Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178782
08/28/2022 08:44 AM
08/28/2022 08:44 AM
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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.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178791
08/29/2022 05:58 PM
08/29/2022 05:58 PM
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FBI agent who opened Trump investigation escorted out of Bureau headquarters. This story is just developing. 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.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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178792
08/29/2022 09:06 PM
08/29/2022 09:06 PM
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Thibault resigned over reports he shielded Hunter Biden from probe. And the hits just keep on coming. 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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178793
08/29/2022 09:25 PM
08/29/2022 09:25 PM
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I hope they burn him a new one.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178795
08/29/2022 09:48 PM
08/29/2022 09:48 PM
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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.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178803
08/31/2022 09:36 PM
08/31/2022 09:36 PM
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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!!!”
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178806
09/01/2022 02:35 PM
09/01/2022 02:35 PM
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FBI agents say Christopher Wray has to go, lost control of the agency.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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178808
09/01/2022 05:14 PM
09/01/2022 05:14 PM
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Andrew Napolitano on why Trump will soon be indicted. He hasn't been doing much to help his own cause. 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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178815
09/02/2022 07:01 PM
09/02/2022 07:01 PM
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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
www.TexasMilitia.Info Seek out and join a lawful Militia or form one in your area. If you wish to remain Free you will have to fight for it...because the traitors will give us no choice in the matter--William Cooper
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178829
09/04/2022 01:04 PM
09/04/2022 01:04 PM
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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.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178830
09/04/2022 01:51 PM
09/04/2022 01:51 PM
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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: ... 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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178874
09/11/2022 12:10 PM
09/11/2022 12:10 PM
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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.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178882
09/12/2022 05:37 PM
09/12/2022 05:37 PM
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Trump's lawyers say it'snot clear whether classified documents "remain classified."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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178886
09/12/2022 11:09 PM
09/12/2022 11:09 PM
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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.”
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#178888
09/13/2022 08:02 AM
09/13/2022 08:02 AM
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‘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.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179362
01/10/2023 02:48 PM
01/10/2023 02:48 PM
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Classified documents found in Joe Biden's former office. This could get interesting. 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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179363
01/10/2023 03:19 PM
01/10/2023 03:19 PM
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But, it's ok if Joe does it.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179367
01/10/2023 05:58 PM
01/10/2023 05:58 PM
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But, it's ok if Joe does it. Of course it is. After all, he's a Democrat. Onward and upward, airforce
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179374
01/13/2023 11:17 AM
01/13/2023 11:17 AM
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Biden aides find second batch of classified documents at new locationOn 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-rcna65371THIRD 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 Mishandlinghttps://www.zerohedge.com/political...dache-garlands-special-counsel-nightmare
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179420
01/23/2023 06:59 PM
01/23/2023 06:59 PM
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"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? 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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179878
06/09/2023 12:50 PM
06/09/2023 12:50 PM
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Everything about the Trump indictment is annoying. The indictment, Trump's reaction to it, and the Espionage Act itself, which is blatantly unconstitutional. ...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: 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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179880
06/09/2023 05:58 PM
06/09/2023 05:58 PM
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He's been hit with 37 felony charges. I guess with that many, they're hoping one or two will stick. 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: 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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179884
06/10/2023 01:37 PM
06/10/2023 01:37 PM
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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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179891
06/12/2023 02:58 PM
06/12/2023 02:58 PM
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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.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179894
06/13/2023 12:48 PM
06/13/2023 12:48 PM
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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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179914
06/20/2023 11:50 AM
06/20/2023 11:50 AM
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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. 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: 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: 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: 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: 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
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Re: FBI raids Trump's Mar-a-Lago
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179974
07/06/2023 02:39 PM
07/06/2023 02:39 PM
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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. 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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