Mar-a-Lago Raided by FBI

Frederick Foresight said:
A mole! Pretextual! Planted evidence! — Trump world rife with theories about the FBI search

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/11/trump-evidence-fbi-search-00050990

A wave of concern and even paranoia is gripping parts of Trump world as federal investigators tighten their grip on the former president and his inner circle.

In the wake of news that the FBI agents executed a court-authorized search warrant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Trump’s allies and aides have begun buzzing about a host of potential explanations and worries. Among those being bandied about is that the search was a pretext to fish for other incriminating evidence, that the FBI doctored evidence to support its search warrant — and then planted some incriminating materials and recording devices at Mar-a-Lago for good measure — and even that the timing of the search was meant to be a historical echo of the day President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974.

“There are no coincidences when it comes to the Deep State. They could have done this raid a couple of days before or tomorrow, but they chose Aug. 8 for a reason,” Monica Crowley, a former top official in the Trump Treasury Department, said on the “War Room” podcast.

Trump world is no stranger to being deeply suspicious, even conspiratorial. But the speculation sparked by the FBI search has taken on a different scope, coming amid a combination of anxiety — that the so-called Deep State is out to get the former president — and a dearth of public information about the bureau’s actions.

“I can tell you all of us agree this is corrupt,” said Michael Caputo, a longtime Trump confidante whose service in the Trump administration was marked by attacks he waged on career officials and an acrimonious exit. “Many people in Trump world agree with me that this is theater and this is designed to damage the president, this is designed to damage Republicans in the midterms and it is designed to advance the interests of the Democratic Party. And you know what, they completely failed.”

There is no evidence that the Department of Justice did anything improper, and it in fact obtained approval from a federal court to obtain its search warrant. Trump himself could answer some of the lingering questions. He is at liberty to disclose the warrant — though he has not been provided the underlying affidavit — and to describe the files that were confiscated by the FBI. But so far he has opted against doing so. Only two of his attorneys were present during the search, and they say they were barred from supervising while the agents retrieved files.

More information may soon be available, however. Judge Bruce Reinhart, the federal magistrate who signed the search warrant last week, on Wednesday ordered the Justice Department to respond by Monday to efforts by media outlets and advocacy groups to unseal the document.

In the absence of that information, however, Trump allies have begun pushing conspiracies to explain away the probe.

The chatter was fed, in part, by two articles, one in Axios the other in Newsweek, that suggested someone high up within Trump’s orbit had flipped and was cooperating with the government and that detailed the belief among some Trump hands that they had a mole. By late Wednesday afternoon, it had become an openly discussed topic on Fox News. And a story in The Wall Street Journal indicated that, in fact, a witness had been aiding investigators, telling the FBI that not all classified records had been disclosed during early negotiations and helping investigators pinpoint the location of missing records.

But the more aggressively pushed theory by Trump allies, at least in public, was the idea that evidence might have been planted by the FBI on the premises. Trump himself floated the idea in a post on his social media site, and it was amplified by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), as well as Fox News hosts like Jesse Watters, and even Trump’s own lawyer.

“I’m concerned that they may have planted something,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said Tuesday on Fox News. “At this point, who knows? I don’t trust the government, and that’s a very frightening thing as an American. This is Third World stuff. This is Cuba. This is not our country.”

Trump and his advisers have worked to use the FBI’s search to their political advantage, too. In the aftermath, the former president took calls from allies and lawmakers on Capitol Hill who encouraged him to expedite his jump into the 2024 presidential race. And on Monday night, Trump met with the Republican Study Committee at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, where he talked about his outrage over the events and hinted at what he would do next.

“He left me a little room for doubt that he’d be running again, and he received substantial encouragement in the room to run again,” Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) told POLITICO. “And his campaign activity leading up to the midterm helps turn out voters.”

In the 48 hours since the search, Trump’s Save America PAC released a new political ad linking the search to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil investigation of Trump and to the Jan. 6 investigations. And Trump has been aggressively fundraising off the search, sending out emails and text messages decrying the FBI’s actions and asking for contributions.

Republican lawmakers, ranging from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to Rep. Elise Sefanik (R-N.Y.), have vowed to make investigations into why federal agents issued the search warrant a political issue moving into the midterms and beyond.

“I will be shocked if a Republican majority doesn’t pursue a 21st century Church Committee out of this, that’s where I think this is going,” said one Republican consultant close to Trump world, referring to 1970s congressional hearings on intelligence activities. “I do think there have been enough examples of politicization in institutions that this is where Republican voters are. Republicans have been there for a bit of time — but a lot of Republican politicians have gotten the message.”
More...

