Q: So when did the DOJ start treating removal of classified documents like a felony anyway?
A: When President Trump signed a 2018 law making it a felony. pic.twitter.com/KA6RKYlQ8L

— Jeff Yarbro (@yarbro) August 9, 2022

#MAGAmeltdown #TrumpIsGuilty #FBIRaid #FBI #MarALagoRaid #MaraLagoSearch #JusticeMatters #Raid #RaidAtMarALago pic.twitter.com/BR7J5cJy6n

— Drako J. Chacon (@drakoantisocial) August 9, 2022

UPDATE:
*Clarification:

Although Bruce Reinhart was sworn in as United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Florida on March 14, 2018, while Trump was president, Trump would have had no oversight of his appointment.

FBI director Chris Wray was directly appointed by Trump.



Not sure who this "attorney" mentioned is.

sycasey said:

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concordtom said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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Wo. @AndrewYang spoke out more forceful about the #BidenRaidOnTrump than the number three Senate GOP who gave an obligatory tweet and most of Senate GOP leadership is still silent.

Does anyone think that these losers will hold any anti-Trump thugs accountable? pic.twitter.com/sZMlYjVM1P

— Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) August 9, 2022

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I'm thinking that Yang is an interesting guy with a bad political plan.
No.

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The more Yang opens his mouth the more he shows that he doesn't know anything.

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Yang is simply making an observation that in all practical terms, while the raid is legal and warranted, it also reinforces Trump's ability to portray himself as the victim of a vast conspiracy when in fact he led the most corrupt administration certainly in my lifetime.

BearGoggles said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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BearGoggles said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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calbear93 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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calbear93 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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calbear93 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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calbear93 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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Yeah, I can't imagine Merrick Garland - who had to approve this - would go out on a limb unless they had a bulletproof reason. As I stated in the other thread, unless they are checking the sewer for sharpie notes they are unlikely to find anything because Trump isn't particularly literate. This definitely ups the likelihood that the FBI already has the goods and they were just doing the search as a formality.

Lots of options here, everything from classified documents to other crimes, but whatever it is, the judge who issued the warrant would've been rigous about determining there was sufficient probable caused to support it.

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) August 8, 2022

I hope when he is eventually arrested that they don't protect his head when they load him in to the car. Just following his orders right?

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Arresting a former president when the opposition party has the white house sets such a horrible precedent.

This better be a criminal, air-tight case.

Otherwise, one can expect Biden, Clinton, etc. to be indicted when a Republican is in the white house. At the very least, everyone associated with Biden will be subject to unannounced search warrants. We see this in other less than Democratic countries, especially since there is a crime that could be charged against almost everyone.

This makes a peaceful transition of power even more tenuous.

Not sure I have that much confidence in this administration to make the right type of political call on this, especially when this could have some serious ramification.

I hope it is clear what I think of Trump. I am expressing concern for the future of our democracy and not for him - the same concern that made me despise Trump. I hope this is not some political pressure and expediency, especially since I am not too confident about the Democrat's ability to think beyond the next move.

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If Biden or any political people in his administration were responsible, then I completely agree. Given how weak and careful Merrick Garland has been, I have a hard time believing there were any shenanigans here. There is zero reason to believe that there was any political motivation for this warrant and search.

The FBI issued multiple search warrants while investigating Hillary Clinton's email "scandal" and I don't recall any Republicans raising their hand to complain. I don't recall Democrats melting down over search warrants.

The judge who approved the warrant is being attacked by right wing whack jobs, but he was appointed under the Trump administration. Trump appointed Christopher Wray. This isn't some deep state political operation.

I have no doubt that if we as a country are dumb enough to let Trump anywhere near the white house he will spend all of his time using his political muscle to punish his enemies, of which there are many. That's basically what he did during his first 4 years but he wasn't very persuasive and was stopped by people with a semblance of loyalty to law and order and our country.

But just because Trump and the GOP will justify political abuses of the wheels of justice doesn't mean we have to pretend that's what is happening here.

---

Look, I am all for no one being above the law. I am a very strong believer in law and order.

However, I am hopeful that this will lead to a very imminent arrest with a very strong, almost treason-type of charge against Trump and he is convicted in a transparent and open trial.

If this flames out without an arrest, this was a horrible precedent, and Biden and his whole family better be ready if and when a Republican has the white house. They will have no moral standing or reference to norms to defend themselves.

This should make everyone on both sides nervous, but I suspect too many Democrats won't see around the corner or plan for anything beyond this move.

---

I agree with you overall - this needs to be done right - but I don't agree that the people running this investigation don't understand what is at stake. This isn't rocket science - you don't go after a former president for jay-walking or wearing white after labor day.

This is obviously a high risk situation and everyone needs to treat it accordingly. That's not some genius-level revelation, it's obvious. Merrick Garland has been very cautious in his approach to investigation and prosecution of the numerous crimes that Trump has been linked to. It hasn't been to the satisfaction of much of the democrat base, but I wouldn't assume that executing a search warrant is some indication that Garland is somehow giving into the base or anything like that.

As I mentioned above, we've seen search warrants like this before. The FBI used them in the Clinton email investigation which ultimately didn't result in any charges being made. It's possible (although I hope unlikely) that the same happens here. That's how our criminal justice system works.

It is looking more and more like this relates to materials Trump took with him from the white house and failed to return. Reportedly he returned 15 boxes and there were some remaining. If the FBI obtained additional items in the execution of the search warrant which Trump still had not returned after ~20 months (and months of engagement with the FBI), I think he likely could be prosecuted. But I could also see Wray/Garland deciding not to prosecute.

To me, the stolen documents are far from the biggest crime Trump has been accused of. Unless we find out more like that he was sharing the classified information with people or using them for some other purpose. If he can make a colorable claim that he "accidentally" stole 15+ boxes of classified information, I don't think he should be prosecuted. I still would think the warrant is reasonable if he refused to return the materials in a timely fashion as they presented a security risk for our nation.

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Look, I hope you are right.

