The federal criminal indictment against former President Donald Trump functions as a crushing repudiation of the apocalyptic rhetoric his right-wing media allies have deployed since August, when the FBI discovered a trove of highly classified documents while serving a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago residence and resort. Their doomsaying and demagoguery, replete with warnings that the United States has become a lawless banana republic, has stoked the fury of an increasingly violent right-wing movement — and there’s little sign they plan to stop.

Fox News hosts cheered when Trump picked Bill Barr to become attorney general in December 2018 because they believed he could turn their conspiracy theories into federal investigations while protecting Trump and his allies from the law. In office he fulfilled that promise, shielding Trump from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, launching an inquiry into the origins of that investigation, and forestalling legal accountability for the then-president’s cronies. 

But even Barr isn’t willing to make excuses for Trump’s conduct after Friday’s unsealing of the 37-count indictment. Prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith allege in the indictment that Trump had personally overseen the removal of government documents from the White House; knowingly retained highly classified documents, including ones containing information “regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries” and about “United States nuclear programs”; kept boxes of such documents stored at times in unsecured locations including Mar-a-Lago’s ballroom and a bathroom; and conspired to prevent their return to government custody. Trump will be arraigned on Tuesday in a Miami, Florida, courtroom.

“I was shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were, frankly,” Barr said on Fox News Sunday two days after the indictment's unsealing. “And so, the government's agenda was to get those -- protect those documents and get them out. And I think it was perfectly appropriate to do that. It was the right thing to do, and I think the counts under the Espionage Act that he willfully retained those documents are solid counts.”

Barr added of the indictment, “If even half of it is true, then he's toast. I mean, it's a pretty -- it's a very detailed indictment, and it's very, very damming. And this idea of presenting Trump as a victim here -- a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous.”

“Witch hunt” would actually qualify as a fairly mild critique of the Trump documents investigation on the network where Barr offered his comments.

Fox propagandists, the carnival of Trump lackeys and lickspittles they’ve trotted out to comment, and the motley competitors angling for the network’s market share have spent the last 10 months bombarding their audience with unhinged attacks on the Trump documents probe. They’ve described the FBI and Justice Department as fascist shock troops targeting Trump at the whim of a tyrannical President Joe Biden, and warned that the legal action against the former president is merely the first step in terminating the American republic — and coming after his supporters.

After Mar-a-Lago search, Trumpists denounced the Justice Department and FBI …

• Newt Gingrich, Fox contributor: “The FBI has been totally corrupted. Now, it could actually be called the American Stasi because its behavior is more like the German secret police than like the traditional FBI.” [Real America’s Voice, The Charlie Kirk Show, 8/9/22]

• Laura Ingraham, Fox host: “We all see the Justice Department's leadership now for what it is. It's not the image of Lady Justice operating with a blindfold, but this is a Praetorian Guard that shields all of those who hold the real power in this town.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/8/22]

• Victor David Hanson, conservative pundit: “This is something like the East German Stasi in the Cold War. It really is. It's an ideological investigative group that is hired out by the left for particular retrieval services.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/8/22]

• Sean Davis, The Federalist co-founder: “After you impeach and remove [Attorney General Merrick] Garland, you need to eliminate the FBI in its entirety, root and branch, and salt the earth where it stood. It is a corrupt, criminal enterprise that exists to terrorize anyone and everyone deemed a political enemy of the current regime.” [Media Matters for America, 8/9/22] 

• Steve Bannon, right-wing streamer: “The FBI right now is the Gestapo.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/8/22]

• Bannon: “I do not think it's beyond this administrative state and their deep state apparatus to actually try to work on the assassination of President Trump. …  I wouldn't put it past him to have planted stuff – that – this is a criminal. The FBI and the DOJ are essentially lawless criminal organizations.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 8/9/22]

• Buck Sexton, talk radio host: “This is undermining our faith in the not only the peaceful transfer of power, but in the executive arm of the government under an opposition party. Not to act like the Stasi, not to act like the secret police that we've seen in totalitarian regimes.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/8/22]

… called the probe an attack on America that is destructive to the rule of law …

• Sean Hannity, Fox host: “A dark day for our republic, the Department of Justice, the rule of law, what looks to be potentially a shocking overreach — we'll find out in due time — that will have serious ramifications potentially for many, many years to come. … DOJ is now being used as a weapon against Biden’s top political rival. That’s the former president of the United States of America, Donald Trump.” [Fox News, Hannity, 8/8/22]

• Mark Levin, Fox News host: “This is the worst attack on this republic in modern history, period.” [Fox News, Hannity, 8/8/22]

• Dan Bongino, then-Fox host: “This is some Third World bullshit right here. Let me say it again: Third World bullshit.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/8/22]

• Sexton: “[I]t almost feels like a preemptive coup. We've heard so much about the insurrection and the coup, but this is preventing this is meant to prevent Donald Trump from being able to run again. ... This is the Rubicon being crossed. This is something we've never seen before.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/8/22]

• Gingrich: “You really are now seeing the ugly face of a tyranny. And the left is so desperate, so frightened.” [Real America’s Voice, The Charlie Kirk Show, 8/9/22]

… warned that Trump’s supporters are next …

• Tucker Carlson, then-Fox host: “These are acts of aggression and hostility aimed at Americans. No American president has ever done this. No American president has ever explicitly declared war on his own population. … And just in case you missed the theme here, they're hiring another 87,000 armed IRS agents just to make sure that you obey. Got it?” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/15/22] 

