don\u2019t drill down to the details. And they just go with allegations that are unproven,\u201d Basham told NTD.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt a minimum, it\u2019s malpractice. We see again and again, the incompetence of mainstream media outlets. Obviously, there\u2019s a litany of errors here. One would like to think, if I can put it in these terms, it is only about incompetence. But the incompetence is so legion, there are so many examples over such a period of time, especially towards President Trump and those of his inner circle, including Rudy Giuliani, it\u2019s hard after a while not to become more cynical, and think that this isn\u2019t simply incompetence\u2014it might actually be conscious misinformation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FBI\u2019s recent raid of Rudy Giuliani\u2019s apartment and office appears to be a form of retaliation against him and one of his clients, former President Donald Trump, the Democracy &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2277432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/trump-2.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"FBI Raid Appears to Be \u2018Political Retaliation\u2019 Against Giuliani, Trump: Basham","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/trump-2.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"FBI Raid Appears to Be \u2018Political Retaliation\u2019 Against Giuliani, Trump: Basham","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2277432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}