However, this could easy go sideways, become a political theater with DOJ losing credibility, and all of this, including anything related to January 6th look political as opposed to protection of Democracy. This was another level of escalation when reasonable people started listening to the hearings. They need to clarify this almost immediately before the political train runs over the justice train.

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Yes, if they screwed this up they should all be fired. And I think everyone recognizes what the stakes are. Now there have been other high stakes situations where the FBI has screwed it up - think Hillary and her emails and the disastrous Comey press conferences - so it's possible that it's happened again.

There are a few things that are unclear. Apparently the archived retrieved 15 boxes from MAL last year but learned there were remaining docs that hadn't been returned. They referred this to justice to deal with. Over a period of months, the FBI was in contact with Trump's people and visited MAL in June, saw that he had stuff he shouldn't have (including materials marked top secret) and that he wasn't storing it securely. Rather than immediately removing the materials, they sent Trump a letter telling him to secure it better.

This is a *** moment. Imagine any other situation where the FBI sees that you have contraband and allows you to hang onto it. Now, 2 months later a warrant is executed. There are some dots that need to be connected, but I have a hard time seeing Trump's defense for holding classified information in his basement at his publicly accessible golf club for more than a year after being booted from the white house.

Think back to all of the pearl-clutching over Hillary's deleted emails (which were never claimed to be material - just a handful of emails that were post-classified and likely posed no continuing risk) and compare to the reaction from GOP about materials that Trump STILL WON'T RETURN.

It's also telling that Trump won't release the search warrant. If he has nothing to hide, he should share it publicly.

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OK, we will hopefully see soon whether this was a huge gift to those buying the far right conspiracy theory or whether this was the start of the true downfall for Trump.

It absolutely is a *** moment. Subpoenas and depositions are all within the norms. A search warrant and the corresponding raid of a former president's residence, as far as I know, has never been done. It wasn't done even to Hillary when Trump was president, right? I would have preferred a contempt of court after failure of responding to subpoena but there is a lot I don't know right now. That is why I think prompt disclosure is needed even though they may want to play it close to the vest for investigation purposes. However, they must have known the political firestorm this would create and breach of norms this was. Anyone with any bit of professionalism and PR sensibility would have had communication all ready to go in this *** escalation.

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They did execute search warrants in connection with the Hillary email investigation. I believe the search warrants were served on third parties and not the Clintons. The big difference is that she did voluntarily comply with the FBI. I am 100% positive that the FBI will be able to show that Trump refused to comply with them in their investigation which forced their hand here.

As for whether there is something else here - I don't know. There is a lot of speculation that they must have had reason to believe Trump was sharing those materials with adversaries or otherwise, but I'm skeptical of that. I think it's as simple as the FBI/DOJ demanding the return of classified materials and Trump saying "make me." So they made him. That to me is 100% on Trump and not a rule of law problem.

Again, all Trump has to do is release the warrant to clear things up but the warrant obviously looks bad for him so he wont' do it. Maybe his bus stop lawyer will make a mistake like Alex Jones' lawyer and we'll all get to see it.

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Did Hillary "comply" before or after she deleted a bunch of evidence? She didn't comply with the congressional subpoena - that's for sure.

And executing third party search warrants is not even in the same universe as executing a warrant on a current/former president and/or current/former presidential candidate. There is a reason HRC was not served with a warrant.

Trump should release the warrant. But I don't think the warrant includes the underlying declarations which is what we really need to see (not sure)? Does he have those? I think they just serve the warrant and not the underlying docs - but I could be wrong. Anyone have a link showing Trump has the sworn declarations in support of the warrant?

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Look who's unsurprisingly shown up to white knight for Trump.

Hillary Clinton provided over 55,000 pages of emails to the FBI. Her IT guy deleted 30,000 emails which her outside law firm determined were personal in nature. The FBI didn't need to execute a search warrant on her home (or office) because she complied with their request. They executed a warrant on a third party whose computer had some of her emails.

Contrast that with Trump. He illegally kept dozens of boxes of government documents. For more than a year and a half he chose not to return some number of those documents, including purportedly classified ones. The FBI paid him a visit in June and laid eyes on the documents. Trump or his team could easily have given the documents back to the government, but chose not to comply. And let's not pretend that this was a raid on his underwear drawer - they went to his office location where he illegally maintained classified government records which could pose a national security risk. Hillary's deleted emails were not that. As it turns out, Hillary's undeleted emails were not that either, but it was still enough to give 99% of GOPers the vapors and a near-lethal case of pearl clutching.

So Trump was given every opportunity to comply by returning all of these records and stonewalled for more than a year and a half. This is night and day from the Clinton controversy. Would you suggest that the government just accept that Trump can keep all of these illegally obtained records for as long as he wants to in an unsecure public location?

This is the part where you acknowledge that either you don't care about the national security implications of butter emails, or you think Trump's retention and insecure maintenance of classified materials is problematic. You don't get to have it both ways. The presidential records act is very clear and the fact that 12 boxes of documents were removed from MAL by the FBI is quite telling. It's telling us that GOPers like you never actually cared about the national security implications of Clinton's emails and that when push comes to shove even though you pretend to be a critic of Trump, you still ride or die with him.

I'm glad that we can all stop pretending like your criticism of Trump has been genuine. You're sticking with him longer than Rupert Murdoch.

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First of all, you're ignoring my separate post where I said "I hope they have the goods here." I'd be very happy if this discredits Trump and cripples any attempt/hope he has to run again. But this is very likely going to have the opposite effect if the basis for the warrant was thin. I actually think the dems are goading Trump into running again and hope he'll declare before the midterms.

Your defense of HRC is hilarious. Her IT guy deleted the emails at HRC's direction (and Sheryl Mills). You conveniently ignore that the remaining emails undisputedly contained classified information that she illegally possessed on a personal (and unsecure) server, all in violation of security protocols (pretty much what Trump may have done here). HRC mishandled HIGHLY classified info during the entire tenure as SOS and then for at least 2 years thereafter. Not just 15 boxes.

