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FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago

Posted By: ConSigCor

FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/09/2022 01:56 AM

FBI executes search warrant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4084080/posts

https://www.tampafp.com/trumps-statement-on-fbi-raid-at-his-mar-a-lago-home/
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/09/2022 02:10 AM

Breaking: Trump Reports Mar-A-Lago Resort Raided by FBI Agents!

'They even broke into my safe!' says 45th President.

By Infowars.com Monday, August 08, 2022

The Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, home to Donald Trump, was raided Monday by “a large group of FBI agents,” the president reported Monday.

“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump wrote on Truth Social around 5:51PM CT.

Read his statement below:

[Linked Image]

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate. It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections. Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. They even broke into my safe! What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.”

Trump continued: “The political persecution of President Donald J. Trump has been going on for years, with the now fully debunked Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and so much more, it just never ends. It is political targeting at the highest level!”

“Hillary Clinton was allowed to delete and acid wash 33.000 e-mails AFTER they were subpoenaed by Congress. Absolutely nothing has happened to hold her accountable. She even took antique furniture, and other items from the White House.

“I stood up to America’s bureaucratic corruption, I restored power to the people, and truly delivered for our Country, like we have never seen before. The establishment hated it. Now, as they watch my endorsed candidates win big victories, and see my dominance in all polls, they are trying to stop me, and the Republican Party, once more. The lawlessness, political persecution, and Witch Hunt must be exposed and stopped.”

The New York Times claimed Monday according to two anonymous inside sources that the raid was related to classified documents Trump may have taken with him from the White House to the resort.

The search, according to two people familiar with the investigation, appeared to be focused on material that Mr. Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence, after he left the White House. Those boxes contained many pages of classified documents, according to a person familiar with their contents.

Mr. Trump delayed returning 15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives for many months, only doing so when there became a threat of action being taken to retrieve them.

Mr. Trump was known throughout his term to rip up official material that was intended to be held for government archives.

The raid comes as Axios published photos of torn paper inside a toilet Monday given to them by New York Times writer Maggie Haberman, who claimed they were evidence Trump would regularly destroy confidential documents.

It’s as yet unclear whether this is the actual reason for the raid.

Trump is also being unfairly persecuted by the partisan Jan. 6 House Select committee, which falsely claims he fomented violence and incited an insurrection that day.

“Trump is not at Mar-a-Lago, his winter residence. He spends his summers at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey,” reports NBC News.
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/09/2022 05:45 PM

I'd pay money to see the probably cause affidavit for that warrant.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/09/2022 05:58 PM

Republicans have rediscovered skepticism of FBI power following a Monday raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.

Quote
Many questions remain about both the origins or purpose of the raid.

It does not mean Trump will necessarily be charged with a crime, though it does make this possibility seem more likely. Getting and executing this search warrant is "hugely, historically significant," writes lawyer Ken "Popehat" White. "The feds do not seek search warrants lightly. It's a very major commitment to the case, an indication that they believe they have evidence that they think may well lead to indictment." White added that "the very unlikely (Trump being charged) has become fully plausible."

Trump was the one who first announced the raid happening, in a statement calling it "prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don't want me to run for President in 2024."

Since then, a number of news sources have reported that the raid was related to allegations that Trump took classified documents from the White House and was storing them at Mar-a-Lago. But no one is sure, and it could be related to other crimes that Trump—or even someone else—has been accused of.

Taking classified documents is indeed a crime, but it's a crime that's rarely prosecuted unless the documents are given to a third party, leading some legal experts to suggest that there must be more to the raid than concerns about classified documents being kept at Mar-a-Lago. "It's hard for me to believe Merrick Garland would authorize FBI agents to obtain a search warrant solely to find classified material, given that mishandling that material rarely results in a case that DOJ would charge," tweeted former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.

Some have pointed to a clause in the law against mishandling classified documents that says someone convicted "shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States." But as UCLA law school professor Rick Hasen notes at the Election Law Blog, "that statute cannot trump the Constitution, which sets the exclusive qualifications for President. So this is not a path to making Trump legally ineligible to run for office."

With all the possible reasons why the feds might be raiding Mar-a-Lago—related to Trump's fake electors plan or his conduct on January 6, for starters—one needn't reach right away for explanations involving FBI corruption. It's no secret that we have little love for the FBI here at Reason, and the raid could well turn out to be conducted under a politicized pretense, but for now we don't really know what's going on.

In order for the raid to be ordered, the FBI would have had to have gotten a federal search warrant, and convincing a judge to issue one requires particular evidence and parameters. "Federal magistrate judges tend to require relatively thorough, specific, and well-documented applications, as opposed to state judges, who will generally sign a warrant that looks like something Gary Busey blew out of his nose after Fourth of July weekend," tweeted White. And "proceeding with a search on a former president's home would almost surely have required sign-off from top officials at the bureau and the Justice Department," suggests The New York Times.

Many Republicans have been framing this as an attack on conservatives generally, trying to tell supporters that they could be next. "If they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you," tweeted the House Judiciary GOP account.

On one level, that's silly. There is zero likelihood that the FBI is preparing to start raiding random Republicans' homes. Conversely, the fact that a former president isn't above the law if he did do something wrong should not be upsetting to anyone. ("As a constitutional matter, DOJ's bold action is important as a message to future presidents that even though other guardrails of presidential accountability have failed, the criminal justice system still works, so…don't try to use the massive powers of the office to morph this country into an authoritarian basketcase," suggests Kimberly Wehle at The Bulwark.)

[Linked Image]

But the FBI does have way too much power, it carries out operations on way too many questionable premises (hello, drug war), and it is certainly politicized in some ways. There are countless examples throughout history of the FBI monitoring, investigating, and harassing people for fighting for civil rights, protesting government action, or simply being different in a way that powerful people found suspicious. And the whims of a given administration—like the Obama-era obsession "fighting sex trafficking" by arresting sex workers—certainly influence FBI actions and priorities.

Alas: While it's exciting to see Republicans call to "defund the FBI" or "destroy the FBI," we know from experience that GOP skepticism of federal law enforcement tends to last only as long as it's politically advantageous.

[Linked Image]

The bottom line: We shouldn't let former leaders get away with whatever they want just because the optics of investigating them looks bad. But there better be something bigger here than simply taking some documents.


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/09/2022 06:18 PM

Here is the judge who issued the warrant.

I don't mean disrespect to federal magistrates - who are not Article III judges, and who are appointed to 8-year terms - but if I were getting a warrant for a former Presidnet, I would rather get it from a full-on Article III judge with a lifetime appointment. And getting it from a magistrate who was linked to Jeffrey Epstein makes it a little more wonky.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/10/2022 06:05 PM

This is going around the internet. No comment, but...

[Linked Image]

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: Texas Resistance

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/10/2022 06:21 PM

Damn homosexuals!
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/11/2022 01:34 AM

FBI Had Mole Inside Mar-A-Lago: Report

by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Aug 10, 2022 - 05:01 PM

Update (1700ET): According to Newsweek, the FBI had a 'confidential human source' (a mole) inside Mar-a-Lago, who was "able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents."

[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FZ0XdXHXkAAze96?format=jpg&name=900x900[/img]

* * *

The Trumps have revealed more about Monday's FBI raid of their Mar-a-Lago property.

For starters, Eric Trump told the Daily Mail that "the 30 agents who arrived at the property asked staff to turn security cameras off – and to kick their lawyer off the property, but they refused."

"They told our lawyer… you have to leave the property right now. Turn off all security cameras."

Eric also said "They would not give her the search warrant," adding "So they showed it to her from about 10 feet away. They would not give her a copy of the search warrant."

He also said that the FBI brought safe crackers in to break into his father's safe, and that agents rummaged through Melania Trump's wardrobe.

"It's all a coordinated attack with the FBI," said the former president's son, insisting that President Biden approved the raid.

"Do you think that the FBI director is going to raid the former president's house, especially a house as you know, kind of world renowned as Mar Lago is in a place as public as Mar Lago is without getting the approval of President [Biden]?"

By not turning off the security cameras, Eric said they saw the FBI raiding areas of the property that they 'shouldn't have been.'

Donald Trump lamented Wednesday that the FBI blocked his lawyers from the property during the raid at his Palm Beach, Florida residence and suggested that agents may have 'planted' evidence. -Daily Mail

Donald Trump, meanwhile, suggested in a Wednesday post to his Truth Social page that the FBI may have planted evidence.

"The FBI and others from the Federal Government would not let anyone, including my lawyers, be anywhere near the areas that were rummaged and otherwise looked at during the raid on Mar-a-Lago," he wrote. "Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, 'planting,'" he added.

As the Epoch Times notes, About two dozen FBI agents entered the Trump-owned resort at 9 a.m. Monday and left with “a handful of boxes of documents,” Trump spokeswoman Christina Bobb told The Epoch Times on Tuesday. “I didn’t actually get to oversee the search, they wouldn’t let anybody see what they were doing,” she said, adding that she was present when the FBI entered the premises.

FBI agents were looking for “what they deemed to be presidential records,” Bobb continued. “I don’t think there was anything of substance.”
Background

Bruce Reinhart, a Florida federal magistrate judge, signed off on a warrant to search the former president’s Florida property.

Reinhart worked as a federal prosecutor until 2008 when he became a defense attorney representing employees of convicted sex trafficker and wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein. Employees included Epstein’s pilots, a scheduler, and others

The Mar-a-Lago raid warrant was issued on Aug. 5, a day after FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee and was asked about whistleblower reports on whether his agency was becoming increasingly politicized. Wray had to cut the questioning short because he needed to travel, although flight records indicated that he used an FBI jet to travel to a vacation retreat in Upstate New York, according to the New York Post.

In mid-January, the National Archives and Records Administration arranged for the transport from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives 15 boxes that the archives said contained presidential records. Under the Presidential Records Act, the records should have been transferred in January 2021 as Trump left office, and some of the boxes contained classified information, the institution said in a statement at the time.

Agents initially resisted showing Bobb the warrant but ultimately did. But the agents would not allow any representatives of the former president to oversee the search, Bobb said. The justification for the search also remains under seal. Trump’s legal team plans on asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to unseal the search warrant affidavit, which would outline why authorities asked for the warrant.

The Epoch Times contacted the FBI for comment. Neither the bureau nor Attorney General Merrick Garland have offered public comments about the raid, drawing even questions and condemnation from Democrat politicians.

The Department of Justice “must immediately explain the reason for its raid & it must be more than a search for inconsequential archives or it will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation & legitimacy of January 6 investigations,” wrote former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a longtime critic of Trump, said on Twitter Tuesday.

“DOJ must disclose the bona fide nature of the August 8 action or else the republicans will use it to Discredit the Jan 6 investigation, which would be a terrible disservice to the good work of the house committee in exposing The Trump administration violations,” the former Democrat governor of New York added. Cuomo last year resigned amid allegations he engaged in misconduct with staffers, which Cuomo has categorically denied.

And Republicans similarly said they were concerned with the raid.

“Last night’s raid on the home of a former U.S. president without explanation will only further erode confidence in the FBI and the Justice Department,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote Tuesday in reference to the Monday search.

“I reiterated these concerns to Director Wray today,” he continued. “If the FBI isn’t extraordinarily transparent about its justification for yesterday’s actions and committed to rooting out political bias that has infected their most sensitive investigations, they will have sealed their own fate. The FBI’s mission and the many patriotic agents who work hard to carry it out will be forever overshadowed by the distrust the bureau has sown.”
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/11/2022 12:41 PM

The Mar-a-Lago Raid Is the Desperate Act of a Corrupt Establishment | Opinion

Paul du Quenoy , President, Palm Beach Freedom Institute
On 8/11/22 at 6:30 AM EDT

"These are dark times for our nation," former President Donald Trump declared in response to the FBI's Monday morning raid on his Mar-a-Lago club and private residence in Palm Beach, Florida. He compared the event to "an assault" that "could only take place in broken, Third-World countries."

Startled during the slow summer season, when Mar-a-Lago is closed and Trump resides at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, the staff complied with a search warrant. Ostensibly, the warrant applied to documents that Trump is alleged to have improperly removed from the White House in possible violation of the Presidential Records Act, which requires official records to be transferred to the National Archives. Trump also claims that the feds cracked his personal safe. Further reports suggest that unrelated documents were removed, in some cases without review. To many, the raid appeared to be a clear fishing expedition for potentially incriminating documents about Trump's alleged role in the January 6, 2021 demonstration at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump claims to have been complying with the FBI. In January, he turned over 15 boxes containing such vitally important records as a birthday party menu, a cocktail napkin, and a list of telephone numbers, among other items best described as memorabilia from his administration. Unconfirmed reports suggest that he may have removed classified material, though as president he had ultimate authority for the declassification of any and all White House documents.

Normally, a raid by federal law enforcement is the last resort when all other options for obtaining evidence have failed. It is typically used against drug dealers, mafia bosses, and other dangerous criminals—not people suspected of failing to properly deposit documents with the National Archives. Despite a court order authorizing the raid, there is no indication that any seized material had been subpoenaed, the proper intermediary step before dozens of heavily armed FBI shock troops storm one's home. Even Richard Nixon had the courtesy of a subpoena for his infamous Watergate tapes. When Bill and Hillary Clinton improperly took gifts and government-owned furniture from the White House, no legal action was forthcoming. As secretary of state, Hillary notoriously exported to her home internet server over 33,000 government emails, which she then deleted and scrubbed in what appeared to be an attempt to avoid an FBI subpoena. The FBI did not raid her house, however, and accepted her and the propagandistic regime media's characterization of the incident as a peccadillo unworthy of law enforcement's attention.

Leftists are crowing that FBI Director Christopher Wray is a Trump appointee, but the imprimatur for the Mar-a-Lago raid almost certainly came from Wray's boss, Attorney General Merrick Garland. Garland was appointed by President Joe Biden, who will likely face Trump in a rematch in 2024. When asked, the Justice Department, FBI, and White House all fueled suspicion by neither confirming nor denying Garland's personal involvement in authorizing the raid.

This is the same Merrick Garland who implied in an official memorandum last October that parents speaking out against critical race theory at school meetings were domestic terrorists, leading the FBI's counterterrorism division to assign them a "threat tag." Earlier this year, Garland refused to provide home security to the U.S. Supreme Court justices identified with the leaked ruling that eventually overturned Roe v. Wade, even when those justices were violently threatened—and, in the case of Brett Kavanaugh, the object of an assassination plot.

Trump has all but announced that he will seek a second term come 2024. A criminal conviction on even a minor, peripheral charge could prevent him from returning to the presidency. The Democrats already tried and failed to disqualify him via conviction at his second impeachment trial. Most recent polls show Trump with a commanding lead for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024; many also show him beating Biden in a hypothetical general election rematch. The Democrats rightly fear catastrophic losses in November's midterm elections, including those to Trump-endorsed candidates who have proved remarkably successful in Republican primaries. What better way to dispose of this powerful rival than to score a conviction following the flex of law enforcement muscle like those flaunted in the dramatic arrests of Trump associates Roger Stone and Peter Navarro, or in Steve Bannon's recent conviction?

Like so much else in the Biden administration, public reaction suggests a serious backfire is in the works. Trump supporters—and even a fair number of Trump skeptics and opponents—have taken to the airwaves, social media, and the pavement abutting Mar-a-Lago and New York's Trump Tower to decry dangerous overreach by a weaponized federal law enforcement apparatus. Thereby, they affirm Trump's narrative that he is a persecuted victim of the regime fighting to prevent worse fates befalling his millions of more vulnerable supporters. With improper procedure, no evidence of probable cause, and radical partisan leadership at the Justice Department, it is hard to see it any other way, especially as the IRS potentially gears up to hire 87,000 new agents—foot soldiers in the administrative-managerial caste's increasingly desperate campaign against Americans who resist that caste's corruption.