“This thing of ours” ain’t for everybody. Trump’s problem is he is trying to run his racket with a bunch of hillbillies who have no idea what omerta is. Mark Meadows will turn state’s evidence for a bag of McDonald’s and a Marlboro light.
 
exGOPer said:
It's legal to store classified documents at your home after taking them away knowingly from the White House?
More...
Obamas lawyers repeatedly invoked the Presidential Records Act to delay the release of thousandsof pages of records from President Bill Clintons White House, At the end of his presidency, Barack Obama trucked 30 million pages of his administrations records to Chicago, promising to digitize them and eventually put them online More than five years after Obamas presidency ended, the National Archives webpage reveals that zero pages had been digitized and disclosed. Source - New York Post newspaper
 
exGOPer said:
How many of those pages contained classified information?

Irrelevant pathetic whataboutism. Presidential records at Presidential libraries are routine, what is even this bullshit.
More...
The system is 2 tiered. Even a person of the meanest intelligence could see that.
 
I cant control the formatting but here is anotyher motion filed by a lawyer friend on behalf of Judicial Watch

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA CRIMINAL CASE NO.: 9:22-mj-08332-BER-1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. SEALED SEARCH WARRANT, Defendant. _________________________________/ MOVANT JUDICIAL WATCH, INC.’S MOTION TO UNSEAL SEARCH WARRANT

Movant Judicial Watch, Inc., by counsel, respectfully requests this Court unseal the search warrant materials in U.S. v. Sealed Search Warrant, Case No. 9:22-mj-08332 as expeditiously as possible. As grounds thereof, Judicial Watch states as follows: 1. On August 8, 2022, FBI agents executed a search warrant at President Donald J. Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida. According to media reports, the warrant relates to an alleged dispute over the Presidential Records Act. 2. According to this Court’s docket, all entries, including the search warrant are sealed. 3. Judicial Watch is a not-for-profit, educational organization that seeks to promote transparency, accountability, and integrity in government and fidelity to the rule of law. An integral part of Judicial Watch’s mission is educating the public about the operations and activities of the government and government officials. To this end, Judicial Watch undertakes investigations of the federal government and federal officials by making extensive use of FOIA, among other Case 9:22-mj-08332-BER Document 4 Entered on FLSD Docket 08/10/2022 Page 1 of 4 2 investigative tools. Judicial Watch subsequently analyzes all records it receives and disseminates its findings to the public. 4. Here, Judicial Watch is investigating the potential politicization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice and whether the FBI and the Justice Department are abusing their law enforcement powers to harass a likely future political opponent of President Biden. If the Court were to unseal the materials, Judicial Watch would obtain the materials, analyze them, and make them available to the public. Unsealing the records therefore would further Judicial Watch’s mission of educating the public. 5. Federal courts have long recognized a common-law right of access to judicial records. Patel v. United States, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152670, *13 (S.D. Fla. Sept. 9, 2019). Such right extends to pre-indictment search-warrant materials. See Bennett v. United States, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 102771, *20 (S.D. Fla. July 23, 2013) (Courts have recognized that the commonlaw right to inspect judicial records applies where the record at issue is a sealed search-warrant affidavit.”) (collecting cases). 6. “When deciding whether to grant a party’s motion to seal or conversely the granting of a party’s motion to unseal, the court is required to balance the historical presumption of access against any competing interest.” Id. at *21 (quoting In re Search of Office Suites for World and Islam Studies, 925 F. Supp. 738, 742 (M.D. Fla. 1996). Specifically, courts consider “whether the records are sought for improper purposes, whether access is likely to promote public understanding of historically significant events, and whether the press has already been permitted substantial access to the contents of the records.” In re Four Search Warrants, 945 F. Supp. 1563, 1568 (N.D. Ga. 1996) (quoting Newman v. Graddick, 696 F.2d 796, 803 (11th Cir. 1983)). Case 9:22-mj-08332-BER Document 4 Entered on FLSD Docket 08/10/2022 Page 2 of 4 3 7. All three considerations support Judicial Watch’s motion to unseal. First, Judicial Watch seeks access to the warrant materials as part of its educational mission. If the Court were to unseal the materials, Judicial Watch would obtain the materials, analyze them, and make them available to the public. Second, the public has an urgent and substantial interest in understanding the predicate for the execution of the unprecedented search warrant of the private residence of a former president and likely future political opponent. Third, no official explanation or information has been released about the search. As of the filing of this motion, the public record consists solely of speculation and inuendo. In short, the historical presumption of access to warrant materials vastly outweighs any interest the government may have in keeping the materials under seal. 8. Given the political context, and the highly unusual action of executing a search warrant at the residence of a former President and likely future political opponent, it is essential that the public understands as soon as possible the basis for the government’s action. Any government interest in securing the identities of witnesses and confidential sources, if any, may be addressed by appropriate redactions from the search warrant affidavit. For the foregoing reasons, Judicial Watch respectfully requests this Court unseal the search warrant materials in U.S. v. Sealed Search Warrant, Case No. 9:22-mj-08332 as expeditiously as possible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top