And the final irony is that HRC deleted the emails in response to the State Department's request for public records - years after HRC left office. She literally misappropriate State Department records for years and never disclosed that. Doesn't excuse what Trump may be doing with his records, but it is orders of magnitude worse. If Trump were HRC, he'd have shredded those boxes by now.

Trump and his team reportedly dispute that the records are public records and/or classified. I have literally no idea if they're correct - either do you. There's a process for determining that - its called a subpoena and then going to court, with the records appropriately safeguarded in the meantime. HRC's lawyer kept the disputed files while the issues were being sorted out. A warrant in this situation is unprecedented. Maybe it was justified - maybe Trump was threatening to destroy the files or wasn't safeguarding them?

That would possibly justify a warrant. But we don't know. And CNN's reporting doesn't support that - they indicate that Trump was cooperating and negotiating with the FBI - just like you claim HRC was.

"In early June, a handful of investigators made a rare visit to the property seeking more information about potentially classified material from Trump's time in the White House that had been taken to Florida. The four investigators, including Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence and export control section at the Justice Department, sat down with two of Trump's attorneys, Bobb and Evan Corcoran, according to a source present for the meeting.


At the beginning of the meeting, Trump stopped by and greeted the investigators near a dining room. After he left, without answering any questions, the investigators asked the attorneys if they could see where Trump was storing the documents. The attorneys took the investigators to the basement room where the boxes of materials were being stored, and the investigators looked around the room before eventually leaving, according to the source.

A second source said that Trump came in to say hi and made small talk but left while the attorneys spoke with investigators. The source said some of the documents shown to investigators had top secret markings.
Five days later, on June 8, Trump's attorneys received a letter from investigators asking them to further secure the room where the documents were stored. Aides subsequently added a padlock to the room.
In April and May, aides to Trump at Mar-a-Lago were interviewed by the FBI as part of the probe into the handling of presidential records, according to a source familiar with the matter."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/08/politics/mar-a-lago-search-warrant-fbi-donald-trump/index.html

Maybe something happened since then or perhaps CNN is mistaken (wouldn't be the first time). If not, then this is looking bad and setting a really bad precedent. As 93 says, if there isn't an arrest, this is going to backfire.

And for the record, I'd like all parties who misappropriate or leak classified info to be prosecuted and lose their security clearance. That includes Trump, HRC, Comey, and McCabe. The problem is the DOJ and FBI hasn't done that. Even Petraeus was let off the hook with a slap on the wrist.

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There is lots of misinformation here. What happened was Clinton / Mills directed personal emails to be erased BEFORE any subpoenas or requests for the emails. The IT guy from another company forgot to erase them. Mills then notified the IT company about the request for Benghazi information and the IT guy on his own, per his own account, remembered the emails he forgot to erase and erased them in violation of the request. So arrest the sloppy IT guy if you want, I guess. That'll show 'em.

About 0.2% of the Hillary emails had classified info at the time they were sent. They were clearly not using that email for the purpose of discussing classified information. There was no criminal intent and so Hillary was not prosecuted. Same as Ivanka Trump won't be prosecuted for her use of private communications for government business - and im not calling for her to be prosecuted over that - though I would think Ivanka would have more culpability given the awareness of the matter after the endless Hillary coverage.

Hillary fully complied with the investigation in a timely manner. Trump was still holding physical boxes of classified information owned by the government. Endless lawyer negotiations is not compliance. It is one avenue that some nefarious wealthy actors use to circumvent the law. The government does not have to fall victim to those schemes.

Republicans are responding stronger to Mar-a-Lago being searched than they did for the Uvalde school shooting.

— Kevin ☕️🎶 (@KevinSixx13) August 9, 2022

Unit2Sucks said:

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Congratulations, you are doing a better job defending Trump than his bottom feeder lawyer will. With enemies like you, Trump doesn't need any friends.

The FBI found like 3 classified emails among the 30,000+ that Clinton turned over. This wasn't a real national security issue. It's possible, though unlikely, that Trump similarly has unimportant classified info stored in his office basement. Trump has had 20 months to return all of the documents he retained in order to comply with the presidential records act but he's chosen not to do so. And you are defending his non-compliance while pretending to criticize him.

And you still manage to think you are fooling anyone with your pearl clutching. Nice try.

---

I think 22 emails reportedly were deemed "Top Secret"
But yeah it was miniscule out of 30,000+

It's amazing how someone can continue to pretend to be OBJECTIVE when they take every opportunity to "cherry-pick" things that do nothing other than DEFEND DONALD TRUMP.

Hillary complied.
Trump has not complied.

BearGoggles and his partisanship stands alone.

I think this line of reasoning is a bit dangerous.

I am a law and order conservative and I do question the wisdom of a raid of a former president's residence (something that has never been done before) before midterm election and in the midst of digesting the January 6th hearings.

From a practical standpoint and not from a pure black and white purist standpoint, think about the letter that Comey sent to Congress days before the election. One could argue that he was just following what was the procedure and should just enforce the law. That most likely cost Hillary the election even though it should never have been that close if she did not run the worst possible campaign in recent memory. There is a reason why what Comey did was so unorthodox especially right before an election.

We also engage in practicality when enforcing laws.

We don't enforce stupid sodomy laws, stupid fornication laws, etc. that are still in the books. We don't seek out the maximum sentence or seek trial in every single criminal case. That is because of the practical impact, and we balance the pros and cons and strive to achieve a balance that is best for society. We may disagree on that balance, such as whether eliminating bail and allowing repeat offenders back into the street serves social and public justice, but we all do that. The worst type of ignoramus are those who are true believers and engage in purity tests, dictating strict adherence no matter the cost and assigning evil and good based on political allegiance in a black and white fashion.

Now, can we dislike Trump and still think that this has all the potential to set a horrible precedent and to take us down a path we don't want to go down where former presidents are prosecuted in what many may view rightly or wrongly as political and it starts becoming almost acceptable for successor administration to prosecute the former leader? Countries have violent transition of power because by peacefully surrendering power, the current leader thinks the successor will prosecute and imprison them.