"Banana Republic," tweeted Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in disgust at Trump's treatment. Indeed. And even as these words were written, legacy media was already loyally changing "raid" to "search."
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/11/2022 05:26 PM

The FBI thought the raid cold be kept low-profile. It didn't quite work out that way.

Quote
More information has come out about the FBI's raid on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence. Newsweek reports that the raid "was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents." Newsweek says its report comes from two senior government officials "who have direct knowledge of the FBI's deliberations and were granted anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters."

Shockingly, the FBI thought this matter could be kept low-profile, per Newsweek:

Quote
FBI decision-makers in Washington and Miami thought that denying the former president a photo opportunity or a platform from which to grandstand (or to attempt to thwart the raid) would lower the profile of the event, says one of the sources, a senior Justice Department official who is a 30-year veteran of the FBI.

The effort to keep the raid low-key failed: instead, it prompted a furious response from GOP leaders and Trump supporters. "What a spectacular backfire," says the Justice official.

"I know that there is much speculation out there that this is political persecution, but it is really the best and the worst of the bureaucracy in action," the official says. "They wanted to punctuate the fact that this was a routine law enforcement action, stripped of any political overtones, and yet [they] got exactly the opposite."


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/11/2022 05:43 PM

This Is The Real Reason Why They Raided Mar-a-Lago

August 9, 2022 by Michael


No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you should be absolutely horrified by what the FBI just did. When one political party weaponizes the law in order to crush their main opposition, the legitimacy of the government disappears. At this point it is clearer than ever that the United States has become a banana republic, and it greatly pains me to say that. From the time of the Founding Fathers up to today, so many Americans have sacrificed so much for our once great nation. But now we are the generation that gets to witness the death of the American experiment.

When I hear Democrats say that “nobody is above the law”, it makes me laugh.

How do you think the Bidens and the Clintons have stayed out of prison all these years?

Of course they are above the law.

But all of our other politicians have broken the law at some point too. We literally have more laws, rules and regulations than any other society in the history of the world has had. So if you look close enough, you will find that everyone has slipped up somewhere.

Needless to say, the vast majority of the time that our politicians violate the law, there are no consequences. If they are good boys and girls and go along with the program, they will generally be left alone.

However, those that prove to be serious threats to the establishment are singled out. It is all about selective enforcement. In recent years we have seen this pattern play out repeatedly, and now it is happening again.

They aren’t going after Donald Trump because he is guilty and everyone else in Washington is innocent.

Rather, they are going after Donald Trump because they think that they have found a way to keep him from ever running for president again. The following is what 18 U.S. Code § 2071 says…

(a)Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(b)Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

If they can convict Trump under this section, he will be permanently banned from the presidency.

And that is exactly what they want.

This is the first time in history that the private home of a former president has ever been raided, and Trump is absolutely horrified that this has happened…

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” Trump said. “It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections.”

“Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before,” Trump said, alleging that the FBI agents broke into his safe.

I don’t blame him.

I would be horrified too.

They didn’t even treat Richard Nixon like this.

And some prominent Democrats are drooling with glee over the prospect that Trump could eventually end up in prison…

Donald Trump is probably the target of a criminal investigation and the raid on his Mar-a-Lago mansion shows it, a former acting US Solicitor General has said.

Neal Katyal, who was appointed by Barack Obama to represent the government in front of the Supreme Court between 2010 and 2011, told MSNBC on Monday night that if he were Trump’s lawyer, he would be telling him to ‘prepare for jail time’.

It isn’t enough for them just to defeat Trump politically.

They want to destroy him, just like they have destroyed so many others.

These guys are playing hardball. After experiencing four years of Trump in the White House, they want to make absolutely certain that such a “mistake” never, ever happens again.

So the full power of the FBI and the Justice Department are now being directed at Trump, and they aren’t going to show any mercy.

In light of what has just transpired, a statement that Attorney General Merrick Garland made recently now sounds even more ominous…

As Garland recently said, federal prosecutors are now engaged in the “most wide-ranging investigation and the most important investigation that the Justice Department has ever entered into…We have to get this right.”

They aren’t going to stop until they win.

And if “another Trump” arises, they will give that individual the same treatment.

If you love this country, what we are witnessing should deeply sadden you.

Our system of government was once an inspiration to people all over the globe, but now it is starting to come apart at the seams at a staggering rate.

If corruption wins, there will be no future for our system of government, and that should greatly alarm all of us.
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/11/2022 05:51 PM

‘Bulls**t!’: Megyn Kelly Goes Ballistic Over FBI’s Raid Against Trump, Says ‘It’s About Jan. 6’
"If you believe this is about classified documents having to do with bulls**t Trump took with him when he left office, your head is in the sky," she says.

By Jamie White | INFOWARS.COM Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Political commentator Megyn Kelly launched into an incisive tirade over the FBI’s naked political persecution of former President Donald Trump with their pre-dawn raid of his Mar-a-Lago estate.

“The Megyn Kelly Show” host did not buy the FBI’s official story that they obtained a search warrant for Trump’s Palm Beach resort on Monday to retrieve classified documents wanted by the National Archives and Records Administration.

“My response to that is: BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT. There is no way that’s what they were searching for. There’s no way,” Kelly exclaimed.

“This is about January 6. If you believe this is about classified documents having to do with bullshit Trump took with him when he left office, your head is in the sky.”

Kelly explained that the Democrats’ past efforts to derail Trump’s 2016 campaign, his presidency, and beyond have all failed as his political power grows, and so they’re resorting to desperate measures.

Kelly continued:
1776 around the world starts when you visit our store!

This is about January 6 and the never-ending desire to get Trump on something. They don’t want him to run for election again. They’re mad he did not get convicted on the first or the second impeachment. They’re mad that he did not get pursued criminally by the New York DA. They’re mad that RussiaGate fell apart. And they are mad that he’s leading in the polls, he’s crushing [Florida Governor Ron] DeSantis, his candidates of choice all made it into office – virtually all of them last week – and they’re prepared to unleash hell.

Kelly also said that Attorney General Merrick Garland has been “very clearly willing” to politically target Trump and his top advisers over the last several weeks.

“The Democrats play dirty. And Merrick Garland is very clearly willing to go along with that. He’s been moving in the concentric circles toward Donald Trump over the past several weeks, going after his top advisers, subpoenaing them,” she said. “We’ve seen close Trump advisers in handcuffs dragged away as if they’re mobsters.”

“This is getting really alarming and the American public deserves answers,” she concluded.

Watch Megyn Kelly’s full show breaking it all down:

Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/11/2022 08:39 PM

The Democrats misuse the FBI when they're in power, and the Republicans misuse it when they're in power. Wouldn't it be better just to do away with the FBI altogether, like the Libertarians and the people want?

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/11/2022 09:10 PM

[url=https://reason.com/2022/08/11/doj-moves-to-unseal-the-search-warrant-against-donald-trumps-mar-a-lago-estate/]The DOJ has filed a motion to unseal the "search warrant" and "property receipt" from the raid. it's unclear if the probable cause affidavit will be included.

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In a press conference today, Attorney General Merrick Garland addressed Monday's FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump's Florida home. Trump confirmed the raid as it was happening.

Reporting since the raid has centered around allegations that Trump had taken classified material from the White House to his private residence after his term in office ended—a violation of federal law. The National Archives and Records Administration said as much in a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) earlier this year.

Many Republicans have fulminated against the raid, calling it "next-level Nixonian," akin to the acts of "3rd world Marxist dictatorships." Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California warned that the DOJ "has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization" and that when Republicans retake the House of Representatives after this year's midterm elections, they "will conduct immediate oversight" of the department.

In the press conference, in which he spoke less than five minutes and took no questions, Garland announced that in accordance with his pledge that the department would "speak through its court filings and its work," the DOJ had filed a motion to unseal the "search warrant" and "property receipt" from the Mar-a-Lago raid. Garland indicated that the DOJ had moved to make the documents public "in light of the former president's public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter." He did not address what materials were seized, but the motion does cite statements from Christina Bobb, Trump's lawyer, that the warrant was for "presidential records or any possibly classified material." "As such," the motion states, "the occurrence of the search and indications of the subject matter involved are already public."

While he clarified that the search warrant was "authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause," Garland admitted that he "personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter." He also clarified that the DOJ "does not take such a decision lightly. Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken."

The New York Times reported earlier today that Trump actually received a subpoena earlier this year, requesting that he turn over classified material that had been improperly taken out of the White House. While Trump apparently returned material in response to the subpoena, the Times alleges that federal investigators felt there was more. The search warrant was seen as the last straw after other less invasive methods were attempted.

It's entirely possible that the FBI, not known for its dedication to transparency, is only making this move because of the massive spotlight that Trump and his supporters have put on it. But regardless of the motivation, more transparency in law enforcement is a net positive.


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/12/2022 03:28 AM

Government agrees to unsealing of search warrant and attachments.

Quote
Various media entities asked that it be unsealed—see, e.g., the New York Times' motion, filed yesterday—and the government has just filed a motion agreeing, at least as to the warrant and some of its attachments (I'm not sure whether there are others that aren't included within the government's position):

Quote
Although the government initially asked, and this Court agreed, to file the warrant and Attachments A and B under seal, releasing those documents at this time would not "impair court functions," including the government's ability to execute the warrant, given that the warrant has already been executed. Furthermore, on the day that the search was executed, former President Trump issued a public statement that provided the first public confirmation that the search had occurred. Subsequently, the former President's representatives have given additional statements to the press concerning the search, including public characterizations of the materials sought. As such, the occurrence of the search and indications of the subject matter involved are already public.

This matter plainly "concerns public officials or public concerns," as it involves a law enforcement action taken at the property of the 45th President of the United States. The public's clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances weighs heavily in favor of unsealing. That said, the former President should have an opportunity to respond to this Motion and lodge objections, including with regards to any "legitimate privacy interests" or the potential for other "injury" if these materials are made public….

This Court should unseal Docket Entry 17, subject to the presentation of countervailing interests by former President Trump.


UPDATE [4:12 pm]: The Magistrate Judge responds: "The United States shall immediately serve a copy of its Motion on counsel for former President Trump. On or before 3:00 p.m. Eastern time on August 12, 2022, the United States shall file a certificate of conferral advising whether former President Trump opposes the Government's motion to unseal."


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/12/2022 04:32 AM

Transparent my ass. They'll be about as transparent as hillary. About the only thing they're fit for is murdering innocent people.
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/12/2022 04:56 AM

I agree. I doubt we'll ever see the probable cause affidavit. (But I've certainly been wrong before.)

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/12/2022 05:38 AM

Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/12/2022 04:57 PM

After the raid, a Convention of States now seems more likely. For Democrats, this raid has backfired spectacularly.

Quote
According to a new poll from Convention of States Action (COSA) and the Trafalgar Group, Americans are ready to put the out-of-control federal government back in its place. President Biden’s dismal approval rating should provide a not-so-subtle hint that Democrats need to back off the far-left agenda that started with a pile of executive orders on January 21, 2021.

Instead, there are reports that Biden is preparing to declare a national emergency on climate change. If he proceeds, the regulatory state will invade every aspect of your life, from what fuel sources power the grid to the length and water temperature of your morning shower. The relentless intrusion of the federal government may be one reason that almost 67% of likely 2022 voters support an Article V Convention to propose constitutional amendments that address four specific issues:

Term limits for Congress
Term limits for unelected federal officials
Federal spending restraints
Constraining the federal government to its constitutionally mandated authority

Among Republicans, opposing a Convention of States is now a fringe minority position. Only 6.7% of GOP voters indicated they do not support one. Mark Meckler, President of Convention of States Action, says that 81.3% of Republicans supporting a Convention of States is not surprising. Leading Conservatives, such as Mark Levin and Glenn Beck, have endorsed the idea for some time. Additionally, opponents of a COS include George Soros, Planned Parenthood, LaRaza, MoveOn.org, and Hillary Clinton. “There’s never been a single day in my life on a single issue, never, ever, ever, where I woke up and found myself on the side of those baby-killing, America-hating, Communist, Marxist organizations,” Meckler asserted.

Support for the measure to address those four issues is bipartisan. A majority (63.3%) of unaffiliated voters support a COS, and so do 50.3% of self-identified Democrats. Meckler sees these results in the context of what he calls the Great Decoupling. In Meckler’s opinion, the most pressing issue driving Americans’ desire to reign in the federal government is divergent values. “The split on this issue is between what I would call normal or regular people versus our ruling elites,” Meckler said....


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: Huskerpatriot

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/12/2022 05:19 PM

I have long been an advocate of this particular Convention of States (CoS) movement. I view this as the “break in case of emergency” mechanism that the founders built into the constitution for JUST such an occasion as we find ourselves in currently. The current CoS that Meckler is backing is for a specific slate of topics. This is not the Constitutional Convention (CC) that many on the right (John Birch Society among many) have rightly warned us to be wary of. There are MANY safeguards built into the process that would avoid any “runaway convention” that would take away our rights rather that preserve them.

To sit back and let the libs continue to undermine our rights, liberty, republic, economy and future is suicidal. The founding fathers built this in as the last stop before tyranny and/or civil war. I’d hate to let either of these two happen before having used all the tools at our disposal to fix the problem.

For patriots still on the fence on the issue please do some research and decoy for yourself. Push your state government (legislators and governors) to sign on if your state has not yet done so.
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/12/2022 09:38 PM

Husker, I was thinking of you when I posted that article. Personally, I'm still on the fence. A long time ago, there was a convention to fix certain problems with the Articles of Convention, mostly having to do with interstate trade. Instead, we got the Constitution, and we see how well that worked out. I don't think there's any way to reliably limit such a Convention to a few topics, and there is a real danger of the next Convention going the same way the last one did. So, put me in the "undecided" category.

As i figured, the documents released by the DOJ did not include the probably cause affidavit for the search warrant. I think it'll be a cold day in Hell, or at least 2025, before we see it.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/12/2022 10:48 PM

This is going around Facebook.

[Linked Image]

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/13/2022 03:04 PM

[b]Donald Trump: All Documents Seized by FBI Were ‘Declassified’ and ‘All They Had to Do Was Ask’


President Donald Trump on Friday claimed that all the documents seized by FBI agents during the raid on his house Monday were declassified.

“Number one, it was all declassified,” Trump wrote in a statement released to reporters. “Number two, they didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything.”

The former president said the documents were secure and the FBI could have asked for any documents that they wanted but accused them of choosing a more political route.

“They could have had it anytime they wanted and that includes LONG ago,” he wrote. “ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS ASK.”

As Breitbart News reported, the FBI list of seized documents provided to the Trump team included “Various Classified/TS/SCI documents,” and “Info re: President of France, and an “Executive Grant of Clemency re: Roger Jason Stone, Jr.”

Other items were described as a “potential presidential record,” a “binder of photos,” a “leather-bound box of documents” a “handwritten note” and “Miscellaneous Secret Documents”

The question of whether Trump declassified the classified documents in his possession is increasingly relevant as the Department of Justice has to determine whether or not they have the power to prosecute the president.

The president of the United States has the power to declassify documents while they are in office, but not retroactively.

In May, former Trump administration official Kash Patel told Breitbart News that the president had already declassified materials at Mar-a-Lago.

“I was there with President Trump when he said ‘We are declassifying this information,'” he said
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/15/2022 09:29 PM

Why would they do this? Do they consider him a flight risk? Look at the property receipt:

documents
boxes
executive grant of clemency for Roger Stone
info re: the president of France
leatherbound box of documents
various classified/TS/SCI documents
potential presidential record
binders of photos
handwritten note
miscellaneous secret documents
miscellaneous top secret documents
miscellaneous confidential documents

Do you see "passports" on there? I sure don't.

[Linked Image]

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: Huskerpatriot

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/15/2022 09:45 PM

I hope this boomerangs on them with the effect of a thermonuclear weapon!

