FBI Raids Mar-a-Lago: What Does it Mean?

[Don Johnson]

The affidavit doesn’t have to be revealed to the public, but at least to congressional oversight. That would go a long way to clearing things up.

I note that Axios spelled “affidavit” wrong in that last line. Tsk, tsk.

I agree with this in theory. But in reality I think it won’t matter. The partisan divide is so great now that no matter what is revealed by the affidavit, the other side will not accept it. Even if it’s given to congressional oversight, the divide is just as great there. We’re at a point in this country where truth is only believed if it benefits your political party.

It’s worth noting that the prosecutor who would have (rightly or wrongly) investigated Hunter was let go in something of a quid pro quo “let him go or you don’t get the aid.” Papa Biden was also resolutely against lethal aid to Ukraine, which probably has something to do with how things have gone there since 2014. I would hazard a guess that had Ukraine been better armed starting in 2014, the situation on the ground would have been very different today.

Regarding the notion that Trump is worse, that’s simply wrong, because it was Clinton and Obama who actually succeeded at weaponizing the bureaucracies against their political opponents, not Trump. Again, is the action that gets a ton of bad press worse, or is the action that slides under the radar in the MSM worse? I’d argue the latter.

… previously worked as defense attorney for Jeffrey Epstein employees.

[Ken S]

Don Johnson wrote:

The affidavit doesn’t have to be revealed to the public, but at least to congressional oversight. That would go a long way to clearing things up.

I note that Axios spelled “affidavit” wrong in that last line. Tsk, tsk.

I agree with this in theory. But in reality I think it won’t matter. The partisan divide is so great now that no matter what is revealed by the affidavit, the other side will not accept it. Even if it’s given to congressional oversight, the divide is just as great there. We’re at a point in this country where truth is only believed if it benefits your political party.

I agree. We are long past “truth” in this country. We talk about weaponizing this agency and that agency. But remember at the center of all of this is probably the most non-partisan agency in the US, the National Archives. This entire process was initiated by them back on January 20th of 2021. They are only concerned with preserving records that they are legally obligated to preserve. Remember it was President Trump who signed into law the criminalization of not protecting records. The first search pushed by the National Archives found dozens and dozens of boxes. They identified more records, but were pushed back by the Trump team, resulting in a signed affidavit from Trump’s legal team in June of 2022 that there were no more confidential records. The National Archives had distinct records of documents still held, like pardons that they asked for, and were told no. They then, as required by law - the law that Trump signed, to refer this to the DOJ. The DOJ convened a grand jury of normal citizens, who felt there was enough evidence to suggest that a crime was taking place. An anonymous source close to Trump communicates to the FBI the exact location of where documents are being stored, the exact ones that the National Archives is looking for. The DOJ pulls the evidence together, including the results of the Grand Jury to get a search warrant on 3 distinct places at Trump’s residence (which happens to just be a country club), and low and behold, the FBI finds exactly what the National Archives said was missing and where the informant said they were in storage and they remove again for the third time, dozens of boxes of classified material. Just given what they removed, I am surprised that Trump has now had more than 3 dozen boxes of classified material removed.

Not sure how the National Archives is a weapon of the Left. It also isn’t a fishing expedition, they are finding exactly what they said they would find. So does the story seem more plausible that the National Archives is of their own accord becoming a partisan weapon or Trump hiding stuff?

Trumps first message was that they were planted. Then he pivots to the fact that he declassified everything. Well which is it? They were planted, or they were already declassified and he had them stored. This is typical Trump throwing everything against the wall. And a lot of naive people believing there is something going on, so it all must be a conspiracy and millions of dollars of far right media outlets finding all kinds of remote connections to try to tie conspiracies together. All the while Trump, Alex Jones, Roger Stone, Bannon and others making millions and millions of dollars and laughing all the way to the bank.

The assistant DA who was put in charge of the National Archives is also the same assistant DA that was put in charge of the January 6th investigation. I think it is a stretch to assume that there is such a thing as non-partisonship today.

[JD Miller]

The assistant DA who was put in charge of the National Archives is also the same assistant DA that was put in charge of the January 6th investigation. I think it is a stretch to assume that there is such a thing as non-partisonship today.

That means nothing. It is like saying the same DA is over the January 6th investigation and the National Archives. The National Archives (which I think is pretty close to non-partisan as any in Washington) is the one making the claim and filing a report with the DOJ.

A lot of claims are made here about what Trump said, or what some other official said. I suppose I’ve made a few myself.

It might be a good idea to footnote our claims, as some of the things others are claiming aren’t things I’ve seen confirmed anywhere. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t so - just that I haven’t seen them. By footnotes I mean links. Otherwise we will just end up talking past each other as usual.