Furthermore, now this is the news as opposed to what really happened on January 6th. Trump is probably loving this, and this is probably energizing the far right and even tilting those who may have started questioning Trump back to his camp as someone the far left is abusing (not arguing whether they are right or wrong in that belief).

We have a very special democracy with peaceful transition that was threaten by the selfish acts of Trump and his enablers. I am hoping that this administration, including the DOJ, appreciates the special considerations needed to protect and nurture our democracy against tyrants, tribalist and purist. Wanting caution and not blindly accepting any violation of norm because I want maximum pain for Trump does not make us now a Trump defender. Let's not engage in purity tests but consider the substance.

I am appealing to you because, as much as we disagree on core politics, we agree on decency and we agree on intellectual curiosity.

This only helps Trump and crosses a line that had not been crossed, so I am concerned. But I am still a law and order conservative, just like I was when I was bothered by Comey's letter.

calbear93 said:

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I think this line of reasoning is a bit dangerous.

I am a law and order conservative and I do question the wisdom of a raid of a former president's residence (something that has never been done before) before midterm election and in the midst of digesting the January 6th hearings.

From a practical standpoint and not from a pure black and white purist standpoint, think about the letter that Comey sent to Congress days before the election. One could argue that he was just following what was the procedure and should just enforce the law. That most likely cost Hillary the election even though it should never have been that close if she did not run the worst possible campaign in recent memory. There is a reason why what Comey did was so unorthodox especially right before an election.

We also engage in practicality when enforcing laws.

We don't enforce stupid sodomy laws, stupid fornication laws, etc. that are still in the books. We don't seek out the maximum sentence or seek trial in every single criminal case. That is because of the practical impact, and we balance the pros and cons and strive to achieve a balance that is best for society. We may disagree on that balance, such as whether eliminating bail and allowing repeat offenders back into the street serves social and public justice, but we all do that. The worst type of ignoramus are those who are true believers and engage in purity tests, dictating strict adherence no matter the cost and assigning evil and good based on political allegiance in a black and white fashion.

Now, can we dislike Trump and still think that this has all the potential to set a horrible precedent and to take us down a path we don't want to go down where former presidents are prosecuted in what many may view rightly or wrongly as political and it starts becoming almost acceptable for successor administration to prosecute the former leader? Countries have violent transition of power because by peacefully surrendering power, the current leader thinks the successor will prosecute and imprison them.

Furthermore, now this is the news as opposed to what really happened on January 6th. Trump is probably loving this, and this is probably energizing the far right and even tilting those who may have started questioning Trump back to his camp as someone the far left is abusing (not arguing whether they are right or wrong in that belief).

We have a very special democracy with peaceful transition that was threaten by the selfish acts of Trump and his enablers. I am hoping that this administration, including the DOJ, appreciates the special considerations needed to protect and nurture our democracy against tyrants, tribalist and purist. Wanting caution and not blindly accepting any violation of norm because I want maximum pain for Trump does not make us now a Trump defender. Let's not engage in purity tests but consider the substance.

I am appealing to you because, as much as we disagree on core politics, we agree on decency and we agree on intellectual curiosity.

This only helps Trump and crosses a line that had not been crossed, so I am concerned. But I am still a law and order conservative, just like I was when I was bothered by Comey's letter.

---

I think it's fair to question whether the juice is worth the squeeze, but it rings a bit hollow from a lot of people who are singing a different tune now than they were when Hillary was under investigation. The fact that Trump was POTUS doesn't make him any more above the law than it made Hillary who at the time was the frontrunner for the presidency and former first lady. I don't know whether you argued that Comey shouldn't have made any public statements in 2016 or how you felt about that situation but I think we can both readily agree that there are conservatives taking wildly different positions now. I never found fault with the investigation of Hillary - just with Comey's interference in the election with his ridiculous press conference and his October surprise.

The people involved in the Trump matter apparently attempted to make this as drama-free as possible (chose to do it when Trump wasn't at MAL) but you can only lower the profile so much. They have been waiting for 20 months for him to return this classified information and something triggered this search. We don't yet know exactly what it is but now reports are coming out that a confidential informant was working with the Feds. Yet another one of those people who Trump and MAGA land will have to claim is a bad hombre who hates America. We've seen this time and time again with Trump and know how the story goes. Trump forced the FBI's hand here and is now complaining that they did what he forced them to do. And lying about planting evidence because he knows he's guilty.

I do understand the concern that there are some negative repercussions to enforcing the law and there are a number of different circumstances where the Feds don't - for example, they handle sovereign citizens much differently now than 30 years ago. The fact that the Feds didn't collect all this classified information in early 2021 when it was learned he had taken it is an example of that and could lead to people claiming that Trump was treated as though he was above the law. At some point push comes to shove.

Will this ultimately be helpful to Trump's cause to be re-elected by idiots? I don't know. I do know that there will be a lot of Trump "critics" who will continue to shield him from criticism. Not you, but others here and certainly others out there.

"Trump is the first POTUS to be raided by the FBI. He's also the first to be impeached twice, the first to be a Kremlin asset, and the first to be a central figure in a transnational crime syndicate for numerous decades while our intel and law enforcement looked the other way."

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) August 10, 2022

Unit2Sucks said:

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calbear93 said:

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I think this line of reasoning is a bit dangerous.

I am a law and order conservative and I do question the wisdom of a raid of a former president's residence (something that has never been done before) before midterm election and in the midst of digesting the January 6th hearings.

From a practical standpoint and not from a pure black and white purist standpoint, think about the letter that Comey sent to Congress days before the election. One could argue that he was just following what was the procedure and should just enforce the law. That most likely cost Hillary the election even though it should never have been that close if she did not run the worst possible campaign in recent memory. There is a reason why what Comey did was so unorthodox especially right before an election.

We also engage in practicality when enforcing laws.

