Days after the unprecedented raid of Donald Trump’s Florida home, AG Merrick Garland finally decided to address the public on Thursday regarding the matter. Some naively hoped that he’d provide a legitimate justification for the raid, but as expected, that didn’t materialize, mostly because there was no justification.

Instead, Garland danced about while revealing a few noteworthy things. One, we learned that he was the one that ordered the raid, which is not surprising given he’s a partisan who obviously holds a grudge against the former president. Two, the DOJ is asking the judge in the case to unseal the warrant, which may or may not tell us anything depending on whether the affidavit is included. Lastly, the attorney general angrily rebuked those who would dare question the integrity of the FBI, an assertion that drew richly deserved laughter on the right.

But I think we learned something more than what Garland chose to admit.

DoJ’s willingness to unseal the warrant suggests there is not a larger criminal investigation at work here—that this was about the documents.

— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) August 11, 2022

Ken Dilanian was one of the journalists that Fusion GPS used throughout the Mueller investigation to target Trump. I point that out to say that he is in no way sympathetic to the former president. Instead, his admission likely comes with much sadness, but I think still he’s onto something here.

For days, we have had numerous leaks about what the FBI was after, and all of them have pointed to the seizing of documents under the guise of the Presidential Records Act. That’s in contention with those who had hoped the raid was part of some bigger criminal probe regarding January 6th. Add that to Garland’s willingness to immediately release the warrant without a fight, and it suggests there is no grand plan here to frog march Trump over the possession of classified information.

Besides, as I stated on Tuesday, presidents have total power over classification. While I’m sure Garland would love to nail Trump, proving that he didn’t have the power to declassify and keep the documents he had would be extremely difficult. It would also come across as partisan and petty given that past presidents have had similar disputes and have never been bothered about it, much less had their homes raided.

Then there’s this extension of that theory, which may shed light on the motivation.

Personal theory: They used classified documents as the excuse to search, but were really looking for January 6 related materials. They didn't find them. So they're now pushing back claiming it really was the classified docs all along.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) August 11, 2022

In other words, the resistance libs got played here. They thought they finally had the bad orange man and it looks like Garland’s raid was nothing more than a failed hit under the guise of recovering some documents the National Archives (run by a Biden appointee and likely hack) wanted. Yes, it was meant to embarrass Trump, but it doesn’t look like it did anything to prove some kind of larger criminal conspiracy.

Still, don’t confuse what I’m saying with excuse-making for the FBI and DOJ. The fact that there don’t appear to be criminal charges on the horizon actually makes the government look worse. They abused their power to weaponize federal law enforcement to harass a president over something that was already being handled through the courts in a completely uncalled for and unjustified manner. Garland wanted to stick his finger in Trump’s eye, and he did so, showing how blatantly political his department is.

But the resistance libs thought this was going to be so much more. If I’m right, though, and this was just a show of force with nothing undergirding it, they will once again be left shouting at the sky. Further, they’ve only made Trump stronger.