Here’s a copy of some comments Andrew McCarthy made about the warrant and the possibility that Trump declassified some documents, and how he would have gone about it. Suffice it to say that McCarthy and the Powerline group (all lawyers, yes conservative) are not totally convinced how you would apply some of these laws against a a former President, and they’re concerned about how broad the warrant was.

Some more comment on the same.

Andy Yoo, Powerline, and others have commented on how “interesting” it is that so many leaks were made right after Merrick Garland gave a four minute presentation 40 minutes behind schedule and then walked off stage without taking any questions. It’s not the behavior of an agency that’s confident of its case.

I think the declassification is a smoke screen at this point. Even on practical terms he can’t deem a document to be declassified just because it exits the oval office. Yes, he can technically declassify it, but most experts are stating that there needs to be a sliver of documentation and communication. Otherwise you have a president who has one copy declassified (even though it has a classification on the document) and another agency keeping them classified because they have no idea as to the nature of the document because no one has communicated it.

This is a pretty good outline from the NYTimes (https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-lawyer-told-justice-dept-141854929.html). The issue appears that they tried other less invasive means and were stonewalled. It appears that Trump’s attornies stated that there were no documents marked “classified” in his possession. That doesn’t appear to be the case, as the information was released that they retrieved this level of documentation and higher in his possession. To me, it was pretty black and white. They asked to search 3 key areas on the property for material that they believed was classified for violation of certain laws. They found that. No one is denying on either side of the camp that they found documents marked classified. Therefore the search was warranted. They weren’t just snooping and trying to find something.

The bigger question is whether a crime was committed. The core is whether he had the documents and that if he did the documents needed to be returned to the National Archives. Again, no one is disputing that presidential records and especially classified material is returned to the government after the president leaves office. Trump wrote the law and signed that one. Whether a crime has been committed, that will be left up to the courts. The DOJ will either look at the evidence they collected and either deem that what they found at the end of the day did not constitute a crime, at which point, the best they did was returned documents to the National Archives. Or the DOJ will look at the evidence, including the affidavit from Trump that he did not have those documents and deem a crime was committed and they will take it to court. It will be up to the courts to decide a crime was committed.

I struggle to see any weaponization of the DOJ (they can’t convict anyone of a crime), nor do I see this was unwarranted. Trumps team resisted and refused to hand over documents marked classified, and when they searched they found that they did have documents marked classified in their possession. Whether Trump declassified them or not is irrelevant for the search, it is only relevant for the court case. Whether he classified or declassified, the documents were still marked classified and his legal team said that there were not any marked classified.

I don’t think a crime was committed, I think it is another example of Trump, clueless about how the government worked and he was just sloppy and all over the place. I doubt there was criminal intent here. So I doubt anything will go much further.

David, it’s the old lawyer’s adage “the process is the punishment”, more or less that there are times when lawyers will subject people to legal processes because the hassle and cost of doing so constitutes a punishment in itself. You saw it a lot with the Mueller investigation—not many people were convicted, but several people lost their homes and retirement funds paying for lawyers to defend themselves.

In this case, contrast what’s going on and all the legal wrangling, again, with the failure of the FBI to act in any number of cases when it was liberals who had something to fear. If you investigate conservatives vigorously (or Trumpians as it were if you like), but neglect to issue subpoenas when it’s liberals involved, a finger certainly appears to be on the scale. This Babylon Bee satire sums it up pretty well, IMO.

Victor Davis Hanson is no Trump sycophant. VDH’s analysis makes plain that the pattern of “enforcement” is important and that the impact is much more about lex rex than DJT.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/08/14/victor_davis_hanson_…

I like Victor Hanson, but…

he has a list of grievances often unrelated to the topic at hand which he just repeats over and over again

and, while maybe not a Trump sycophant, he is not an unbiased observer. He wrote a book, The Case for Trump, just before the last election. He is not entirely objective on the topic

the writers at National Review are better sources, in my opinion. They were opposed to Trump, but I’m guessing grudgingly voted for him in the election. Their stance on Trump was one of the reasons VDH left NR

so… VDH is saying nothing new in this Tucker interview. Listen to a couple of his podcasts and you will hear the same litany every time. Not too coherent, his points get lost in the verbiage

[dgszweda]

Actually, Trump could have released everything around the search warrant already. Yesterday he encouraged them to be released on his Truth website. We don’t need the Attorney General to ask for a release. But I will make a prediction, his lawyers will deny the request before 3pm today. Everything that has taken place with Trump in the last day, smells like his tax returns. “He would love to release his tax returns”, but “his attorneys say not to” or “he has to wait until the audit is over”. Both smoke screens, but it makes him look like he is not hiding anything.

I think this turned out not to be the case, right? At least I think I’m seeing news that the DOJ is fighting release of the affidavit?

They’re just reporting second hand information, but it’s well summarized.

300-plus classified documents found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago: Report