If they end up “taking him down” it will only make him into a martyr for a charismatic Republican yo capitalize on! So really they (Demonrats) are screwed either way. If they fail to take him down, they will have only further proven that the swamp is out to destroy him one way or another… if they take him out the Republican on deck will be even stronger as the establishment has shown their tyrannical nature.

Bring it on moonbats!
Posted By: Texas Resistance

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/15/2022 11:04 PM

Deep state plan revealed: Frame a civil war to justify UN troops to OCCUPY and DISARM America
Monday, August 15, 2022
https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-08...o-justify-un-troops-occupy-america.html#

Thanks to sources that have stepped forward with inside information, we now know some details about a plan we’re told is being pursued by the Biden regime to achieve the complete overthrow and destruction of the United States of America. As you review this, remember that compromised American officials are working with communist China and the globalists to achieve the downfall of America.

The recent FBI / DOJ raid on Mar-a-Lago is a key element of this plan. The raid was reportedly designed to provoke an armed uprising among Trump supporters, or at least encourage nationwide protests that could be exploited by the FBI to run undercover agents dressed up as MAGA supporters.

During these uprisings, we’re told, the FBI plans to attack government buildings with some sort of large-scale destruction. Think Oklahoma City (the FBI bombed the FBI headquarters in order to blame conservatives) or 9/11. Now add to that list the possibility of dirty bombs being unleashed in America by deep state operatives as a mechanism to declare martial law and feign vulnerability on the part of the government.

Media is rolling out a dirty bomb narrative

The narrative is already being set in place for a dirty bomb attack. For example, DefenseNews.com recently reported on how the GAO was able to forge a few documents and purchase radioactive materials to be shipped to the United States:

Late last year, government employees forged a copy of a license to buy hazardous, radioactive material. They created shell companies, then placed orders, generated invoices and paid two U.S.-based vendors.

The scheme worked. The employees successfully had the material shipped, complete with radioactive stickers on the side, then confirmed delivery.

“Anyone could open a shell company with a fraudulent license to obtain dangerous amounts of radioactive material that could be weaponized into a dirty bomb,” Torres told Defense News in an interview on Wednesday. “Disperse radioactive material in a city as densely populated as New York, and it could cause catastrophic damage.”

Since most people don’t understand radiation — and it’s invisible — the public can be easily terrorized by the media working in conjunction with the deep state to carry out a dirty bomb attack that might not even be very dangerous from a purely medical / radiological point of view. But hyped up by the media, the average American will believe the world is ending. (It’s the covid panic template all over again…)

Calling in UN troops

To complete this reported scenario, the Biden regime plans to pretend to be weak, bombing its own offices and killing its own agents, in order to issue an international plea for United Nations assistance. “Peacekeeping,” in other words.

These so-called “peacekeepers” are, of course, human traffickers, child sodomizers and rapists, and they will ply their dark trade in US cities just like they do everywhere else in the world. But the real threat is when the UN invites China to occupy the United States under the cover of peacekeeping (or food rescue missions since so many Americans will be starving due to engineered food scarcity), with PLA troops wearing blue helmets and going door to door, attempting to disarm the American people in the name of “security.”

In effect, communist China would be simultaneously disarming America while occupying US territory. Once a critical mass of PLA troops are in place across America, the order is given to mass execute all living Americans so that China can claim North America for itself, instantly reaping the benefit of trillions of dollars worth of farmland, minerals, energy, waterways, ports, industry and more.

The UN peacekeeping mission, in other words, is a grand Trojan Horse to invite the enemy right into America where they can occupy the entire country without having to fight an actual war.

At least that’s the plan currently in play. Whether they can successfully pull it off is another story.

Seeming to confirm this plan is the fact that communist China is in the process of loading up a flotilla of merchant ships with military equipment and personnel, ready to invade the continental United States with a massive military presence. Under this scenario, there would be no resistance to China’s military, as they would be deemed “peacekeepers,” so the entire US Navy would stand down and allow China’s military to roll right up to the West Coast and unload their military equipment on US soil.

The deep state needs a really large false flag attack to scare the public into compliance

In order to achieve all this, the Biden regime needs something incredibly disastrous to take place that would scare the majority of Americans into agreeing with the foreign occupation of America. They would need to paint the American people as the enemy, fabricating all sorts of scary news and scapegoating their political enemies to take the blame for whatever nefarious attack they unleash.

The most likely choice for the regime to achieve these difficult goals is to choose a dirty bomb attack on a major US city, preferably a city in a red state such as Texas or Florida. This way, heavily armed federal agents can descend upon the conservative state and attempt to seize control under federal “emergency” declarations. They can also economically punish a red state and cause local chaos for the GOP governor. This is why a red state is the most likely target for the dirty bomb false flag.

Once a dirty bomb is unleashed — likely in the state’s capitol area — the entire area will be restricted from human access, citing radiation exposure (no matter how tiny it may be). This will throw banking, regulators, legislators and courts into chaos.

The complicit media will of course follow the script and blame the attack on whatever patsy they drum up with sufficient links to conservative media, the NRA and all the usual suspects. The blame will ultimately be placed on a pro-Trump, flag-waving J6 attendee who believes in God, owns a lot of homemade guns and posted some extreme-sounding frustrations on social media. It will of course be a white Christian male, and all white people will be immediately labeled terrorists by the treasonous media.

The calls for nationwide gun confiscation won’t be far behind.

For the record, we are calling for Americans to resist being played by the deep state in this emotional con game. Do not allow yourself to be whipped up into an emotional wave, and do not resort to violence. This is what the deep state wants. The American people need to stay cool and avoid handing the deep state the uprising they desperately want to create.
Will this nefarious plot succeed? Or will white hats stop it?

Rep. Jim Jordan says 14 FBI agents have turned whistleblower and stepped forward to expose the tyranny and corruption of the agency. That’s just a taste of things to come as an increasing number of those who work within the bureaucracy wake up and realize how evil and destructive the federal government has become under the lawless tyranny of the Biden regime.

So-called “white hats” exist inside every federal agency, including the Pentagon. It is currently rumored that the pro-America military leaders at the US military command facilities in Cheyenne Mountain are at war with the corrupt, treasonous Pentagon leaders in Virginia. There’s even talk that the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid was also about trying to seize nuclear launch codes so that the deep state could initiate a nuclear war with China or Russia. We can’t confirm these two points, but they are part of the current chatter behind the scenes.

Many people believe the white hats will emerge victorious as the American people rapidly come to their senses and reject the outright tyranny of the democrat fascists. But the faster the American people wake up and try to vote their way out of this tyranny, the more desperate the regime becomes, willing to unleash almost any level of disaster against America in order to scare the masses into obedience.

Learn more in today’s Situation Update podcast, which also features clips from The Wizard of Oz and Die Hard. Hans Gruber pretending to be Bill Clay is like the FBI pretending to be afraid of the American public, you see. Hear the podcast for yourself to get full details:

Brighteon.com/8d17e2b5-b6db-4b82-b428-12a49c5189e9
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/16/2022 05:54 PM

Here is the government's arguments against unsealing the probably cause affidavit:

Quote
On August 8, 2022, the Department of Justice executed a search warrant at the premises located at 1100 S. Ocean Blvd., Palm Beach, Florida 33480, a property of former President Donald J. Trump. Given the circumstances presented in this matter and the public interest in transparency, and in the wake of the former President's public confirmation of the search and his representatives' public characterizations of the materials sought, the government moved to unseal the search warrant, its attachments, and the Property Receipt summarizing materials seized, which motion this Court granted. Those docketed items, which had already been provided to the former President's counsel upon execution of the warrant, have now appropriately been made public.

The affidavit supporting the search warrant presents a very different set of considerations. There remain compelling reasons, including to protect the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation that implicates national security, that support keeping the affidavit sealed. {The government has carefully considered whether the affidavit can be released subject to redactions. For the reasons discussed below, the redactions necessary to mitigate harms to the integrity of the investigation would be so extensive as to render the remaining unsealed text devoid of meaningful content, and the release of such a redacted version would not serve any public interest. Nevertheless, should the Court order partial unsealing of the affidavit, the government respectfully requests an opportunity to provide the Court with proposed redactions.} …

"In the Eleventh Circuit, potential prejudice to an ongoing criminal investigation represents a compelling government interest that justifies the closure of judicial records." In Valenti, for example, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the district court properly denied a newspaper's motion to unseal transcripts from closed court proceedings "as a necessary means to achieving the government's compelling interest in the protection of a continuing law enforcement investigation." As Judge Jordan explained in the context of one "highly-publicized criminal case," there are compelling reasons not to release non-public information in an ongoing investigation that could "compromise the investigation and might . . . lead to the destruction of evidence." Even when the public is already aware of the general nature of the investigation, revealing the specific contents of a search warrant affidavit could alter the investigation's trajectory, reveal ongoing and future investigative efforts, and undermine agents' ability to collect evidence or obtain truthful testimony. In addition to the implications for the investigation, the release of this type of investigative material could have "devastating consequences" for the reputations and rights of individuals whose actions and statements are described. For these reasons, courts in this jurisdiction have consistently denied motions to unseal investigative records—including search warrant affidavits—in ongoing criminal investigations….

Here, the government has a compelling, overriding interest in preserving the integrity of an ongoing criminal investigation…. From [earlier] disclosures, the public is now aware of, among other things, the potential criminal statutes at issue in this investigation, see D.E. 17:4 (Attachment B to the search warrant) (permitting the government to seize materials "constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793, 2071, or 1519"), and the general nature of the items seized, including documents marked as classified, see D.E. 17:5-7 (Property Receipt). The government determined that these materials could be released without significant harm to its investigation because the search had already been executed and publicly acknowledged by the former President, and because the materials had previously been provided to the former President through counsel.

Disclosure at this juncture of the affidavit supporting probable cause would, by contrast, cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation. As the Court is aware from its review of the affidavit, it contains, among other critically important and detailed investigative facts: highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government; specific investigative techniques; and information required by law to be kept under seal pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e). If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government's ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps. In addition, information about witnesses is particularly sensitive given the high-profile nature of this matter and the risk that the revelation of witness identities would impact their willingness to cooperate with the investigation. {This is not merely a hypothetical concern, given the widely reported threats made against law enforcement personnel in the wake of the August 8 search.} Disclosure of the government's affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations. The fact that this investigation implicates highly classified materials further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation and exacerbates the potential for harm if information is disclosed to the public prematurely or improperly.

{Given that the Court is considering motions to unseal this affidavit merely days after reviewing these materials and approving the warrant application, the government is mindful that this Court is familiar with the highly sensitive contents of the affidavit and the specific harms that would result from its unsealing. However, if the Court would like the government to file a sealed ex parte supplement that addresses with more specificity the contents of the affidavit and the harms identified in this response, the government stands ready to do so.} …

Further, and in view of what the government has already moved to make public, there is no "less onerous alternative to sealing" the affidavit. Unlike the Property Receipt—which the government moved to unseal subject to minor redactions, including to protect the identity of law enforcement officials—the affidavit cannot responsibly be unsealed in a redacted form absent redactions that would be so extensive as to render the document devoid of content that would meaningfully enhance the public's understanding of these events beyond the information already now in the public record. There is simply no alternative to sealing that could ensure the integrity of the government's investigation and that would prevent the inevitable efforts to read between the lines and discern the identities of certain individuals, dates, or other critical, case-specific information.

The case law cited by the intervenors is readily distinguishable. Many of those cases involved unsealing requests made well after charges were filed. See, e.g., United States v. Peterson, 627 F. Supp. 2d 1359, 1374 (M.D. Ga. 2008) ("Defendant is already under indictment"); United States v. Shenberg, 791 F. Supp. 292, 293 & n.1 (S.D. Fla. 1991) (defendants were already under indictment, and charges were "well known and have been extensively reported by the media"); United States v. Vives, No. 02-20030 CR, 2006 WL 3792096 (S.D. Fla. Dec. 21, 2006). In other cited cases that involved requests to unseal warrants in the investigation phase—in other words, before any charges—the court ultimately concluded that the government's compelling interest in protecting the integrity of its investigation outweighed any public right of access. E.g., In re Search Warrant for Secretarial Area Outside Off. of Gunn, 855 F.2d 569, 574 (8th Cir. 1988) (rejecting disclosure request); Bennett, 2013 WL 3821625 (same); Patel, 2019 WL 4251269, at *4 ("The Court finds that unsealing the underlying [search warrant] affidavit and related documents would severely prejudice the Government's ongoing investigation"); In re Search of Wellcare Health Plans, Inc., No. 8:07-MJ-1466-TGW, 2007 WL 4240740, at *2 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 28, 2007) ("The protection of this continuing law enforcement investigation is a compelling governmental interest that outweighs the public's interest in immediate access to" the warrant affidavit). And in In re Four Search Warrants, 945 F. Supp. 1563 (N.D. Ga. 1996), involving the 1996 Atlanta Olympic bombing investigation, "the criminal investigation into [the search subject's] participation in the bombing ha[d] ended" and he was "no longer considered a suspect" by the time the media sought the search warrant materials. Unsurprisingly, none of these cases concerned circumstances remotely similar to these—where there is an active investigation and a search was executed just days ago. Thus, while the intervenors quote these opinions for general principles about the right of access, the actual application of those principles in those cases favors the government's position here.


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: Texas Resistance

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/16/2022 11:24 PM

Screw the corrupt federal government's B. S. arguments. Their affidavit is bogus otherwise they would unseal it. Trump is totally innocent while the Chi-Coms own that senile crooked traitor Biden. They are just grasping at any straw they can to keep Trump from winning the 2024 Presidential Election that was stolen by massive vote fraud in 2020.
Posted By: Texas Resistance

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/17/2022 08:49 PM

The Feds are lying again and are likely to stage another false flag event to vilify patriots and to ensure that the traitorous Democrats stay in power to sell us out.

..."Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation have begun to paint conservatives that have taken issue with the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago as "domestic violent extremists," warning of future violence from the group"....
see: https://thepostmillennial.com/break...lent-extremists-after-raid-on-mar-a-lago

"DHS Whistleblower Leaks New Joint Intelligence Bulletin on ‘Domestic Violent Extremists’ Sent in Response To Mar-A-Lago Raid Outcry"
see: https://www.infowars.com/posts/dhs-...nt-in-response-to-mar-a-lago-raid-outcry
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/17/2022 08:55 PM

Well, I feel a little left out. The Libertarian Party has been taking issue with the FBI for fifty years. And they're only calling us "domestic violent extremists" now?

Damn fools.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/18/2022 05:16 PM

The hearing on releasing the probable cause affidavit has just begun. A decision is expected sometime this afternoon. Since the matter is before the same magistrate who issued the warrant, I don't expect a favorable ruling today. In the meantime, her eis the reply to the government's argument.

Quote
The government and the Media Intervenors agree that the public has a "clear and powerful interest" in understanding the unprecedented investigation into former President Donald J. Trump's handling of classified records. They also agree that the common-law right of access applies to the search warrant materials currently under seal. They further agree that the law required release of the search warrant and property receipt, which the Court has now done, and that the cover sheets for the search warrant application, the government's motion to seal, and the Court's sealing order should be unsealed immediately as well, all with only minor redactions. And they agree that the government may be able to make a sufficient showing of a compelling interest authorizing it to maintain under seal some details of the investigation while it remains ongoing.

The government, however, has taken the position that the affidavit of probable cause must remain under seal in its entirety, despite the presumption of access, with little explanation as to how release would harm the ongoing investigation, and even though many details of the investigation are already public. In the government's view, the necessary redactions "would be so extensive as to render the document devoid of content that would meaningfully enhance the public's understanding of these events." This runs counter to the presumption of public access, which requires the disclosure of as much information as possible. The affidavit of probable cause should be released to the public, with only those redactions that are necessary to protect a compelling interest articulated by the government.