We don't enforce stupid sodomy laws, stupid fornication laws, etc. that are still in the books. We don't seek out the maximum sentence or seek trial in every single criminal case. That is because of the practical impact, and we balance the pros and cons and strive to achieve a balance that is best for society. We may disagree on that balance, such as whether eliminating bail and allowing repeat offenders back into the street serves social and public justice, but we all do that. The worst type of ignoramus are those who are true believers and engage in purity tests, dictating strict adherence no matter the cost and assigning evil and good based on political allegiance in a black and white fashion.

Now, can we dislike Trump and still think that this has all the potential to set a horrible precedent and to take us down a path we don't want to go down where former presidents are prosecuted in what many may view rightly or wrongly as political and it starts becoming almost acceptable for successor administration to prosecute the former leader? Countries have violent transition of power because by peacefully surrendering power, the current leader thinks the successor will prosecute and imprison them.

Furthermore, now this is the news as opposed to what really happened on January 6th. Trump is probably loving this, and this is probably energizing the far right and even tilting those who may have started questioning Trump back to his camp as someone the far left is abusing (not arguing whether they are right or wrong in that belief).

We have a very special democracy with peaceful transition that was threaten by the selfish acts of Trump and his enablers. I am hoping that this administration, including the DOJ, appreciates the special considerations needed to protect and nurture our democracy against tyrants, tribalist and purist. Wanting caution and not blindly accepting any violation of norm because I want maximum pain for Trump does not make us now a Trump defender. Let's not engage in purity tests but consider the substance.

I am appealing to you because, as much as we disagree on core politics, we agree on decency and we agree on intellectual curiosity.

This only helps Trump and crosses a line that had not been crossed, so I am concerned. But I am still a law and order conservative, just like I was when I was bothered by Comey's letter.

---

I think it's fair to question whether the juice is worth the squeeze, but it rings a bit hollow from a lot of people who are singing a different tune now than they were when Hillary was under investigation. The fact that Trump was POTUS doesn't make him any more above the law than it made Hillary who at the time was the frontrunner for the presidency and former first lady. I don't know whether you argued that Comey shouldn't have made any public statements in 2016 or how you felt about that situation but I think we can both readily agree that there are conservatives taking wildly different positions now. I never found fault with the investigation of Hillary - just with Comey's interference in the election with his ridiculous press conference and his October surprise.

The people involved in the Trump matter apparently attempted to make this as drama-free as possible (chose to do it when Trump wasn't at MAL) but you can only lower the profile so much. They have been waiting for 20 months for him to return this classified information and something triggered this search. We don't yet know exactly what it is but now reports are coming out that a confidential informant was working with the Feds. Yet another one of those people who Trump and MAGA land will have to claim is a bad hombre who hates America. We've seen this time and time again with Trump and know how the story goes. Trump forced the FBI's hand here and is now complaining that they did what he forced them to do. And lying about planting evidence because he knows he's guilty.

I do understand the concern that there are some negative repercussions to enforcing the law and there are a number of different circumstances where the Feds don't - for example, they handle sovereign citizens much differently now than 30 years ago. The fact that the Feds didn't collect all this classified information in early 2021 when it was learned he had taken it is an example of that and could lead to people claiming that Trump was treated as though he was above the law. At some point push comes to shove.

Will this ultimately be helpful to Trump's cause to be re-elected by idiots? I don't know. I do know that there will be a lot of Trump "critics" who will continue to shield him from criticism. Not you, but others here and certainly others out there.

"Trump is the first POTUS to be raided by the FBI. He's also the first to be impeached twice, the first to be a Kremlin asset, and the first to be a central figure in a transnational crime syndicate for numerous decades while our intel and law enforcement looked the other way."

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) August 10, 2022

---

Fair points. I do remain bothered and would love for there to be more clarity. I wish this administration had some actual professionals on the PR front. Their messaging has been absolutely horrible on so many fronts on so many big events.

As a point of clarification (as I think I also indicated here at the time), I think what Comey did right before the election with his letter and press conference was horrible violation of norms, showed lack of judgment, and was very CYA and self-serving. And we ended up with Trump. Purists will be the death of us all.

MinotStateBeav said:

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You got Trump because more people voted for him. Hillary was an unlikable clown responsible for the deaths of US servicemen because of her own incompetence. Comey can't fix that.

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I should have known you were the author of this piece of crap.

calbear93 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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[I think it's fair to question whether the juice is worth the squeeze, but it rings a bit hollow from a lot of people who are singing a different tune now than they were when Hillary was under investigation. The fact that Trump was POTUS doesn't make him any more above the law than it made Hillary who at the time was the frontrunner for the presidency and former first lady. I don't know whether you argued that Comey shouldn't have made any public statements in 2016 or how you felt about that situation but I think we can both readily agree that there are conservatives taking wildly different positions now. I never found fault with the investigation of Hillary - just with Comey's interference in the election with his ridiculous press conference and his October surprise.

The people involved in the Trump matter apparently attempted to make this as drama-free as possible (chose to do it when Trump wasn't at MAL) but you can only lower the profile so much. They have been waiting for 20 months for him to return this classified information and something triggered this search. We don't yet know exactly what it is but now reports are coming out that a confidential informant was working with the Feds. Yet another one of those people who Trump and MAGA land will have to claim is a bad hombre who hates America. We've seen this time and time again with Trump and know how the story goes. Trump forced the FBI's hand here and is now complaining that they did what he forced them to do. And lying about planting evidence because he knows he's guilty.

I do understand the concern that there are some negative repercussions to enforcing the law and there are a number of different circumstances where the Feds don't - for example, they handle sovereign citizens much differently now than 30 years ago. The fact that the Feds didn't collect all this classified information in early 2021 when it was learned he had taken it is an example of that and could lead to people claiming that Trump was treated as though he was above the law. At some point push comes to shove.

Will this ultimately be helpful to Trump's cause to be re-elected by idiots? I don't know. I do know that there will be a lot of Trump "critics" who will continue to shield him from criticism. Not you, but others here and certainly others out there.