• Ingraham: “The real target of this investigation isn't Trump. The real target of this investigation is you or anyone who dares to call out and take on the rank corruption of the D.C. establishment.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/8/22]

• Sexton: “They're sending a message now to President Trump and his supporters that they'll come for you if you stand against the machine.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/8/22]

• Levin: “It's not just an attack on Donald Trump. It's an attack on everybody who supports him. It's an attack on anybody who dares to raise serious questions about Washington, D.C., and the establishment in both parties.” [Fox News, Hannity, 8/8/22]

• Lara Trump, then-Fox contributor: “If this is what they're able to do to the former president of the United States, think about what they could do to you, to anybody in America.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/8/22]

• Gingrich: “If they can, if the FBI can send 30 agents to the home of a former president, they can do it to you, to me, to everybody listening to us today. This is a direct threat to freedom.” [Real America’s Voice, The Charlie Kirk Show, 8/9/22]

… and demanded action — sometimes even violence — in response.

• Jesse Watters, Fox host: “I think there is going to be some more action you are going to see out on the streets from the base after they see this break tonight. ... There are just a lot of honest Americans that've had it with what this corrupt government and what the FBI has done.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/8/22]

• Will Cain, Fox host: “A day after the FBI’s raid on former president Donald Trump we are starting to see what a permanent national split looks like. A divorce. Nobody wants to say it out loud, but it’s true. And this is not simply a break between Democrats and Republicans. No, that’s too simple. What we are seeing is a divide between people who are willing to use the power of the state to silence their opponent and those who are unwilling.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/9/22] 

• Pete Santilli, radio host: “We will have to arm up and surround Mar-a-Lago to protect it, to protect life, liberty, and property if the governor fails and refuses to do that.” [The Pete Santilli Show, 8/9/22]

The Trump indictment news brought more fever dreams of the end of U.S. democracy.

• Hannity: “It is a dark day in America. … There is no equal justice. There is no equal application of our laws. … Our system of justice has now been weaponized beyond belief and this country is in serious trouble." [Fox News, Hannity, 6/8/23]

• Stephen Miller, former Trump aide: “History will record today as the day that we ceased to be a democratic republic and we became a people ruled by an unelected government bureaucracy.” [Fox News, Fox News Tonight, 6/8/23]

• Tim Pool, streamer: “The federal indictment by the Biden DOJ is direct election interference. It is subversion of the United States election. … I don’t see how the United States stands and continues to function when you’ve got the sitting president filing an indictment against his chief rival.” [Timcast, 6/8/23]

• Matt Whitaker, former acting attorney general for Trump: “It's really a sad day … and it's the stuff of banana republics, quite frankly.” [Fox News, Fox News Tonight, 6/8/23]

• Levin: “Let me say this. Today — what is today's date? June 8? June 8 is the day of insurrection, not January 6. … We have never seen anything like this in the United States. We saw it under Stalin. We have seen it in other autocracies, Marxist regimes, fascist regimes. The Third World. … You have crossed the Rubicon twice, which has never been done. And we will never forgive you. Never, ever!” [Fox News, Hannity, 6/8/23]

• Bongino: “We live in the police state, Rob. The police state’s here. …The idea that you live in a constitutional republic — take it, wipe your rump with it, and flush it down the toilet bowl, cause that’s gone.” [NewsmaxTV, Rob Schmitt Tonight, 6/8/23] 

• Joe diGenova, Trumpist lawyer: “Think Panama, think banana republic. You are looking at a thug. He is not the president of the United States. He is a thug and Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray are complicit in the thuggery that led to this indictment today. This indictment today is an embarrassment to the rule of law in the United States, and I hope that the American people understand clearly and unequivocally that what happened today is an assault on the Constitution of the United States.” [NewsmaxTV, Rob Schmitt Tonight, 6/8/23]

• Matt Walsh, Daily Wire podcaster: “I'm not sure where we go from there because that really is truly a collapse of the republic kind of situation. It just is. For all the talk of the attacks on our democracy, this would be an attack unlike anything we've seen yet. An actual attack on our democracy. And it's an attack on our democracy because it's an attempt to circumvent and subvert the will of the people heading into an election.” [The Daily Wire, The Matt Walsh Show, 6/8/23]

Trump’s March indictment by a New York grand jury over his alleged role in paying off an adult film actor to boost his 2016 presidential campaign and his subsequent arraignment brought a similar frenzy, with right-wing pundits warning that “there’s no coming back from this moment,” offering comparisons to authoritarian states, and calling for retribution. Indictments from the ongoing federal and Georgia probes related to Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection would surely lead to more of the same.

The extreme rhetoric on Fox and other right-wing media bastions to the Trump documents probe is part of a violent, radical response that has law enforcement and experts on the far-right sounding the alarm and recalling the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

The New York Times reports:

The Washington Post adds:

There’s little indication that the Trumpist right will change course, even after the release of the damning indictment. Fox hosts are still rallying behind the former president, while his congressional allies plot to use their offices to aid his legal defense. They’ve all spent years defending Trump’s indefensible actions and training their supporters to reflexively ignore them. 

Their efforts make it harder for Trump’s Republican opponents to dethrone him from his position at the head of the party and more difficult to walk the GOP — and the country — back from the abyss.