THE PUBLIC'S "CLEAR AND POWERFUL INTEREST" IN THE SEARCH WARRANT RECORDS EXTENDS TO THE AFFIDAVIT OF PROBABLE CAUSE.

As Attorney General Merrick Garland aptly wrote when he was Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit:

Quote
The common-law right of public access to judicial records is a fundamental element of the rule of law, important to maintaining the integrity and legitimacy of an independent Judicial Branch. At bottom, it reflects the antipathy of a democratic country to the notion of 'secret law,' inaccessible to those who are governed by that law."


Leopold v. United States (D.C. Cir. 2020) (citation omitted); see also MetLife, Inc. v. Fin. Stability Oversight Council (D.C. Cir. 2017) (Garland, J.) (right of access "serves to produce an informed and enlightened public opinion," to "safeguard against any attempt to employ our courts as instruments of persecution, to promote the search for truth, and to assure confidence in judicial remedies" (internal marks omitted)).

Separately, as the government notes, there is a First Amendment right of access to certain criminal proceedings. While the Eleventh Circuit has not considered whether the First Amendment right of access attaches to search warrant materials, the Eighth Circuit has recognized a First Amendment right, as has at least one court within this District. Although some courts have reached different conclusions, the Eighth Circuit's view is more consistent with Supreme Court precedent.

Consistent with the presumption of access, the Department of Justice, under the Attorney General's leadership, has joined the Media Intervenors in recognizing that the public has a "clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred in" the search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence, which "weighs heavily in favor of unsealing." In recognition of that public interest, this Court acted promptly and diligently to ensure public access to redacted versions of the search warrant and property receipt.

That same public interest extends to the affidavit of probable cause in this matter, which outlines the government's basis for the extraordinary step of seeking the warrant to search a former President's home. See In re Four Search Warrants (N.D. Ga. 1996) (recognizing "the public's right to understand the legal process, the preservation of the integrity of the fact-finding process, and the furtherance of the appearance of fairness" as interests favoring unsealing of search warrants). The unsealed search warrant and property receipt revealed that Trump is under investigation for potentially violating the Espionage Act, mishandling top secret documents, and obstruction of justice. In these circumstances, it is not merely a recitation of hornbook law to say that the public has a right to learn as much as possible, and as soon as possible, about this "historically significant event," including the details of the investigation. Newman v. Graddick (11th Cir. 1983); see also Globe Newspaper Co. v. Super. Ct. (1982) (right of access "ensure[s] that th[e] constitutionally protected discussion of governmental affairs is an informed one" (internal marks omitted)). Notably, the former President has made no objection to the release of any warrant materials, and in fact has … call[ed] for "the immediate release of the completely Unredacted Affidavit" on social media.

The government has told the Court, in arguing to keep the affidavit under seal, that if it were to release the document, certain unspecified redactions would be "necessary to mitigate harms to the integrity of the investigation." While the government characterizes those necessary redactions as "extensive" in making this argument, it admits that some portions of the document, if released, would not harm the investigation. Yet the government thus far appears to have made no effort to identify the particular portions of the affidavit that it believes pose a risk and explain the basis for that belief, instead asserting that the Court is already "familiar with the highly sensitive contents of the affidavit and the specific harms that would result from its unsealing." To overcome the presumption of access, this Court must make findings of fact on the record supporting closure. See, e.g., Press-Enterprise Co. ("The interest is to be articulated along with findings specific enough that a reviewing court can determine whether the closure order was properly entered."). The government has offered the Court little assistance in this regard, given the high level of abstraction in its response.

Any proposed redactions must be narrow, the government must explain to the Court why each redaction is necessary "to mitigate harms to the integrity of the investigation," and only those redactions determined to meet a compelling need articulated by the government after the Court conducts an in camera review can be justified. The Media Intervenors request the opportunity to be further heard by the Court should they wish to challenge any redactions in the affidavit as publicly filed.

[I.] THERE IS NO COMPELLING INTEREST IN CONTINUED SEALING OF INFORMATION ALREADY PUBLICLY DISCLOSED.

As the government also recognized in its Motion to Unseal Limited Warrant Materials, the interest in maintaining secrecy is greatly diminished once the information contained in a judicial record has already been disclosed to the public through other sources. The government rightfully noted that the law required unsealing the warrant and property receipt because "the occurrence of the search and indications of the subject matter involved [were] already public."

Indeed, the press has already widely reported significant details about the events leading up to the search and the investigation, including that:

Quote
Some of the materials sought in the Mar-a-Lago search related to nuclear weapons and/or "special access programs";

The National Archives referred the matter to the Justice Department after it retrieved 15 boxes of materials from Mar-a-Lago in January7;

Some of the materials recovered by the National Archives were classified, including signals intelligence;

Some of the recovered materials were torn up and needed to be taped back together;

The Department of Justice launched an investigation and convened a grand jury;

This spring, the Department of Justice served a subpoena on Trump seeking additional classified materials in his possession;

Department of Justice officials, including Jay Bratt, the department's chief of counterintelligence and export control, met at Mar-a-Lago in June with Trump attorneys Christina Bobb and Evan Corcoran;

During the June meeting, Trump briefly stopped by but did not answer any questions;

Also during the June visit, the group toured storage facilities at Mar-a-Lago and reviewed some materials there;

Bratt subsequently sent an email to Corcoran instructing him to further secure the area where the documents were kept;

One of Trump's attorneys signed a letter to the Department of Justice stating that all materials marked as classified and held in storage at Mar-a-Lago had been turned over;

The Department of Justice also subpoenaed surveillance footage from Mar-a- Lago, which showed that boxes were moved in and out the storage room where the records at issue were kept; and
Justice Department officials interviewed many current and former Trump employees, at least one of whom indicated there may have been additional classified materials remaining at Mar-a-Lago.


To the extent that the affidavit of probable cause contains any of this information, or other details about the investigation already reported in the press, there is no compelling interest in maintaining it under seal. Instead, those portions of the affidavit should be made public even if the Court finds a compelling interest to maintain other discrete portions under seal. See In re Four Search Warrants (releasing redacted search warrant affidavits where "much of the information" they contained had "already been made widely available to the public" through news reports).

The government's position that any redactions would "render the document devoid of content that would meaningfully enhance the public's understanding of these events beyond the information already now in the public record," turns the presumption of public access to judicial records on its head. The public is entitled to review judicial records unless there is a compelling interest to deny access, not if there is a sufficient reason to grant access to a redacted record, as the government has suggested. And it is the public itself, not the government, that should have the opportunity to determine whether the information available enhances its understanding of this historic event.


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/18/2022 06:23 PM

It looks like at least some of the affidavit will be released, subject to redactions from the DOJ. No telling when we'll actually see it, but it probably won't be today.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/19/2022 05:23 PM

From yesterday's order:

Quote
THIS CAUSE is before the Court on motions to unseal the search warrant materials, including the probable cause affidavit, that were filed by the Media-Intervenors. ECF Nos. 4, 6, 9, 20, 22, 23, 30-33. Today I held a hearing on the motions. As I ruled from the bench at the conclusion of the hearing, I find that on the present record the Government has not met its burden of showing that the entire affidavit should remain sealed.

It is ORDERED that by noon EST on Thursday, August 25, 2022, the Government shall file under seal its proposed redactions along with a legal memorandum setting forth the justification for the proposed redactions. It is FURTHER ORDERED that ECF No. 57 shall be unsealed by the Clerk of Court.


ECF No. 57, for what it's worth, isn't too terribly exciting, just in case you were wondering.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/22/2022 01:11 AM

Biden was stunned by the 'graciousness' of Trump's Oval Office letter and FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid began as investigation into disappearance of Kim Jong-un's note to ex-president

The final days of the Trump administration were reportedly chaotic and led to blunders in document handling that resulted in the Mar-a-Lago raid
Despite the chaos and unfounded claims that the election was stolen, Trump still left behind a traditional presidential letter for Joe Biden
Biden read over Trump's handwritten letter, commenting to an aide that he was surprised by the graciousness of it, although its contents haven't been revealed
Officials said they were aware that Trump retaining the documents in his Florida residence was a problem, but little appeared to be done about it
Among the key items officials wanted to retrieve were letters to Trump from Kim Jong-un and the letter Barack Obama left behind for his successor

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...GRACIOUS-letter-leaving-White-House.html
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/22/2022 01:20 AM

If that's all there was, somebody has some explaining to do.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/22/2022 07:22 PM

The Trump warrant had no legal basis. (Link is behind a firewall, unless you have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal.)

Quote
...The warrant authorized the FBI to seize “all physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§793, 2071, or 1519” (emphasis added). These three criminal statutes all address the possession and handling of materials that contain national-security information, public records or material relevant to an investigation or other matters properly before a federal agency or the courts.

The materials to be seized included “any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021”—i.e., during Mr. Trump’s term of office. Virtually all the materials at Mar-a-Lago are likely to fall within this category. Federal law gives Mr. Trump a right of access to them. His possession of them is entirely consistent with that right, and therefore lawful, regardless of the statutes the FBI cites in its warrant.

Those statutes are general in their text and application. But Mr. Trump’s documents are covered by a specific statute, the Presidential Records Act of 1978. It has long been the Supreme Court position, as stated in Morton v. Mancari (1974), that “where there is no clear intention otherwise, a specific statute will not be controlled or nullified by a general one, regardless of the priority of enactment.” The former president’s rights under the PRA trump any application of the laws the FBI warrant cites. . . .

Nothing in the PRA suggests that the former president’s physical custody of his records can be considered unlawful under the statutes on which the Mar-a-Lago warrant is based. Yet the statute’s text makes clear that Congress considered how certain criminal-law provisions would interact with the PRA: It provides that the archivist is not to make materials available to the former president’s designated representative “if that individual has been convicted of a crime relating to the review, retention, removal, or destruction of records of the Archives.”

Nothing is said about the former president himself, but applying these general criminal statutes to him based on his mere possession of records would vitiate the entire carefully balanced PRA statutory scheme. Thus if the Justice Department’s sole complaint is that Mr. Trump had in his possession presidential records he took with him from the White House, he should be in the clear, even if some of those records are classified.

In making a former president’s records available to him, the PRA doesn’t distinguish between materials that are and aren’t classified. That was a deliberate choice by Congress....


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: Texas Resistance

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/22/2022 09:22 PM

That's what I thought. It was just a politically motivated witch hunt.

Last week Alex Jones in his broadcast disrespected Trump real bad trying to get a response from Trump as to why Trump has not come out and said that the blood clot forming, heart disease causing, immune system destroying, experimental mRNA injections they falsely called a Covid "vaccine" that never provided any immunity at all to Covid was a big mistake. Now they want children down to 6 months of age to get the clot shots too when it gives them heart disease.

Ron DeSantis (Governor of Florida) is totally against the clot shots and Republicans can start backing DeSantis for president if Trump doesn't man up about the Covid Clot Shot Scam. I always wondered about Trump since he used to donate to Crooked Hilary Clinton and other Democrats. Maybe they got video of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficked hookers to blackmail him with.
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/22/2022 09:29 PM

Originally Posted by Texas Resistance
...I always wondered about Trump since he used to donate to Crooked Hilary Clinton and other Democrats....


You're not the only one, and for a lot more reasons than that. I've always wondered why people who like the Second Amendment are so fond of Trump.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/26/2022 08:00 PM

Can magistrate judges issue a search warrant? No, says Columbia law professor Philip Hamburger at The Federalist. Too long to post here, but well worth a read.

quite]The Mar-a-Lago search warrant is interesting not only because of the high office of the individual whose papers were seized but also because of the low office of the person who signed it. The warrant illustrates the long-standing constitutional anomaly of letting magistrate judges sign search warrants.

Leave aside how you feel about the former president. Leave aside what you think of January 6, 2021. Leave aside whether there was a good reason to issue the warrant. A more basic question is whether the Hon. Bruce Reinhart could constitutionally issue it.
Under the Constitution, a Search Warrant Must Be Signed by a Judge

The problem is that Reinhart is a so-called magistrate judge. Many commentators have focused on his personal history and political leanings, but much more significant is that he is not really a judge.

To be precise, he is not a judge of a court of the United States. The judicial power of the United States is vested in its courts. In the exercise of this power, judges of those courts can issue search warrants. But a magistrate judge is just an assistant to a court and its judges. Not being a judge of one of the courts of the United States, he cannot constitutionally exercise the judicial power of the United States.
That means he cannot issue a search warrant....[/quote]

Read the whole thing at the link.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: Texas Resistance

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/26/2022 08:33 PM

FBI Raid Boosts Trump’s Chances of Winning Republican Nomination
August 26th 2022
https://www.infowars.com/posts/fbi-raid-boosts-trumps-chances-of-winning-republican-nomination

The FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate has significantly boosted his chances of winning the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, a new poll shows.

Earlier this month, Federal agents searched Trump’s Florida home ostensibly to recover classified documents, although the incident was widely seen as politically motivated effort to prevent Trump from running for office again.

Despite denying prior knowledge of the raid, earlier this week it was revealed that the Biden administration worked directly with the Department of Justice and National Archives to facilitate it.

However, far from harming Trump’s presidential re-election aspirations, the raid appears to have helped his chances significantly.

A new Yahoo/YouGov poll asked Republicans if they would rather see Trump or “someone else” win the GOP presidential nomination.

54% of Republicans and Republican-leaning moderates prefer Trump, while 34% want another candidate and 12% remain undecided.

Those numbers represent a substantial improvement on voter sentiment before the raid, when that 54-34 margin stood at just 47-38.

Trump’s lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis now stands at 49-31, whereas it was only 44-34 before the FBI raid.

Following the search of his property, most experts opined that it would only help Trump’s presidential hopes.

“Unless Donald Trump is convicted of one or more felonies before November 2024, he is now, on paper, a much stronger contender than he was before the Mar-a-Lago raid,” said former hedge fund manager and political commentator Charles Ortel.

Another poll conducted by the Trafalgar Group found that the raid had also significantly increased Republicans’ appetite to vote in this year’s mid-term elections.
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/28/2022 12:44 PM

Ex-FBI Boss Shreds Trump Search Warrant: Feds ‘Going to Regret This’
"There was no need for law enforcement involvement in this. And there was certainly no need for an invasive search for the residence," says former Assistant Director Kevin Brock.

By Jamie White | INFOWARS.COM Saturday, August 27, 2022

The FBI’s former intelligence director says the bureau appears to have failed to meet the probable cause threshold needed to lawfully search former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

Retired Assistant Director Kevin Brock, a 30-year veteran agent who rose in the ranks to become the bureau’s first intelligence chief under Director Robert Mueller, said the FBI should never have initiated a criminal investigation into Trump’s records dispute with the National Archives and Registration Agency.

“I think they’re going to regret this,” Brock told the “Just the News, Not Noise” show on Friday after reviewing the FBI’s heavily redacted affidavit used to persuade a judge to sign off on the Aug. 8 raid of Mar-a-Lago.

“I will caveat all of this by saying we can only see what we can see,” Brock continued, “but the first thing that jumped out to me is that the probable cause statement focuses on the nature of the documents, and where they are. But it doesn’t, at least in the unredacted portion, address the main element of the criminal federal statutes that they cite.”

“The FBI should not have participated in this investigation,” Brock asserted. “It is something that needs to be settled along established routes in that regard that we traditionally used. There was no need for law enforcement involvement in this. And there was certainly no need for an invasive search for the residence. I think they’re going to regret this.”

Brock also pointed out how the affidavit acknowledges that Trump has the power to declassify, and it did not characterize the documents in dispute as classified.

“From what I can see, that’s not established in the probable cause,” Brock said. “And there’s an allusion to the argument from the Trump advocates that the former president has was within his authority to declassify and to establish what a presidential record is.”

When asked if he would have authorized a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago, Brock replied: “No, frankly not.”