"Trump is the first POTUS to be raided by the FBI. He's also the first to be impeached twice, the first to be a Kremlin asset, and the first to be a central figure in a transnational crime syndicate for numerous decades while our intel and law enforcement looked the other way."

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) August 10, 2022

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Fair points. I do remain bothered and would love for there to be more clarity. I wish this administration had some actual professionals on the PR front. Their messaging has been absolutely horrible on so many fronts on so many big events.

As a point of clarification (as I think I also indicated here at the time), I think what Comey did right before the election with his letter and press conference was horrible violation of norms, showed lack of judgment, and was very CYA and self-serving. And we ended up with Trump. Purists will be the death of us all.

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I'm not sure what the Biden administration can do on the PR front. They shouldn't comment on active law enforcement investigations. Trump decided to publicize this for political reasons.

Seems like Biden's hands are tied on this.

concordtom said:

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MinotStateBeav said:

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You got Trump because more people voted for him. Hillary was an unlikable clown responsible for the deaths of US servicemen because of her own incompetence. Comey can't fix that.

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I should have known you were the author of this piece of crap.

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Yeah he still doesn't know that Trump lost the popular vote by millions twice.

MinotStateBeav said:

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You got Trump because more people voted for him. Hillary was an unlikable clown responsible for the deaths of US servicemen because of her own incompetence. Comey can't fix that.

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We got Trump because he was able to con some of the dumbest voters in America (mostly those without anything more than a high school education) that he was not a politician and he was gonna DRAIN THE SWAMP.

Trump appealed to the voters in the Rust Belt who had lost their jobs to "outsourcing" and who were left behind after the economy recovered from the Great Recession of 2007 - 2009. Hillary Clinton ignored the Rust Belt. She took it for granted. In fact, she didnt even bother to visit Wisconsin.

Trump appointed the CEO of Exxon Mobil to be his Secretary of State, a Banker from Goldman Sachs to be his Treasury Secretary, a Billionaire to be his Commerce Secretary, and an Executive from Boeing to be his Defense Secretary who never served a day in our military.

Question: Do you believe that Exxon, Goldman Sachs, and Boeing arent part of The Swamp?

Taibbi Article
Welcome to the Third World

The FBI really better have something "pulverizing" on Trump, because otherwise we've just witnessed one of the dumbest moves in the history of politics

[The Justice Department] must immediately explain the reason for its raid and it must be more than a search for inconsequential archives, or it will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation and legitimacy of January 6 investigations.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo


Headline from Politics Insider this morning:

Quote:

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Feds likely obtained 'pulverizing' amount of evidence ahead of searching Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, legal experts say.

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Pulverizing! Hold that thought.
We've reached the stage of American history where everything we see on the news must first be understood as political theater. In other words, the messaging layer of news now almost always dominates the factual narrative, with the latter often reported so unreliably as to be meaningless anyway. Yesterday's sensational tale of the FBI raiding the Mar-a-Lago home of former president Donald Trump is no different.

As of now, it's impossible to say if Trump's alleged offense was great, small, or in between. But this for sure is a huge story, and its hugeness extends in multiple directions, including the extraordinary political risk inherent in the decision to execute the raid. If it backfires, if underlying this action there isn't a very substantial there there, the Biden administration just took the world's most reputable police force and turned it into the American version of the Tonton Macoute on national television. We may be looking at simultaneously the dumbest and most inadvertently destructive political gambit in the recent history of this country.

The top story today in the New York Times, bylined by its top White House reporter, speculates this is about "delayed returning" of "15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives." If that's true, and it's not tied to January 6th or some other far more serious offense, then the Justice Department just committed institutional suicide and moved the country many steps closer to once far-out eventualities like national revolt or martial law. This is true no matter what you think of Trump. Despite the early reports of "cheers" in the West Wing, the mood in center-left media has already drifted markedly from the overnight celebration. The Times story today added a line missing from most early reports: "The search, however, does not mean prosecutors have determined that Mr. Trump committed a crime." There are whispers throughout the business that editors are striking down certain jubilant language, and we can even see this playing out on cable, where the most craven of the networks' on-air ex-spooks are crab-crawling backward from last night's buzz-words:
[url=https://substack.com/redirect/b8b91ad9-b620-4bba-9e4a-d2b22864fb1b?r=owpqr][/url]
MSNBC'S Frank Figliuzzi says 'FBI agents do not like the term "raid"'. Moments later, MSNBC updates their lower third to "executes search warrant"

The hugeness of the story has become part of its explanation. An action so extreme, we're told by expert after expert, could only be based upon "pulverizing" evidence.
Throughout the Trump years we've seen a numbing pattern of rhetorical slippage in coverage of investigations. The aforementioned Politics Insider story is no different. "Likely" evidence in the headline becomes more profound in the text. An amazing five bylined writers explain:

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Regardless of the raid's focus legal experts quickly reached a consensus about it: A pile of evidence must have backed up the warrant authorizing the search.

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They then quoted a "former top official in the Justice Department's National Security Division" you'll quickly lose track if you try to count the named and unnamed intel spooks appearing in coverage today who said, "There's every reason to think that there's a plus factor in the quantum and quantity of evidence that the government already had to support probable cause in this case."
Politico insisted such an action must have required a magistrate's assent "based upon evidence of a potential crime." CNN wrote how authorities necessarily "had probable grounds to believe a crime had been committed," while the New York Times formulation was that "the F.B.I. would have needed to convince a judge that it had probable cause that a crime had been committed." Social media was full of credentialed observers explaining what must be true. "The affidavit in support of the MAL search warrant must be something else," said Harvard-trained former Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Signorelli, one among a heap of hyperventilating names:
(pic missing)
It's amazing how short our cultural memory has become. Apparently few remember all the other times this exact rhetoric was deployed in the interminable list of other Trump investigations, only to backfire later. Does anyone remember this doozy?

