The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com. Phil Harriman, a former town councilor and state senator from Yarmouth, is the founding partner of Lebel & Harriman, a financial services firm. Ethan Strimling, a former mayor and state senator from Portland, is the president of Swing Hard. Turn Left, which promotes progressive policy at the local, state and national levels. Ethan: Please tell me you are not in the Gov. Paul LePage/former U.S. Rep Bruce Poliquin camp that believes the FBI was out of control and is the one that should be investigated for retrieving 11 sets of records, some of them top secret files including possible nuclear documents, from Mar-a-Lago. Phil: Executing a criminal search warrant against a former president, especially one who is likely to run against the current incumbent, has troubling implications. Something like this should always be handled with “justice is blind” discretion. Ethan: As this one, by all accounts appears to be. Phil: Then why would you fear an investigation of what they did? Ensuring what you say can only strengthen our democracy. Ethan: Fear an investigation? I don’t fear an investigation. But I also understand it to be a political distraction from the likely crimes I believe Donald Trump committed. Phil: The FBI’s past behavior in the Russian collusion hoax and the Hillary Clinton email violations of classified documents gives rise to the need for a thorough investigation into what is going on here. Ethan: You mean the Hillary Clinton email accusation that never led to a swarm of FBI agents having to break open her safe to retrieve nuclear secrets, as they apparently had to do with Trump? Phil: And that’s the point! Why didn’t the FBI raid Clinton’s house when it was revealed she was violating the law and physically destroying evidence? She stored hers on a private server, Trump in a closet? What’s the difference? Party affiliation? Ethan: Because you don’t swarm someone’s house when a person voluntarily agrees to comply with a request for documents and turns everything over. Besides, it was a Republican administration that determined, “no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information” occurred in Clinton’s case. On the other hand, Trump physically took boxes of documents, some clearly marked as classified, locked some in his safe, and then refused to return them. Phil: Let us not jump to conclusions by headlines. The facts presented in a court of law should determine whether what you describe occurred. Interesting isn’t it that Attorney General Merrick Garland chose to have the FBI raid Mar-a-Lago instead of simply issuing a subpoena? Ethan: Excuse me? He did seek a subpoena and one was issued for documents that Trump had not turned over. And everything I described about the raid came from facts presented in a court of law to a judge. Upon seeing the evidence, the judge determined that there was enough probable cause of a crime and that evidence of that crime was likely being stored at Mar-a-Lago. Phil: From accounts I’ve read, an informant led to the raid. Clearly the government believes they have probable cause to bring us to this point. But my issue is simply trying to understand what is going on here. It does not make sense to me that he would simply hold onto state secrets. Why would he do that? Ethan: A million reasons. Something embarrassing in the documents about him. Something he wants to use as leverage against someone else. Something, God forbid, he planned to use against the United States for personal profit. There are myriad reasons people steal classified documents. Phil: Personal profits at the expense of our country, really? Or perhaps revealing facts about Joe Biden, and his son Hunter? Ethan: Perhaps. And if true, stealing them and holding onto them would be illegal. Phil: We will soon find out. Why don’t we focus on this delightful summer weather and let the wheels of justice come rolling to us? Ethan: Ah, the age old, “let’s talk about the weather instead” defense.