“And it’s puzzling to a lot of folks who have been involved in search warrants for much more serious disputes, in white collar crimes where these things are settled in attorneys’ offices, and you don’t have to go in with an invasive search, contrary to the attorney general’s statement during his press conference that they’ve exhausted all other means,” Brock added.

The FBI’s affidavit was so heavily redacted that even the explanation for the redactions was heavily redacted, which has not assuaged critics’ concerns that the raid was politically motivated.

This comes after government memos revealed that despite repeated denials, Joe Biden’s White House was closely involved with the Justice Department in laying the groundwork for the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago.
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/29/2022 09:58 PM

FBI agent who opened Trump investigation escorted out of Bureau headquarters. This story is just developing.

Quote
Former Washington Field Office Special Agent in Charge Tim Thibault was reportedly escorted out of the Bureau's headquarters on Friday, amid whistleblower allegations that he showed political bias in his handling of politically sensitive investigations.

The Washington Times reported eyewitness accounts that "Mr. Thibault was seen exiting the bureau’s elevator last Friday escorted by two or three 'headquarters-looking types.'"

Whistleblowers alleged that Thibault concealed the partisan nature of evidence from FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland to secure their approval to open an investigation into former President Donald Trump. That investigation culminated in the FBI's raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month.

The public release of the affidavit that accompanied the search warrant revealed the warrant application relied heavily on information from news articles, including a CBS Miami piece titled "Moving Trucks Spotted At Mar-a-Lago" and a Breitbart News article in which former Trump adviser Kash Patel discussed the classified status of documents the bureau previously removed from the estate on behalf of the National Archives.

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley confirmed to Just the News prior to the raid that Thibault had been removed from his post and reassigned to an unspecified position.


The Washington Times is reporting that Timothy Thibault has resigned.

Quote
A senior FBI official in the bureau’s Washington field office has abruptly resigned after coming under congressional scrutiny for suspected political bias in handling the investigation of Hunter Biden’s computer laptop.

The Washington Times learned that Timothy Thibault, an assistant special agent in charge, was forced to leave his post according to two former FBI officials familiar with the situation.

Mr. Thibault was seen exiting the bureau’s elevator last Friday escorted by two or three “headquarters-looking types,” according to eyewitness accounts provided to one of the former officials.


The first one thrown overboard so Christopher Wray and Merrick Garland can save their skins? Hmmm...

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/30/2022 01:06 AM

Thibault resigned over reports he shielded Hunter Biden from probe. And the hits just keep on coming.

Quote
A top FBI agent at the Washington field office reportedly resigned from his post last week after facing intense scrutiny over allegations he helped shield Hunter Biden from criminal investigations into his laptop and business dealings.

Timothy Thibault, an FBI assistant special agent in charge, was allegedly forced out after he was accused of political bias in his handling of probes involving President Biden’s son, sources told the Washington Times on Monday.

The agent was escorted out of the field office by at least two “headquarters-looking types” last Friday, the sources said.

Thibault and the FBI didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment on Monday.

Thibault, a 25-year-veteran, had already been on leave for a month after the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), started raising concerns about whistleblower claims the FBI had obstructed its own investigations into the first son....


Read the whole thing at the link.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/30/2022 01:25 AM

I hope they burn him a new one.
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/30/2022 01:38 AM

I want the higher up to pay a price. Wray and Garland should be on the chopping block.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 08/30/2022 01:48 AM

Sen. Lindsey Graham predicts ‘riots’ if Trump is prosecuted

via Washington Times

Senator sees double standard as DOJ gets heavy with former president.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina raised eyebrows by predicting “riots in the streets” if former President Donald Trump is prosecuted over sensitive documents found at his Florida estate.

Mr. Graham made the prediction in an interview with congressman-turned-TV-host Trey Gowdy, a Republican who presided over the House Select Committee on Benghazi and discovered former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server for formal business.

“If there is a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents after the Clinton debacle which you presided over, and did a hell of a good job, there will be riots in the streets,” Mr. Graham said on Mr. Gowdy’s “Sunday Night in America” show on Fox News.

Mr. Graham, a Republican, said he thinks the ex-president is treated with a double standard, pointing to how the FBI took a light touch with President Biden’s son, Hunter, during the 2020 campaign.

“Most Republicans, including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is no law. It’s all about getting him,” Mr. Graham said.
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/01/2022 01:36 AM

COVER UP: Attorney General Garland Threatens DOJ Employees Not To Talk to Congress In Wake of Whistleblower Disclosures
Numerous whistleblowers have been reaching out to Republican lawmakers alleging deep-rooted corruption within DOJ and FBI related to Hunter Biden laptop, Mar-a-Lago raid, and RussiaGate hoax.

By Jamie White | INFOWARS.COM Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Attorney General Garland has issued a memorandum throughout the Justice Department on Tuesday warning employees not to speak to members of Congress in the wake of whistleblowers reaching out to Republican lawmakers.

“Attorney Garland Merrick Garland just sent out a message to everyone at the Justice Department, ordering no one may contact Congress,” said former Chief Counsel for Nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and attorney Mike Davis. “(My source: Congress.) Why didn’t he order a similar gag on the inappropriate and illegal Justice Department leaks to the media? Coverup.”

Garland’s memo states employees may only communicate with members of Congress with the approval of the Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA).

“Except as provided in this chapter, no Department employee may communicate with Senators, Representatives, congressional committees, or congressional staff without advance coordination, consultation, and approval by OLA.”

Get back in the game, jump on our major sale at the store now!

Garland then insisted that his effort to keep employees away from members of Congress “is not intended to conflict with or limit whistleblower protections.”

If Garland is so concerned about adhering to DOJ regulations, why has he not issued a similar memorandum to employees illegally leaking to the legacy media related to the Mar-a-Lago raid?

This comes as at least 14 DOJ whistleblowers have come forward to Republican lawmakers like Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) alleging systemic FBI corruption ranging from the Hunter Biden laptop story, to the raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and the FBI’s Russia collusion operation.

Tim Thibault, an assistant special agent-in-charge at the FBI’s Washington Field Office, was forced to resign and was escorted from the building this week after whistleblowers alleged he helped bury the Hunter Biden laptop story prior to the 2020 election.

“The fact that [the raid occurred] one week after a whistleblower said this very office that conducted the raid has a political manipulation problem should concern us all. There should have been a pause. There should have been somebody answering questions,” said Just The News reporter John Solomon.

“Director [Christopher] Wray called the allegations ‘very troubling,’ and he removed the number two official in that office just last week. But that doesn’t do enough to assuage the very serious questions that Senator Charles Grassley – a very serious senator – has raised, and it doesn’t really assuage all the things that we continue to learn about the Russia collusion case.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) pushed back against Garland’s threat Wednesday, assuring whistleblowers will be “protected” if they reach out to his office.

“DOJ employees, take notice: No matter what this memo says, you are protected by federal law if you contact my office to blow the whistle on the improper politicization of the Department of Justice by Merrick Garland and Joe Biden,” he tweeted.

Kurt Siuzdak, a former FBI agent and prosecutor who represents whistleblowers, said Tuesday some FBI personnel are now demanding that Director Wray resign.

“I’m hearing from [FBI personnel] that they feel like the director has lost control of the bureau,” Siuzdak told The Washington Times. “They’re saying, ‘How does this guy survive? He’s leaving. He’s got to leave.’”

Trump responded Wednesday to the developments on his platform Truth Social, praising the FBI whistleblowers for coming forward to Congress.

“Congratulations to the many FBI & DOJ Whistleblowers who have flooded the offices of our Senators and Congressmen/women with really bad things to say about what is going on,” Trump wrote.

“This is the time, after many years of lawbreaking and unfairness, to clean things up. All things for a reason. DRAIN THE SWAMP!!!”
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/01/2022 03:42 AM

Merrick Garland should really, really know better.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/01/2022 06:35 PM

FBI agents say Christopher Wray has to go, lost control of the agency.

Quote
FBI Director Christopher Wray has lost the confidence of rank-and-file FBI agents after a senior bureau official left under a cloud of accusations that he shielded Hunter Biden’s laptop from a criminal probe — and some believe the top G-man should step down, a new report says.

“I’m hearing from [FBI personnel] that they feel like the director has lost control of the bureau,” Kurt Siuzdak, a lawyer representing FBI whistleblowers, told the Washington Times in a report published Tuesday. “They’re saying, ‘How does this guy survive? He’s leaving. He’s got to leave.’

“[The FBI agents] are telling me they have lost confidence in Wray. All Wray does is go in and say ‘We need more training and we’re doing stuff about it,’ or ‘We will not tolerate it,’” Siuzdak said.


His comments come in the wake of Timothy Thibault, the top agent in charge of the FBI field office in Washington, resigning amid claims he blocked investigations into the first son’s laptop. Thibault’s lawyer said his resignation was unrelated to these claims and that he did not seek to close the laptop investigation.

Thibault was escorted out of the field office last Friday by “headquarters-looking types,” the Washington Times reported, while U.S. officials said this is common practice for anyone who retires.

Siuzdak told The Post that he left the bureau in March after a 25-year career, because management failed to hold bosses accountable, a problem that stems from politicization at the highest levels of the agency.

He told the Times that the whistleblowers have alleged that Wray, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017, did not take action when confronted with issues inside the bureau that ranged from agents being forced to sign false affidavits to sexual harassment claims.

The FBI, which has been taking heat for the Aug. 8 raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in search of classified documents, emphasized the integrity of its agents in a statement to the Times.

“The men and women of the FBI work hard every day to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. All employees are held to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct, and we expect them to focus on process, rigor, and objectivity in performance of their duties,” the statement said.

“Allegations of misconduct are taken seriously and referred to the Inspection Division or appropriate investigative body,” it said.

Wray, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month, called allegations that Thibault blocked an investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop “deeply disturbing.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking Republican on the panel, wrote to Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland in July to raise accusations from whistleblowers that the agency is burying “verified and verifiable” information about President Biden’s son by incorrectly labeling it as “misinformation.”

The Iowa senator said in his missive that if the accusations are true, the FBI and the Justice Department are “institutionally corrupted to their very core.”


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/01/2022 09:14 PM

Andrew Napolitano on why Trump will soon be indicted. He hasn't been doing much to help his own cause.

Quote
It gives me no joy to write this piece.

Even a cursory review of the redacted version of the affidavit submitted in support of the government’s application for a search warrant at the home of former President Donald Trump reveals that he will soon be indicted by a federal grand jury for three crimes: Removing and concealing national defense information (NDI), giving NDI to those not legally entitled to possess it, and obstruction of justice by failing to return NDI to those who are legally entitled to retrieve it.

When he learned from a phone call that thirty FBI agents were at the front door of his Florida residence with a search warrant and he decided to reveal this publicly, Trump assumed that the agents were looking for classified top-secret materials that they’d allege he criminally possessed. His assumptions were apparently based on his gut instinct and not on a sophisticated analysis of the law. Hence, his public boast that he declassified all the formerly classified documents he took with him.

Unbeknownst to him, the feds had anticipated such a defense and are not preparing to indict him for possessing classified materials, even though he did possess hundreds of voluntarily surrendered materials marked “top secret.” It is irrelevant if the documents were declassified, as the feds will charge crimes that do not require proof of classification. They told the federal judge who signed the search warrant that Trump still had NDI in his home. It appears they were correct.

Under the law, it doesn’t matter if the documents on which NDI is contained are classified or not, as it is simply and always criminal to have NDI in a nonfederal facility, to have those without security clearances move it from one place to another, and to keep it from the feds when they are seeking it.
Stated differently, the absence of classification—for whatever reason—is not a defense to the charges that are likely to be filed against Trump.

Yet, misreading and underestimating the feds, Trump actually did them a favor. One of the elements that they must prove for any of the three crimes is that Trump knew that he had the documents. The favor he did was admitting to that when he boasted that they were no longer classified. He committed a mortal sin in the criminal defense world by denying something for which he had not been accused.

The second element that the feds must prove is that the documents actually do contain national defense information. And the third element they must prove is that Trump put these documents into the hands of those not authorized to hold them and stored them in a non–federally secured place. Intelligence community experts have already examined the documents taken from Trump’s home and are prepared to tell a jury that they contain the names of foreign agents secretly working for the US. This is the crown jewel of government secrets. Moreover, Trump’s Florida home is not a secure federal facility designated for the deposit of NDI.

The newest aspect of the case against Trump that we learned from the redacted affidavit is the obstruction allegation. This is not the obstruction that Robert Mueller claimed he found Trump committed during the Russia investigation. This is a newer obstruction statute, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, that places far fewer burdens on the feds to prove. The older statute is the one Mueller alleged. It characterizes any material interference with a judicial function as criminal. Thus, one who lies to a grand jury or prevents a witness from testifying commits this variant of obstruction.

But the Bush-era statute, the one the feds contemplate charging Trump with having violated, makes it a crime of obstruction by failing to return government property or by sending the FBI on a wild goose chase looking for something that belongs to the government and that you know that you have. This statute does not require the preexistence of a judicial proceeding. It only requires that the defendant has the government’s property, knows that he has it and baselessly resists efforts by the government to get it back.

Where does all this leave Trump? The short answer is: in hot water. The longer answer is: He is confronting yet again the federal law enforcement and intelligence communities for which he has rightly expressed such public disdain. He had valid points of expression during the Russia investigation. He has little ground upon which to stand today.

I have often argued that many of these statutes that the feds have enacted to protect themselves are morally unjust and not grounded in the Constitution. One of my intellectual heroes, the great Murray Rothbard, taught that the government protects itself far more aggressively than it protects our natural rights.

In a monumental irony, both Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks journalist who exposed American war crimes during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency employee who exposed criminal mass government surveillance upon the American public, stand charged with the very same crimes that are likely to be brought against Trump. On both Assange and Snowden, Trump argued that they should be executed. Fortunately for all three, these statutes do not provide for capital punishment.


Rothbard warned that the feds aggressively protect themselves. Yet, both Assange and Snowden are heroic defenders of liberty with valid moral and legal defenses. Assange is protected by the Pentagon Papers case, which insulates the media from criminal or civil liability for revealing stolen matters of interest to the public, so long as the revealer is not the thief. Snowden is protected by the Constitution, which expressly prohibits the warrantless surveillance he revealed, which was the most massive peacetime abuse of government power.

What will Trump say is his defense to taking national defense information? I cannot think of a legally viable one.


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: Texas Resistance

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/02/2022 11:01 PM

Some traitors working for Trump be giving him bad legal advice to set him up. Damn the deep state shadow government. Trump should still be the president. The Russians would still be selling gas to Europe and the US dollar would not be on the way out of being the petro dollar if Trump was still president. Biden is owned by the Chi-Coms and is working to desttoy the United States.

Trump is also loosing some support from the Patriot/Militia Movement becasue he won't say that the clot shots were a mistake. I don't know if Trump is that stupid to still be for the clot shot (experimental Covid mRNA gene therapy injections) of if they have compromised Trump over Epstein's child prostitutes.See https://www.infowars.com/posts/exclusive-trump-responds-to-alex-jones-covid-vax-challenge
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/04/2022 05:04 PM

Former US Intel Chief: FBI ‘Didn’t Find What They Were Looking for’ in Trump Raid
By Jack Phillips
September 1, 2022 Updated: September 2, 2022


Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said he believes the FBI “didn’t find what they were looking” for during last month’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s home.

“I was a former federal prosecutor, United States attorney. Let me tell you what this is about. Good prosecutors with good cases play it straight. They don’t need to play games,” Ratcliffe told Fox News on Wednesday, referring to officials within the Department of Justice (DOJ). “They don’t need to shop for judges, they don’t need to leak intelligence that may or may not exist.”

Because of the DOJ’s arguments against having Trump appoint a special master to review allegedly classified documents, it “tells you that the government didn’t find what they were looking for,” Ratcliffe said. “There weren’t nuclear secrets” kept at Mar-a-Lago, he added, “and they’re trying to justify what they’ve done. They’re not playing it straight before the American people. I think that that’s going to play out.”

Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman who later headed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under Trump, did not provide any specific evidence for his claims and appeared to be speculating on the DOJ’s case.

Since the Aug. 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago, neither the DOJ nor the FBI has revealed what materials agents were trying to find. A heavily redacted affidavit used to obtain the search warrant last week provided few details, but it said prosecutors believed there were allegedly classified documents being kept in Trump’s Florida residence.

The former president and some former White House aides say that Trump had a standing order to declassify any materials that left the Oval Office and were taken to Mar-a-Lago.
Court Hearing

A photo included in the latest DOJ filing appeared to show documents—some marked “TOP SECRET” and “SECRET”—scattered on the floor during the raid. Trump wrote Thursday that it was the agents who took the documents and put them on the floor, while former White House aide Kash Patel suggested the picture appears to have been staged to mislead the public about the incident.

Prosecutors argued Tuesday that the 45th president “has no property interest in any presidential records (including classified records) seized from the premises” and said that a former president cannot assert executive privilege against the executive branch itself.

The DOJ has not responded to a request for comment.

Trump’s attorneys on Wednesday dismissed the government’s claims in a filing about the discovery of allegedly classified material inside his home, and accused the Justice Department of escalating the situation even after he handed over boxes of documents to the National Archives and allowed FBI agents in June to “come to his home and provide security advice.”

A court hearing on whether a special master should be appointed to handle the documents was scheduled for Thursday. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee in the Southern District of Florida, will preside over Thursday’s hearing.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/04/2022 05:51 PM

Why did the FBI raid Mar-a-Lago? Too long to post in full, please read the article at the link. Here's a taste:

Quote
... Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’ proposed damage assessment of the documents is a remake of the January 2017 intelligence community assessment which claimed, without evidence, that Vladimir Putin wanted to put Trump in the Oval Office. The extensive redactions on the affidavit the FBI used to get a warrant to raid Trump’s home are akin to the excessive redactions on the application that the FBI showed a secret court in 2016 to get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. What was true for the original Russiagate holds here, too: The redactions are designed to hide not state secrets, but government corruption.

The Mar-a-Lago raid feels like Russiagate because, well, it is Russiagate: a conspiracy theory weaponized by the country’s courtier class to serve the interests of a delirious and deracinated oligarchy, spawning daily prophesies of doom fed by an endless supply of national security “leaks” asserting that the former commander-in-chief really was and is a secret Russian agent.
And proof of the president’s treachery, chant the priestly keepers of the “collusion” mysteries, will soon be revealed to the public. It is their blanket justification for every past crime and every new banana republic-style abuse of power, accompanied by a drumbeat of ever more outlandish and violent threats.

It is in this context that the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago should be understood: Government records and reports from political and media operatives and bureaucrats who previously starred in Russiagate I give evidence that the FBI raided Trump’s home to seize documents exposing the crimes that the FBI and Justice Department have been committing since 2016. The fact that Russiagate shows no signs of ending anytime soon is bad news for the republic, betrayed from within by a performative elite whose ability to project power outside its gilded bubble requires a steady supply of paranoia, fear, and hysteria.

...So was the FBI after what they believed to be Trump’s secret stash of Russiagate documents? The warrant was drawn so broadly that it allowed the agents to seize any document from Trump’s term in the White House. But an Aug. 26 New York Times story confirmed that the FBI was “spurred” to act after discovering Trump had retained “documents related to the use of ‘clandestine human sources,’”and other documents related to “foreign intercepts collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.”

Those at all familiar with Russiagate will recognize these keywords, employed by the same media organization that won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for partnering with U.S. intelligence services to destabilize and delegitimize Trump’s presidency. The descriptions in the article also line up with what Trump reportedly declassified before he left the White House.

Yet if what the FBI was after were the Russiagate documents that it imagined were hidden somewhere at Mar-a-Lago, it’s not clear if the agents found them. According to the Times story, the safe in Trump’s closet “did not contain the materials investigators sought.” Maybe the materials were somewhere else. Perhaps Trump never had them. Trump allies I’ve spoken with don’t think he has the documents.

Garland’s dilemma now is whether to risk finding out the truth. Press reports suggest that he is undecided about indicting Trump. That makes sense—it would likely sow chaos across the country and, Garland must worry, perhaps force Trump’s hand. For if the former president does have the documents, in whatever form, and posts them, it might bring the house down on the U.S. national security apparatus and the Democratic administration that it shields.

The effect of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago is therefore to obscure the real scandal: U.S. spies committed a series of crimes in their effort to unseat a U.S. president, and then ignored the lawful orders of that president in order to keep their crimes hidden from the American public.


What is preserving the stability of the United States at present is therefore something like a Mexican standoff. Does Trump actually have the documents? If so, will he put them before the public? Will Garland indict him, and risk finding out? Given the Biden administration’s tendency to instrumentalize the violence of its rhetoric and turn federal bureaucracies loose on its political opponents, it is likely that the standoff will not hold for long.


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/06/2022 12:41 AM

Judge Halts FBI Use Of Mar-a-Lago Raid Docs, Appoints Special Master To Review
Details of the review process will be decided after both sides submit proposals


https://www.newswars.com/judge-halt...-docs-appoints-special-master-to-review/
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/06/2022 05:17 PM

Joe Biden Ordered Mar-a-Lago Raid, Court Docs Show
Puppet president had repeatedly denied any involvement in jackbooted FBI raid on Trump's Florida resort: “None, zero, not one single bit."

https://www.newswars.com/bombshell-joe-biden-ordered-mar-a-lago-raid-court-docs-show/
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/11/2022 04:10 PM

Steve Bannon Claims At Least 35 Trump Allies Were Raided Yesterday by The FBI

By Chris Menahan | Information Liberation Saturday, September 10, 2022

Former White House advisor Steve Bannon is claiming that at least 35 allies of President Donald Trump had their homes raided and electronics seized by the FBI just this week.

Bannon claimed the DOJ operation was partially referenced in the Washington Post.

It sounds like he was referring to the following article.

From The Washington Post, “Prosecutors seek details from Trump’s PAC in expanding Jan. 6 probe”:

The Justice Department is seeking details about the formation and operation of Donald Trump’s post-presidential political operation, according to three people familiar with the probe, sending a raft of subpoenas in a significant expansion of the criminal investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

A federal grand jury sent subpoenas on Wednesday to a wide range of former campaign and White House staffers asking for information about the Save America PAC, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing probe. They described the subpoenas as broad, seeking all documents and communications about opening the PAC and every dollar raised and spent.

At least one of the subpoenas also demanded information about the plan to submit slates of phony electors claiming Trump won pivotal states, including all communications with several key lawyers and advisers involved in the effort, one of the people said. They include Rudy Giuliani, Boris Epshteyn, Bruce Marks, Victoria Toensing and Joseph DiGenova, this person said.

Another one of the three people, who has direct knowledge of one of the subpoenas, said the document was “wide ranging” and included multiple other categories of information, but this person declined to describe them. FBI agents served at least some of the subpoenas in person on Wednesday, one of the people with knowledge said.

Spokesmen for Trump and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Some of the details of the subpoenas were reported by ABC and the New York Times.

Epshteyn declined to comment. So did Toensing, who is married to DiGenova. Giuliani did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bannon himself was frog marched on Thursday for supposedly defrauding investors through the “We Build the Wall” campaign and charged with money laundering, conspiracy and fraud.

Bannon pleaded not guilty on all charges and said the feds will have to kill him to shut him up.
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/12/2022 09:37 PM

Trump's lawyers say it'snot clear whether classified documents "remain classified."

Quote
The Justice Department says more than 100 documents that the FBI seized during its August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump's home and private club in Palm Beach, were marked as classified. Notwithstanding those markings, Trump insists, none of the records were actually classified because he had a "standing order" as president that automatically declassified documents he removed from the Oval Office to study at his residence in the White House. "The very fact that these documents were present at Mar-a-Lago," he said four days after the search, "means they couldn't have been classified."

In a brief they filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Trump's lawyers notably do not endorse that argument. But they do claim that the status of the "purported 'classified records'" seized by the FBI is a matter of dispute. "The Government has not proven these records remain classified," they say. "That issue is to be determined later."

Trump and the Justice Department are wrangling over the terms of an order that U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon issued last week. Cannon agreed with Trump that a neutral arbiter known as a "special master" should be appointed to review all the material seized at Mar-a-Lago. The special master is supposed to determine which documents might be protected by attorney-client privilege or, more controversially, executive privilege. In the meantime, Cannon said, the FBI may not use the documents to investigate whether Trump or his representatives committed federal felonies by improperly retaining and concealing the records.

Cannon's order allows intelligence agencies to continue a review aimed at determining whether and to what extent Trump's retention of the documents compromised national security. But in a motion filed last Thursday, federal prosecutors argued that her order would interfere with that process, which "cannot be readily segregated" from the criminal investigation. They asked Cannon for a partial stay allowing the FBI to continue examining the documents marked as classified, which represent a small subset of some 13,000 items removed from Mar-a-Lago. Failing that, they said, the government "intends to seek relief" from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

Responding to that motion today, Trump lawyers Christopher Kise, Lindsey Halligan, Evan Corcoran, and James Trusty say the government's concerns "appear exaggerated."
They distinguish between the intelligence review, which seeks to determine "potential damage to national security from allegedly mishandling classified information," and the FBI's probe, which focuses on "criminal repercussions for allegedly mishandling classified information." They argue that the former can proceed even if the latter is suspended.

At the same time, Kise et al. question the premise underlying both processes. "The Government's stance assumes that if a document has a classification marking, it remains classified irrespective of any actions taken during President Trump's term in office," they say. "The Government claims this Court cannot enjoin use of the documents the Government has determined are classified. Therefore, the argument goes, as President Trump has no right to have the documents returned to him—because the Government has unilaterally determined they are classified—the Government should be permitted to continue to use them, in conjunction with the intelligence communities, to build criminal case against him. However, there still remains a disagreement as to the classification status of the documents."

That stance marks a shift from the position that Corcoran took in a May 25 letter to Jay Bratt, chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section in the Justice Department's National Security Division. At that point, Corcoran was referring to documents "purportedly marked as classified." Now he admits the documents were in fact "marked as classified" while remaining agnostic about the significance of those labels.

Kise et al. note that "the President enjoys absolute authority…to declassify any information," and "there is no legitimate contention that the Chief Executive's declassification of documents requires approval of bureaucratic components of the executive branch." But unlike Trump, his lawyers do not claim he used that authority to declassify everything he took with him when he left the White House. Trump has presented no documentation of the "standing order" he supposedly issued, which was news to national security officials who should have known about it.

The documents marked as classified, which ranged from "confidential" to "top secret," included "sensitive compartmented information" on subjects such as human intelligence sources. Last week The Washington Post, citing "people familiar with the matter," reported that the records included information about a foreign nation's nuclear capabilities. The Post added that "some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them."

By Trump's account, he nevertheless decided that the documents were not sensitive enough to keep them classified. Yet the automatic declassification he describes did not hinge on whether exposing the information would jeopardize national security. According to Trump, it applied to anything he happened to remove from the Oval Office. It also clearly did not entail changing the labels on the documents so that government employees would know how to handle and store them.

William Barr, Trump's former attorney general, thinks it is "highly improbable" that Trump had such a policy. But if he did, Barr told Fox News, it would have been remarkably careless: "If in fact he sort of stood over scores of boxes, not really knowing what was in them, and said, 'I hereby declassify everything in here,' that would be such an abuse and show such recklessness that it's almost worse than taking the documents."


Trump's lawyers do not even mention his purported "standing order," let alone delve into its implications. But as they see it, the FBI's investigation "at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control." Instead of simply seeking to ensure that the "purported 'classified records'" were properly secured, they complain, "the Government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records."

That gloss elides a couple of important points. Under federal law, those presidential records, classified or not, were not "his own." Contrary to what Trump seemed to think, they belonged in the National Archives. For a year and a half, Trump resisted efforts to recover the documents. He gave 15 boxes, including 184 documents marked as classified, to the National Archives in January, a year after leaving office. Last June, Corcoran and Christina Bobb, another Trump lawyer, handed over an additional 38 classified documents in response to a federal subpoena, at which point they assured the Justice Department that no more remained at Mar-a-Lago. Yet the FBI discovered more than 100 during its search.

In Krise et al.'s telling, that was no big deal. "There is no indication any purported 'classified records' were disclosed to anyone," they say. "Indeed, it appears such 'classified records,' along with the other seized materials, were principally located in storage boxes in a locked room at Mar-a-Lago, a secure, controlled access compound utilized regularly to conduct the official business of the United States during the Trump Presidency, which to this day is monitored by the United States Secret Service."

Unlike Trump, who still insists that he actually won reelection in 2020, his lawyers at least concede that his presidency ended in January 2021. But they seem to be implying that he retained some prerogatives of that office, including the authority to keep "purported 'classified records'" at the resort where he used to conduct presidential business.

Back in May, Corcoran told Bobb that documents "purportedly marked as classified" were "once in the White House and unknowingly included among the boxes brought to Mar-a-Lago by the movers." That description hardly inspires confidence about Trump's care in handling sensitive information. Nor does it seem consistent with his claim that he deliberately declassified everything. How can that be true if he did not even realize what was in the boxes, which included material that was "unknowingly" moved to Mar-a-Lago? And if there was nothing wrong with keeping the records, in what sense was taking them a mistake?

Although the documents were "principally located" in "a locked room at Mar-a-Lago," the FBI reportedly was alarmed by security camera video showing people removing material from that room. According to the Justice Department, the FBI's search discovered dozens of records with classification markings in other locations, including desk drawers and "a container" in Trump's office. The Post notes that the FBI also found "dozens of empty folders marked classified."

Those details suggest that the concerns underlying what Kise et al. describe as a "document storage dispute" may have been perfectly reasonable.
That does not necessarily mean the threat to national security was grave and imminent enough to justify the unprecedented and politically explosive decision to search a former president's home. The intelligence review may or may not substantiate that claim. But based on what we know so far, the government's fears do not seem frivolous.

Despite Trump's focus on the issue, the three possible crimes cited in the FBI's search warrant do not hinge on whether the documents were still classified. The obstruction statute covers conduct aimed at interfering with a federal investigation. The law dealing with improper retention of government documents applies to unclassified as well as classified material. Even the Espionage Act provision cited by the FBI does not mention classification, referring instead to "defense information" that "could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation."

If the Justice Department decided to prosecute Trump on any of those charges, it might have trouble proving the requisite intent. But even if Trump's conduct can plausibly be attributed to some combination of ignorance, arrogance, laziness, and sloppiness, it should give pause to Republicans who were still inclined to support him.


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/13/2022 03:09 AM

GOP Leader Says Homes of Trump Supporters May Soon Be Raided by FBI
By Jack Phillips
September 11, 2022 Updated: September 12, 2022

A top former Republican leader and prominent attorney has said that the homes of more supporters of former President Donald Trump may soon be raided by FBI agents—weeks after the unprecedented Aug. 8 raid of Mar-a-Lago.

Harmeet Dhillon, who was the vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, told Fox News that within 24 hours of a Politico reporter’s Twitter post claiming that the FBI is ready to serve warrants, “three of our clients … did either get search warrants or subpoenas. And these subpoenas are extremely broad.”

In a Twitter post, Dhillon alleged that someone Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Jan. 6 team “told a Politico reporter that 50 or so search warrants and grand jury subpoenas were being issued to Trump allies—before it happened. Clients, already being harassed by House J6 Committee investigators.”

“Our clients [Women for America First] are among those targeted for their peaceful, First-Amendment-protected, speech about 2020 election,” she wrote. “These bullying tactics are designed to target [and] intimidate Trump supporters.”