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Applications for FISA warrants, Comey said, are often thicker than his wrists, and that thickness represents all the work Justice Department attorneys and FBI agents have to do to convince a judge that such surveillance is appropriate in an investigation.

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That Washington Post story from April 11, 2017, "FBI obtained FISA warrant to monitor former Trump advisor Carter Page," by Devlin Barrett, Ellen Nakashima, and Adam Entous, was one of the key moments in the Trump-Russia scandal. It repeatedly stressed the illustrious credentials of all involved, noting, "any FISA application has to be approved at the highest levels of the Justice Department and the FBI," before dismounting to the crucial conclusion:

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The government's application for the surveillance order targeting Page included a lengthy declaration that laid out investigators' basis for believing that Page was an agent of the Russian government and knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow, officials said.

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The next day, the New York Times kicked the story forward by citing "a government official" who confirmed that the FISA court had obtained a warrant against Page "based on evidence that he was operating as a Russian agent."
Within a few days after that, Politics Insider the same outlet telling us today about the import of the warrant ran a piece by intel community spokescritter Natasha Bertrand called, "We just got a huge sign that the US intelligence community believes the Trump dossier is legitimate." The article deployed the circular logic that drove years of Trump-probe stories. We have evidence of an investigation, therefore the investigation must have evidence:

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The FBI reportedly used the explosive, unverified dossier detailing President Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia to bolster its case for a warrant that would allow it to surveil Carter Page, an early foreign-policy adviser to Trump's campaign. It's a key signal that the FBI had enough confidence in the validity of the document to work to corroborate it and present it in court.

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It's impossible to overstate how much mischief and inaccuracy was spread by one Washington Post report about the FISA court approval, which makes it all the more incredible that the paper won the Pulitzer Prize for its Russia coverage. The Entous/Nakashima/Barrett piece not only gave reporters license to tie Trump to an "agent of a foreign power," it soon enough became a key element of one of the most egregious press errors of the period, i.e. that the Steele dossier had been verified.

Former CIA officer John Sipher, another of the dozens of former intelligence officers who magically became press regulars in the last 6-8 years, took issue with real journalist Bob Woodward's assessment of the Steele reports as "garbage." Writing in Just Security in a piece republished for Slate, Sipher said "the fact that the FBI reportedly sought to work with him and to pay him to develop additional information on the sources suggest that at least some of them were worth taking seriously." He quoted another retired "senior intelligence officer" who said, "From my experience, there is nobody more miserly than the FBI. If they were willing to pay Mr. Steele, they must have seen something of real value."

This trick of talking about what evidence must have existed was used over and over. When Devin Nunes, then the House Intelligence Committee chief, came out with a memo suggesting the FISA process in the Page case had been corrupted, critics piled on, explaining that the process precluded such a possibility. Denouncing the "desperate, devious, dishonest Nunes memo" as having offended "reason," the Daily News thundered that "though the FISA court operates in strict secrecy, the standards for a successful surveillance application are known to be extraordinarily stringent."

Unnamed government sources and news outlets kept arguing that because the FBI would have had to corroborate information from the Steele dossier before using it in something as consequential as a FISA application, it must have done so. Therefore, Nunes was wrong and a dick. The Daily Beast used this logic to argue the FBI would have been "derelict" to not use the Steele material, because verification is "a technical requirement in a FISA application."
Many outlets, like Vox, noted that only the accusers had seen all the evidence, and the mere proles among us had not: "Law enforcement officials and Democrats who've seen the underlying intelligence," they wrote, "emphasize that the dossier allegations were only part of the justification for the Page surveillance." Callum Borchers in the Washington Post went the "FBI must have more" route:

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It is wrong to say that this "Western intelligence source," presumably Steele, formed the foundation of an article in which at least three other sources featured more prominently… And it is hard to see how the article could have been a big factor in obtaining a warrant because it contained little, if any, information that the FBI did not already possess or which was not in the public domain.

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Lest anyone need reminding about how all of these stories turned out, the Justice Department Inspector General found that "inaccurate information" and a host of other corrupted procedures were used to produce the "probable cause" in Page's FISA warrant. Michael Horowitz, the IG, also found "the FBI did not have information corroborating the specific allegations against Carter Page," and added, for the benefit of commentators like Borchers who insisted the Steele material was not, well, material, that it actually "played a central and essential role in the FBI's… decision to seek the FISA order."

Last night, the usual network suspects (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, etc.) were essentially unwatchable. Nobody asked crucial questions. Reporters across the industry spent the night doing what I did, calling every name in their phone directories in an effort to find out what was going on. Following the regular press I soon realized they were getting the same answers I was: the raid was over a records issue, likely (though not definitely) unconnected to January 6th, perhaps involving a missed deadline.

Some suggested the raid was linked to Trump's reported habit of tearing up presidential documents, and others wondered if there was a tie to a report yesterday in Axios by Times star writer Maggie Haberman, that ripped documents had been discovered clogging White House toilets after Trump's departure.
The instant reporters got hold of that limited information (and the top outlets seemed sure enough that "Focus Said to Be on White House Files" was in the Times lead headline), they should have been asking: is there anything weird about dozens of FBI agents executing an Entebbe-style raid of the home of a former president over a records issue?

Do we recall anything so dramatic in cases involving people like Bill Clinton's former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger (who was stuffing classified documents down his pants)? How about when Dick Cheney claimed an exemption to classification procedures and one of his aides, Leandro Aragoncillo, admitted in court to stealing classified info to pass on to coup plotters in the Philippines? For Christ's sake, one of the core principles of the Trump-era media is that the press erred in over-covering Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information. Do these news outlets think audiences won't notice the difference in attitude?

