We now know the Aug. 8, 2022, raid on former President Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago was authorized by a federal judge at the request of U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. We also know more than 40 federal prosecutors, FBI agents and “others” participated in what Garland called a “search” of the former president’s home to prevent the destruction of evidence in criminal activity.

No former president of the United States has ever been subjected to such indignity. This is the kind of abuse associated with totalitarian states like Russia, Communist China and dictatorships in banana republics.

We have now learned in the hours leading up to, during and since the Mar-a-Lago raid, dozens of elected state and federal Republican legislators have been accosted by federal law officers bearing warrants, demanding they surrender their cellphones and computers.

Members of the media are demanding, inter alia, affidavits behind these search warrants. It’s a pointless inquiry. The answers — if ever provided — will be full of lies. The truth is simple: The Far Left is desperate to preserve their power and are willing to weaponize every federal agency.

This is why there has been no accountability for horrific events in Afghanistan, the disaster on our southern border, over 150,000 American fentanyl deaths, a sanguinary crime wave in our city streets and runaway inflation. Here is how Washington’s Far Left troika — Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden — hope all this will play out:

Shortly after Labor Day, Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray will hold a press conference and will state:

Classified, illegally held documents seized at Mar-a-Lago reveal a plot to overturn a presidential election through insurrection, conspiracy and deadly violence. This plot involves Trump and more than a dozen Republican House members, most of whom are running for reelection. The names of Trump’s co-conspirators are …

Garland and the Department of Justice will determine what charges should be brought against the men and women who have abused their offices.

The hope of the Far Left troika is to retain control of both houses of Congress in 2022 and preserve unlimited power in the executive branch in 2024. Ignored by the troika’s allies in the mainstream media are questions about why the Biden DOJ didn’t simply subpoena the documents they wanted. The Mar-a-Lago raid was like a local public library sending a police SWAT team bursting into your home to collect an overdue book.

If the Mar-a-Lago raid does nothing else, it demonstrates how important it is for patriotic Americans to reclaim the House and Senate in November and the White House in 2024.

In our book “We Didn’t Fight for Socialism,” we warn of America coming to a fork in the road where one path leads to a revival of our Founding Fathers’ vision of freedom, liberty and self-government; the other to total government control of all aspects of our lives. We’ve arrived. Which direction will we take?

After the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Franklin purportedly responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Can we keep it? The midterm elections in November and the presidential election in 2024 will answer this question.

The Left is pulling out all stops — even weaponizing the IRS — to hold onto power. They are counting on complacency and weak Republican leadership to give them an edge. Unless patriotic Americans turn out to vote, Marxists will win, and America’s experiment will be cast into history’s ash heap. The battle for the heart and soul of our country will be won or lost at the ballot box starting in November.

COPYRIGHT 2022 OLIVER L. NORTH AND DAVID GOETSCH