She did not elaborate on the other individuals who may be targeted by the FBI, including whether they were Trump administration staffers or associates of the former president. Last week, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was arrested and charged by New York state officials for allegedly partaking in a scheme connected to a private border wall construction effort.

Dhillon added that the subpoenas “ask for broad categories of documents” and ask “for all communications dating from a month before the election until a month, two months after the election.”

The Epoch Times has contacted the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI for comment.

The subpoenas “ask for all communications regarding dozens of people and the categories are alternate electors, fundraising around irregularities around the election,” Dhillon told host Tucker Carlson, “and also a rally that happened before the Jan. 6 situation at the Capitol.”

Dhillon then speculated that based on the Politico reporter’s Twitter post, the FBI is leaking information to reporters before they’re executed. For years, Trump and members of his team have accused the agency of passing on confidential information or even disinformation to mainstream outlets in a bid to denigrate his presidency and reelection chances.

“There’s no other explanation for this,” the lawyer said. “And I think the reason for this is to instill fear into Donald Trump’s supporters and into those who would challenge election irregularities right before an upcoming election.”

She did note, however, that it is “illegal for the DOJ to leak this information to the media.”
Special Master

In the battle over whether to appoint a special master in handling documents that were taken from Trump’s Florida residence last month by FBI agents, a Florida federal judge, Aileen Cannon, last week sided with the former president and argued that leaks to the media would cause him harm. She ordered the appointment of a special master, while the DOJ appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which features six Trump-appointed judges.

Days after Cannon’s order, both Trump and the DOJ submitted the names of individuals to handle the documents. A special master is a neutral arbiter who can handle certain matters in court disputes and is usually a retired judge or prosecutor.

A warrant and property receipt that was unsealed last month show the DOJ is investigating Trump on possible obstruction of justice and Espionage Act-related charges, pointing to alleged classified materials that were being stored at Mar-a-Lago. The 45th president and members of his team, however, said that he had a standing declassification order and pointed to a memo he issued in early 2021 while he was still president.

Bannon, meanwhile, told The Epoch Times in an interview published this weekend that the charges against him are politically motivated—echoing statements made by his former boss.

“They were trying to de-platform me and shut me down. It’s not gonna happen,” he said, adding, “they’ve got a populist revolt that’s out of control, and they’re trying to take me out of this election.”
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/13/2022 12:02 PM

‘This is a Full-Blown Political Purge’: Tucker Carlson Obtains DOJ Subpoenas Targeting Trump Allies


By Chris Menahan | Information Liberation Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday obtained Attorney General Merrick Garland’s wide-reaching subpoenas demanding dozens of allies of former president Donald Trump hand over all their communications related to “any claim that the vice president and/or president of the Senate had the authority to reject or choose not to count presidential electors.”

Partial transcript via Fox News:

This show has obtained a subpoena from Merrick Garland’s DOJ issued in the past week and what it demands is both unlawful and without precedent in American history. The subpoena claims to be investigating, “any claim that the vice president and/or president of the Senate had the authority to reject or choose not to count presidential electors.”

Now keep in mind that any claim you make as an American citizen about electors, any claim you make about American politics, period, is protected explicitly under the First Amendment. That’s our core freedom. It’s why we live here. It’s why we’re proud to be Americans. It’s why so many American servicemen died protecting our country. Those are the freedoms that they fought to preserve. That’s why nobody prosecuted leading Democrats in 2016 when they sought to reject electors for Donald Trump. Right. It’s why none of those people, including Kamala Harris, is now in jail.

But right now, according to the subpoena that we have obtained, Merrick Garland’s DOJ is demanding all communication from the following people on this topic and let’s be clear before we read their names, that it is not clear what the investigation is actually about and that’s the most terrifying part.

What is this? On what grounds are you demanding my private communications with people? They never say but included in this precedent-breaking sweep of political opponents of the Biden White House would be former White House adviser Bernie Kerik, who was the former police commissioner of New York City; Boris Epshteyn, who is the current attorney for Donald Trump (At no time in American history has it been okay to grab the personal communications of someone’s lawyer because those are privileged. Not anymore.) Matt Morgan; Justin Clark; Kenneth Chesebro and Mike Roman; RNC official Joshua Findlay; Trump Attorneys John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Joe DiGenova, James Troupis, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Victoria Toensing, Cleta Mitchell, and Bruce Marks. We could go on and on and on and on.

The DOJ is now going after former White House official Stephen Miller, a frequent guest on this show, with a subpoena. Why? Well, it could be because Stephen Miller went on this network and said, “If we win these cases in the courts, then we can direct the alternate state of electors are certified.”

In other words, he didn’t call for the insurrection, much less violence or a coup. He called for alternate electors to be seated if the court ordered them to be seated. In other words, he was following the constitutionally prescribed process post-election. He’s doing what is supposed to do. He was following the rules, but under Joe Biden, that apparently is now a crime. By the way, every one of these people has to hire lawyers to defend him or herself and a lot of them at this point, after two years of harassment by Joe Biden, can’t afford it.

In addition, we should say, we’ve obtained the subpoena, this subpoena goes on to demand the communications from dozens of other Republicans and people who have spoken to them, including State Representative Jake Hoffman in Arizona, Republican National Committee member Kathleen Berden in Michigan, former U.S. Representative Lou Barletta in the state of Pennsylvania and Republican State Party Secretary James DeGraffenreid in Nevada, among dozens and dozens of others.

So, what is this about? It can’t possibly be about January 6, the fake insurrection, the only insurrection in history with no guns, the insurrection in which the only person shot to death was a Trump supporter. No, the point of this is to suppress political dissent, to hobble an entire political party and to keep any of these people from ever participating in American politics again and by the way, the cost to each one of these individuals or to any person at whose house the FBI shows up is enormous. Ask anybody you saw the FBI showed up with guns at their home what that’s like. By accusing these people of insurrection for asking questions about electors by comparing them to Confederate soldiers, Merrick Garland’s DOJ plans to disenfranchise them if not jail them. Really?

So, prohibit people from participating in American politics in the name of democracy? Too ironic to be real? Oh, it’s real. It just happened in New Mexico. A state judge in New Mexico just removed an elected county commissioner from office, overturning the will of the voters. Why? Because he had dared to exercise his constitutional rights by participating in the election justice protest on January 6. So, this is a full-blown political purge. That’s not a talking point. It is not in any sense a conspiracy theory. It’s completely real and it began shortly after January 6 when Republicans, as usual, just as they were after the death of George Floyd, were so blown back, so intimidated by the aggression of the rhetoric from the other side that they let it happen.

And because they let it happen, as with the BLM riots, its effects are accelerating now. So, if you’re accused of supporting Joe Biden’s political opponents, you could be visited by armed agents from Joe Biden’s FBI.

Carlson also spoke with Trump supporter Lisa Gallagher, who was targeted by the FBI after an anonymous snitch sent them a tip claiming she was at the Capitol on Jan 6.

During his monologue, Carlson highlighted how the Biden regime and their allies spent the 21st anniversary of 9/11 declaring that all their political opposition are domestic terrorists.
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 09/13/2022 02:08 PM

Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 01/10/2023 06:48 PM

Classified documents found in Joe Biden's former office. This could get interesting.

Quote
The US justice department is reviewing documents marked classified found in President Joe Biden's former office at a think tank, the White House says.

About 10 of the files were discovered in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center in Washington in November by Mr Biden's legal team, said his lawyer.

The batch has been handed over to the National Archives.

Mr Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, is facing a probe for taking classified files to Florida after his presidency.

According to the BBC's US partner CBS News, the FBI is involved in the inquiry into classified documents found at the Penn Biden Center, and US Attorney General Merrick Garland has been asked to review the papers.

Mr Biden's lawyer said they relate to the period when he was vice-president. But it is unclear what the documents relate to, the level of classification involved or why they were there.

A source familiar with the matter told CBS News the batch did not contain nuclear secrets and had been contained in a folder in a box with other unclassified papers.

Richard Sauber, special counsel to President Biden, said in a statement to CBS on Monday that the files were discovered just before the midterm elections by Biden attorneys who were clearing out the office space.

Mr Biden kept an office at the think tank, which is about a mile from the White House, from 2017 to 2020....


Read the whole thing at the link.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 01/10/2023 07:19 PM

But, it's ok if Joe does it.
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 01/10/2023 09:58 PM

Originally Posted by ConSigCor
But, it's ok if Joe does it.


Of course it is. After all, he's a Democrat. mad

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 01/13/2023 03:17 PM

Biden aides find second batch of classified documents at new location
On Monday, the White House acknowledged a "small number" of classified documents had been found in an office Biden used.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/wh...ssified-documents-new-location-rcna65371

THIRD Batch of Classified Docs Found In Biden’s Wilmington Garage

So this makes three now.

Why is the FBI allowing his “lawyers” to poke around? Lawyers exist to protect their clients. They’re hiding something. I think the FBI should stage a raid.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Stack up buttercups, the rules are the rules. https://t.co/WC80nYYYmA

— NC Scout (@Brushbeater) January 12, 2023


AG Garland Appoints Special Prosecutor To Probe Biden's Classified Docs Mishandling


https://www.zerohedge.com/political...dache-garlands-special-counsel-nightmare
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 01/23/2023 10:59 PM

"There's nothing there," said Biden. Yeah, right. True, Trump was totally irresponsible in his handling of classified documents. But what do you call Biden's handling of them?

Quote
Last August, the FBI searched former President Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach resort, looking for classified documents. Last Friday, the FBI searched President Joe Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware, looking for classified documents.

Both searches were unprecedented, and both turned up secret material stored in unauthorized locations. While the circumstances that led to the searches were starkly different, the broad parallels between the two investigations, each of which has been assigned to a special counsel, complicate already fraught decisions about whether Trump's retention of government records justifies criminal charges. They also raise the question of how common such sloppiness is and what it says about a system that is ostensibly aimed at protecting national security....

Two weeks ago, after CBS News broke the story of the documents in Biden's former office, the president said he had been "surprised" to learn about those records last fall. Last Thursday, after news reports revealed that additional classified material had been found at his house in Wilmington, Biden minimized the import of that development.

"We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place," Biden told reporters. "We immediately turned them over to the [National] Archives and the Justice Department….I think you're going to find there's nothing there….There's no there there."

At that point, it was clear that the number of classified documents "in the wrong place" exceeded "a handful." And the next day, the FBI found six more. Contrary to Biden's assurances, there was something there: a pattern of carelessness belying Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber's claim that Biden "takes classified information and materials seriously." ...

Contrary to Biden's claim, however, none of this means "there's no there there." He cannot consistently maintain that the classification system is vitally important to protecting national security and that "inadvertently" violating its rules is no big deal, a mere clerical error involving documents that were "filed in the wrong place." That certainly was not Biden's take on Trump's handling of classified records, which he called "totally irresponsible" a couple of months before his own trove was discovered.

Even granting the differences between what Trump did and what Biden did, in terms of both volume and attitude, the only way Biden can escape similar criticism is by arguing that it does not really matter if classified material he handled ended up where it was not supposed to be, intermingled with personal records and mementos. But if that's true, either because the documents were classified for no good reason or because they remained classified long after the original rationale no longer applied, the whole system begins to look like a joke.

Biden's retention of classified material from his time as vice president went unnoticed for six years, while one or more secret documents that he came across as a senator remained in his private possession more than twice as long. How many classified records might be discovered in the homes or offices of other former federal officials if anyone bothered to search for them? And do those overlooked documents pose a real threat to national security, or only to the idea that the classification system should be taken seriously?


Read the whole thing at the link.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 06/09/2023 04:50 PM

Everything about the Trump indictment is annoying. The indictment, Trump's reaction to it, and the Espionage Act itself, which is blatantly unconstitutional.

Quote
...The FBI found the documents during a raid of Trump's Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, last summer. Now, Trump has reportedly been charged with seven federal criminal counts, including conspiracy to obstruct justice, making false statements, and unauthorized retention of national security documents.

The former president's response has been annoying, albeit typical for Trump. Here's the first paragraph of Trump's statement from yesterday:

Quote
The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is "secured" by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time.


Trump insists that the charges are part of a politically motivated witch hunt and is trying to deflect blame to Democrats, in this case, President Joe Biden.

While the indictment is not yet public, what we know about the charges suggests that they are also annoying. Unauthorized retention of national security documents violates the Espionage Act of 1917, but it beggars belief that Trump's behavior amounts to espionage. The Espionage Act charge could carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison per offense.

As Reason's Jacob Sullum noted last August, "there is some evidence to support the inference that Trump's alleged mishandling of classified material was 'intentional and willful'" or, at minimum, "a pretty reckless way to handle sensitive material." And according to the Justice Department, documents found at Mar-a-Lago included sensitive information "relating to nuclear weapons."

Granted, the offense Trump is reportedly charged with—illegally retaining "national defense information"—needn't involve a plan to give or sell that information to a foreign country.

The Espionage Act charges have raised eyebrows on the pro-Trump right and from libertarians and folks on the left. On the one hand, it represents Trump being treated just like ordinary citizens. On the other, maybe ordinary citizens should face fewer Espionage Act charges, too.

"I'm categorically opposed to charging anyone under the Espionage Act, even those who seem obviously to have engaged in espionage," tweeted former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash. "It has a terrible history of abuse. Government has employed it to avoid scrutiny and chill free speech, and it violates basic tenets of due process."

The Intercept's Ryan Grim noted that Daniel Ellsberg—who leaked the Pentagon Papers to news outlets in 1971 and was charged under the Espionage Act—"has been arguing for years that the Espionage Act is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment."

"If a govt official mishandles classified info they can be administratively punished, fired, etc, but it's not a crime," tweeted Grim. "That's his argument and I think it's a good one."


Trump and his team have argued that Trump declassified whatever documents he retained before leaving office.

If true, that would of course preclude charges related to mishandling classified documents—and could point to one reason why the Espionage Act is being invoked here. As the Times points out, "prosecutors would not technically need to prove that [the documents at Mar-a-Lago] were still classified because the Espionage Act predates the classification system and does not refer to it as an element."

There's a lot we still don't know. But it's a good bet that, regardless of how this turns out, it will still be annoying.


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 06/09/2023 05:35 PM

Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 06/09/2023 09:58 PM

He's been hit with 37 felony charges. I guess with that many, they're hoping one or two will stick.

Quote
Former President Donald Trump has been indicted in federal court on 37 felony charges related to hoarding boxes of classified materials at his South Florida resort.

Trump faces multiple counts of conspiracy to obstruct justice, willful retention of national defense information, and concealing documents from investigators and a federal grand jury. The indictment alleges that the classified documents included information on U.S. nuclear programs, defense and weapons capabilities, vulnerabilities, and military plans for retaliation in response to a foreign attack.

"The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive collection methods," the government alleges.

Trump and his Republican supporters in Congress say the charges are part of the corrupt weaponization of the Justice Department by Joe Biden—who also mishandled classified records—against his political rival.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R–Utah) was one of the only Republicans to defend the charges: "By all appearances, the Justice Department and special counsel have exercised due care, affording Mr. Trump the time and opportunity to avoid charges that would not generally have been afforded to others," Romney said in a press release. "Mr. Trump brought these charges himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so."

While the broad strokes of Trump's, Biden's, and Mike Pence's cases of retaining classified documents are similar, Romney is correct that Trump ran head-first into the charges, even with the generous benefit of the doubt that the Justice Department gives high-ranking politicians in cases involving classified records.

As Reason's Jacob Sullum explained in January after more classified records were discovered in Biden's garage, Biden's cooperation with federal law enforcement may weigh against finding that there was criminal intent or willful mishandling:

Quote
Trump, by contrast, took thousands of government documents, including 325 marked as classified, when he left office, and he persistently resisted returning them, apparently because he considered them his personal property. That resistance included months of wrangling with the National Archives and Records Administration and incomplete compliance with a federal subpoena, which culminated in the FBI's August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago.

