The Five co-host Will Cain on Monday tried out a relatively new tactic to characterize what former President Donald Trump could have done to justify the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago. Whatever Trump’s error, Cain said, “it better be egregious” and “more than the nuclear codes.”
Trump is under investigation for allegedly violating the Espionage Act and two other laws that relate to mishandling federal records and obstructing an investigation by falsifying documents, according to court documents unsealed last Friday. The FBI’s search of Trump’s residence pertained to nuclear weapons, The Washington Post reported the day prior.
Cain, echoing other right-wing commentators, called the investigation a “fishing expedition.”
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“It’s not truly about declassified materials or classified materials. It is not even really about the Espionage Act, which, by the way, can encompass and does in the statute, very minor grievances like not giving information over to the National Archives. Not that you are a super spy with the nuclear codes, but that you just didn’t simply comply with the National Archives. It’s not about any of that,” Cain claimed.
“It is a blank slate that allows the DOJ to find something, anything, to disqualify Donald Trump for running for president—to either disqualify him in a long, drawn-out legal case that ends up at the Supreme Court or simply in the American public’s mind,” the Fox News host continued.
“And if that is the case… it better be egregious. It better be more than the nuclear codes, which—let’s be real—change when the administration changes. It better be egregious,” Cain said, repeating a talking point he had delivered earlier in the day.
Co-host Dana Perino seemed to agree. “They change regularly,” she chimed in. Last Thursday, though, Perino said she doubted there were any documents “short of the nuclear codes” in Trump’s possession that could justify raiding Mar-a-Lago.
On Monday, the former George W. Bush press secretary distanced herself from her prior comments, claiming they were made in jest.
“I was kidding the day that I said that about nuclear codes,” Perino said. “It’s not like you write them on a scrap of paper.”