Unlike last week's visit to Biden's house, the Mar-a-Lago search was not consensual. It was authorized by a warrant that a magistrate judge issued after concluding that there was probable cause to believe the FBI would find evidence that Trump or his representatives had committed federal crimes. Specifically, the FBI cited statutes that make it a felony to remove or conceal government documents, retain "national defense information," and obstruct a federal investigation.


But even if the charges are ultimately a result of Trump's obstinance, it does not negate the real problems with overclassification, the general bloat of the national security apparatus, and the abuse of the Espionage Act.

Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) recently noted in an op-ed that, in 2017, over 4 million Americans with security clearances classified nearly 50 million documents.

Trump's charges include violating the Espionage Act of 1917, a World War I-era law that has been used to prosecute whistleblowers who leak classified documents to the press.


The Obama administration prosecuted a record number of leakers under the Espionage Act, and the Trump Administration used it as well. The Trump administration prosecuted whistleblowers Reality Winner and Daniel Hale for leaking classified documents to the press. In Hale's case, he leaked documents showing how the U.S. was killing civilians overseas with drone strikes.

Paul proposed scrapping the law altogether last year. "The espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI. It is long past time to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment," he wrote.


It was an offer that Congress, including many of the Republicans now warning of dark days for American democracy, ignored.


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 06/10/2023 01:07 PM

Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 06/10/2023 05:37 PM

[Linked Image]

The kid who lives next door just told me an interesting theory - the government indicted Trump so the news media would be so busy covering this story, they will ignore the real story about crashed alien space craft.

Do I believe it? No. After all, government officials are all denying it, and they've never lied to us before.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: ConSigCor

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 06/12/2023 06:58 PM


The Democrats Versus Trump: A Bad Horror Movie? – Ron Paul

The boxes and boxes of classified documents discovered at multiple Biden locations have disappeared into the memory hole with the help of the media.


By Ron Paul | Infowars.com Monday, June 12, 2023

The Democrats and Donald Trump reminds me of a bad horror movie, where the hapless protagonists only make the monster stronger with each attempt to eliminate it. So goes the Democrats’ endless attempts to finally rid America of the “scourge” of Donald Trump.

Thanks to the Durham Report we now know they started even before Trump was elected president. Hillary Clinton’s campaign – with the full knowledge of the candidate and the sitting president, Barack Obama – cooked up a “dirty trick” to portray Trump as an agent of Russia in their effort to deny Trump the White House.

When that didn’t work they weaponized the FBI, CIA and the rest of the “deep state” to undermine and hobble his presidency. They spied on Trump and his campaign staff using false information manufactured by the FBI.

When that didn’t work they impeached him under the false charge that he sought foreign assistance for his 2020 re-election bid. This time a spy, in the person of NSC staffer Alexander Vindman, was sent to listen in on Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian president Zelensky and then make all manner of false charges against Trump based on it.

Democrats were furious that Trump was less than enthusiastic about their plans to use Ukraine as a proxy to go to war with Russia. Vindman, though an active-duty US military officer, was of Ukrainian background and was loyal to the country of his origin rather than the country of his citizenship. He also openly defied the military chain-of-command and his commander-in-chief. Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for their “Project Ukraine” infuriated Vindman and he sought his revenge against the US President.

When that didn’t work they impeached Trump again over the false charge that he led an “insurrection” against the US government on January 6, 2021. The more surveillance video we see of this “insurrection,” the more it looks like a false-flag operation cooked up perhaps by Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Washington swamp to finally be rid of Trump. Hundreds of political prisoners have been held in solitary confinement on false accusations that they tried to overthrow the US government.

When that didn’t work and Trump’s re-election numbers looked more and more favorable while Biden’s approval rating continued to linger in the political basement, the Democrats have now indicted him over some classified documents apparently discovered in his residence in Florida.

The boxes and boxes of classified documents discovered at multiple Biden locations have disappeared into the memory hole with the help of the media. Nothing to see here.

Suddenly Donald Trump, who polling suggests would obliterate Joe Biden in a fair US election, faces 100 years in prison! Where else would you see the head of one political party arrest his main political opponent on cooked up charges? A banana republic!

For those of us who love this country, it is truly shocking to see this abuse of power. But there’s one thing these dirty tricksters never seem to understand: the more false evidence and false charges they cook up against Trump, the stronger Trump becomes. With these outrageous and continuous attacks on Trump, the Democratic Party (and plenty of Republicans) has lost all credibility. When this plan fails, and it will, I am afraid to think what they might try next.

This article first appeared at RonPaulInstitute.org.
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 06/12/2023 10:18 PM

Did Trump break a law that shouldn't even exist? The bottom line is, yes. (This is a podcast that's well worth listening to.)

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 06/13/2023 04:48 PM

If you're a lawyer, Trump can be a pretty challenging client. Lawyers always tell their clients not to talk to anyone - but try telling that to Donald Trump.

Add to that the fact there are two competing ways to defend Trump. One, of course, is a vary partisan approach accuse the Justice Department of wrongly going after him for political reasons. The other is a more traditional approach, winning the case purely on its merits. Their both viable defenses, but you really have to choose one or the other. That may be why Trump seems to be having a hard time holding on to lawyers.

Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 06/20/2023 03:50 PM

Lawyers to Donald Trump: "Keep your mouth shut." Trump to lawyers: "No." Trump gave an interview to Bret Baier on Fox News, and pretty much admitted to obstruction of justice.

Quote
Trump tells Fox News that he couldn't give back subpoenaed documents because his golf shirts were mixed in. Lawyers rightfully stress that if you find yourself facing criminal charges, it's a bad idea to talk to anyone—especially the cops or the press—without your counsel present. Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump isn't taking that advice. On Monday, the former president sat down with Fox News' Bret Baier to give a televised interview about the federal criminal case against him.

"The first rule of Federal Indictment Club is: you don't talk about your case," as Ed Morrissey writes at Hot Air. "And the second rule of Federal Indictment Club is: you don't talk about your case, period. You hire a good lawyer or two and let them talk about your case in public. The surest way to help the prosecution is to go on television and make a damaging admission about the key element of a charge."

Trump has demonstrated again and again that he thinks he can talk his way out of anything—and, so far, that strategy hasn't worked out so badly for him. But federal criminal charges are different than the previous political quagmires and public relations conundrums. Prosecutors will be sure to pounce on any public statements from Trump about why he kept boxes of sensitive documents after he left the White House, stored them at his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago, and stalled on giving them back.

And during yesterday's interview with Baier, Trump handed prosecutors some doozies.

Trump is charged, among other things, with knowingly engaging in misleading conduct to "conceal a record, document, and other object from an official proceeding." The government alleges that Trump not only took classified papers and delayed returning them when subpoenaed but lied to his lawyer—and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as well—about which records he still had in his possession. Meanwhile, Trump allegedly instructed co-defendant Walt Nauta to hide some of the documents.

During yesterday's interview, Trump told Baier that authorities asked him to return the documents he had kept but he had kept them because he wanted time to go through them:

Quote
BAIER: They said, 'could you give us the documents back?' And then they said they went to DOJ to subpoena you to get them back.

TRUMP: Which they've never done before.

BAIER: Right.

TRUMP: And in all fairness—

BAIER: Why not just hand them over then?

TRUMP: Because I had boxes—I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out. I don't want to hand that over to NARA yet. And I was very busy, as you've sort of seen.

BAIER: Yeah.

TRUMP: I've been very, very busy.

BAIER: But according to the indictment, you then tell this aide to move to other locations after telling your lawyers to say you'd fully complied with the subpoena, when you hadn't.

TRUMP: But before I send boxes over, I have to take all of my things out. These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things—golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes. There were many things.


The conversation is a bit jumbled, but at the very least Trump doesn't object to Baier's characterization that he had the boxes of documents moved after saying he had fully complied with the subpoenas. And the conversation could be viewed as Trump admitting to doing exactly that, offering as justification that he wanted more time to sort through them and get out his golf shirts and shoes.

Trump's lawyers may argue that his last statement was simply him continuing his earlier thought, not agreeing with Baier that he had ordered an aide to move the boxes. Nonetheless, the sequence of statements is ambiguous enough that it doesn't do Trump any favors while giving the prosecution good fodder to argue that Trump openly admitted to obstruction.

"Trump just made it almost impossible for a jury to believe any denial on these allegations, and his justification here would be damning in court," writes Morrissey:

Quote
By talking publicly, Trump likely ruined a potential defense strategy for his attorneys, and now they will have to work around Trump's public statement on national TV when this case comes to trial.

Bear in mind too that criminal defendants don't have to testify in court. Trump could have refused to expose himself to cross-examination at trial and make Smith and his team prove obstruction on their own beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, Trump put himself on national TV and let Bret Baier cross-examine him, in a way that prosecutors can use whether Trump agrees to testify or not. And Trump botched the exchange and ended up making a potentially fatal admission, not because of a skilled attorney, but because a journalist simply read the elements of the indictment to him.


On Twitter, lawyer Jonathan Turley lays out other potential ways that Trump made his defense more difficult during yesterday's interview.

Trump and some of his supporters keep insisting that this is a political witch hunt. But even Trump's former attorney general, Bill Barr, sees this situation this time as one "entirely of [Trump's] own making," as Barr wrote in a piece for The Free Press yesterday.

Barr notes that "the government had every right—indeed, it had no choice—but to retrieve" the sensitive documents that Trump took with him from the White House. "Trump has been the victim of witch hunts by obsessive enemies willing to do anything to bring him down," Barr suggests. But this is not one of those situations:

Quote
For the sake of the country, our party, and a basic respect for the truth, it is time that Republicans come to grips with the hard truths about President Trump's conduct and its implications. Chief among them: Trump's indictment is not the result of unfair government persecution. This is a situation entirely of his own making. The effort to present Trump as a victim in the Mar-a-Lago document affair is cynical political propaganda.


Barr goes on to note that this is not just about Trump taking the documents in question but refusing to give them back and trying to conceal that he hadn't:

Quote
Trump's apologists have conjured up bizarre arguments that the Presidential Records Act, a statute meant to prohibit former presidents from removing official documents from the White House, should be interpreted as giving Trump carte blanche to remove whatever he wants, even if it is unquestionably an official document.

These justifications are not only farcical, they are beside the point. They ignore the central reason the former president was indicted: his calculated and deceitful obstruction of a grand jury subpoena….

All the razzle-dazzle about Trump's supposed rights under the Presidential Records Act is a sideshow. At its core, this is an obstruction case. Trump would not have been indicted just for taking the documents in the first place. Nor would he have been indicted even if he delayed returning them for a period while arguing about it.

What got Trump criminally charged was his deceit and obstruction in responding to the grand jury subpoena served in May 2022 after he had stymied the government for a year.


That subpoena sought all documents in Trump's possession that were marked as classified. If Trump truly thought he had a solid basis for keeping those documents, there were easy and obvious ways he could have lawfully raised those arguments at the time. Among other things, he could have taken legal action to quash the subpoena or have a court declare his right to keep them.

He did not do any of that.

Instead, the indictment alleges, he led the government to believe he was complying with the subpoena, telling the DOJ he was an "open book." At the same time, he told his own lawyer it would be "better" to tell the DOJ there were no such documents and suggested his lawyer pluck out any "really bad" ones before giving anything to the government. Why would Trump say these things to his lawyer if he really thought he had a good legal basis for keeping all the documents?

But the pivotal fact—and what ultimately led the DOJ to charge Trump—was the department's conclusion that Trump personally engaged in an outrageous course of deception to obstruct the grand jury's inquiry. The indictment alleges in great detail that (1) Trump led his lawyer to believe that he would be allowed to conduct a complete search of all the boxes that could contain the relevant documents; (2) Trump then arranged, without the lawyer's knowledge, for a large number of the relevant boxes to be removed from the room to be searched, thus preventing a complete search; and (3) Trump then caused his attorney to file a false statement with the court saying he conducted a complete search.


These are the allegations Trump was asked about by Baier and didn't strenuously deny. The interview only furthers Barr's assertion that Trump's troubles here are of his own making.

In related news: A federal judge has ordered Trump and his legal team not to publicly release any evidence in the case against him. "The Discovery materials, along with any information derived therefrom, shall not be disclosed to the public or the news media, or disseminated on any news or social media platform, without prior notice to and consent of the United States or approval of the Court," the court order states.


Onward and upward,
airforce
Posted By: airforce

Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago - 07/06/2023 06:39 PM

Did the DOJ try to shake down Trump's co-defendant's lawyer? If this is proven true, the judge could toss the whole case.

Quote
Lost in the breathless headlines over the indictment of President Trump for alleged violations of the Espionage Act is a story that deserves much more attention than it has received thus far: the allegation that a senior official at the Department of Justice attempted to shake down Trump’s co-defendant’s lawyer. It is a scandal in the making that could result in the investigation of senior DOJ officials, which should lead to public congressional hearings, and that might even result in the entire case against Trump being dismissed.

Trump’s co-defendant is Waltine “Walt” Nauta, a Navy valet who served in Trump’s White House and who remained a personal aide to Trump after he left office. Several weeks ago, Nauta’s lawyer, a distinguished, highly-regarded Washington attorney named Stanley Woodward, leveled accusations against senior members of the Department of Justice, including DOJ Counterintelligence Chief Jay Bratt, who is now a part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team of prosecutors. According to news reports, Woodward claimed in a sealed letter to D.C. District Chief Judge James Boasberg that, in a meeting to discuss Nauta’s case, Bratt indicated that Woodward’s application to be a D.C. Superior Court judge could be impacted if he could not get Nauta to testify against Trump.

If true, and I see no reason why Woodward would make such a threat up — and especially no reason why Woodward would risk his career by making such a representation to a federal judge — Bratt’s alleged misconduct could result in heavy sanctions, and is a potential ground for dismissal of the entire case against Nauta and Trump. Depending on what exactly was said, Bratt could even face criminal prosecution himself.

In cases of flagrant prosecutorial misconduct, courts have the discretion to dismiss indictments altogether. If Woodward’s claims are proven, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon would be well within her rights to consider a dismissal here. The conduct claimed is perhaps unprecedented and certainly flagrant, amounting to nothing less than an effort by a high-ranking DOJ official to deprive a defendant of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel through inappropriate and potentially unlawful acts.

At the very least, Trump and Nauta deserve answers. Courts routinely allow discovery by the defense in cases of alleged prosecutorial misconduct — including depositions and requests for documents and communications — in order to determine the scope, breadth, and effects of any misconduct that occurred. The defense team in this case should seek testimony from Bratt to get to the bottom of what he said and why.

As importantly, defense counsel should also seek to subpoena any communications between Bratt and others in DOJ and the White House relating to Woodward’s judgeship application and Bratt’s approach to Woodward more generally.
My assumption is that these communications will be eye-opening, and may reveal even more misconduct on the part of the DOJ, the special counsel’s team, and their political masters.

The legal teams defending Trump and Nauta surely know all of this, and I am confident that they will pursue this and other lines of defense aggressively. But the American people also deserve to know the full details of misconduct by senior officials at the Department of Justice.

Republicans in Congress should demand answers publicly and aggressively. The House Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction to investigate matters relating to the administration of justice in the federal court system. It has the power to subpoena Bratt, the other lawyers involved in the Trump prosecution, and senior Biden administration officials to get to the bottom of this.

Make no mistake, this is a huge deal. Bratt’s conduct may even fall within the ambit of federal criminal statutes. Depending on what exactly was said, Bratt’s conduct could constitute attempted witness tampering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(1), attempted federal bribery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(3), attempted extortion by a federal official in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 872, or attempted subornation of perjury in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1622.

If the Department of Justice is truly committed to the open and transparent treatment of this case, a special counsel should be empowered to investigate Bratt’s actions and any other alleged misconduct by Jack Smith’s team.


Onward and upward,
airforce
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