I am not and never will be a Donald Trump supporter. If and when he runs for president, I'll go through the long list of reasons I have for feeling that way. But as a journalist it's become impossible to believe that the endless investigations of Trump over the last six years have become anything but a permanent feature of his political opposition. That truth begins with the Trump-Russia scandal, which we now know was a hoax pursued as a real crime by a compromised police apparatus, after being concocted by Democrats. One of the officials involved in that mess was kind enough last night to tweet his "opinion" on the Mar-a-Lago raid:
[url=https://substack.com/redirect/b38f431b-7fab-4e2f-8ed9-38e62deed536?r=owpqr][/url]
The media is missing the really, really big reason why the raid today is a potential blockbuster in American politics.

When Marc Elias the former top attorney to the Hillary Clinton campaign, who oversaw another lawyer indicted for lying about his role in concocting Trump-Russia stories tells us outright that the "bombshell" angle now is that the charge in question could result in Trump's automatic disqualification from the 2024 elections, we should sit up and listen. It was already straight out of the Papa Doc/Mobutu playbook when Joe Biden was quoted in the New York Times saying he wanted his Attorney General Merrick Garland to hurry up and prosecute Trump, but using federal cops to disqualify the current poll leader of your opposition on a records technicality is pure fingernail-factory politics, I'm guessing scarier to many observers than the repeal of Roe v. Wade.[url=https://substack.com/redirect/b38f431b-7fab-4e2f-8ed9-38e62deed536?r=owpqr][/url]

Of course Trump should be investigated. I doubt there are many outside his voting base who would be surprised to learn he'd committed a probably serious crime (I've been waiting for years for a case to emerge out of Trump University or the Trump Soho deal). However, unless yesterday's events are tied, quickly, to an attempt by him to prevent Biden's 2020 certification, or an effort to game the electoral system ahead of 2024, or some other devastatingly serious crime, this is absolutely going to play as the crudest harassment. I worry particularly about the reported presence of counterintelligence agents at the raid, raising the specter which numerous sources told me is theoretically possible of parts of this investigation remaining secret. If any of this happens, the Biden administration will have achieved the impossible, turning Donald "Grab 'Em By the *****" Trump into a victim.

Moreover, they'll have guaranteed that the next Republican who wins the White House, if such a thing is allowed again, will tug at every rein of power to prevent ever having to leave and risk this kind of prosecution. Ask anyone who grew up in autocratic societies how that dynamic works. There has to be more than what we're hearing, or else yesterday otherwise a beautiful summer Monday will go down as an infamous crossroads, a day we passed a point of no return.

MinotStateBeav said:

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calbear93 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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calbear93 said:

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I think this line of reasoning is a bit dangerous.

I am a law and order conservative and I do question the wisdom of a raid of a former president's residence (something that has never been done before) before midterm election and in the midst of digesting the January 6th hearings.

From a practical standpoint and not from a pure black and white purist standpoint, think about the letter that Comey sent to Congress days before the election. One could argue that he was just following what was the procedure and should just enforce the law. That most likely cost Hillary the election even though it should never have been that close if she did not run the worst possible campaign in recent memory. There is a reason why what Comey did was so unorthodox especially right before an election.

We also engage in practicality when enforcing laws.

We don't enforce stupid sodomy laws, stupid fornication laws, etc. that are still in the books. We don't seek out the maximum sentence or seek trial in every single criminal case. That is because of the practical impact, and we balance the pros and cons and strive to achieve a balance that is best for society. We may disagree on that balance, such as whether eliminating bail and allowing repeat offenders back into the street serves social and public justice, but we all do that. The worst type of ignoramus are those who are true believers and engage in purity tests, dictating strict adherence no matter the cost and assigning evil and good based on political allegiance in a black and white fashion.

Now, can we dislike Trump and still think that this has all the potential to set a horrible precedent and to take us down a path we don't want to go down where former presidents are prosecuted in what many may view rightly or wrongly as political and it starts becoming almost acceptable for successor administration to prosecute the former leader? Countries have violent transition of power because by peacefully surrendering power, the current leader thinks the successor will prosecute and imprison them.

Furthermore, now this is the news as opposed to what really happened on January 6th. Trump is probably loving this, and this is probably energizing the far right and even tilting those who may have started questioning Trump back to his camp as someone the far left is abusing (not arguing whether they are right or wrong in that belief).

We have a very special democracy with peaceful transition that was threaten by the selfish acts of Trump and his enablers. I am hoping that this administration, including the DOJ, appreciates the special considerations needed to protect and nurture our democracy against tyrants, tribalist and purist. Wanting caution and not blindly accepting any violation of norm because I want maximum pain for Trump does not make us now a Trump defender. Let's not engage in purity tests but consider the substance.

I am appealing to you because, as much as we disagree on core politics, we agree on decency and we agree on intellectual curiosity.

This only helps Trump and crosses a line that had not been crossed, so I am concerned. But I am still a law and order conservative, just like I was when I was bothered by Comey's letter.

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I think it's fair to question whether the juice is worth the squeeze, but it rings a bit hollow from a lot of people who are singing a different tune now than they were when Hillary was under investigation. The fact that Trump was POTUS doesn't make him any more above the law than it made Hillary who at the time was the frontrunner for the presidency and former first lady. I don't know whether you argued that Comey shouldn't have made any public statements in 2016 or how you felt about that situation but I think we can both readily agree that there are conservatives taking wildly different positions now. I never found fault with the investigation of Hillary - just with Comey's interference in the election with his ridiculous press conference and his October surprise.

The people involved in the Trump matter apparently attempted to make this as drama-free as possible (chose to do it when Trump wasn't at MAL) but you can only lower the profile so much. They have been waiting for 20 months for him to return this classified information and something triggered this search. We don't yet know exactly what it is but now reports are coming out that a confidential informant was working with the Feds. Yet another one of those people who Trump and MAGA land will have to claim is a bad hombre who hates America. We've seen this time and time again with Trump and know how the story goes. Trump forced the FBI's hand here and is now complaining that they did what he forced them to do. And lying about planting evidence because he knows he's guilty.

I do understand the concern that there are some negative repercussions to enforcing the law and there are a number of different circumstances where the Feds don't - for example, they handle sovereign citizens much differently now than 30 years ago. The fact that the Feds didn't collect all this classified information in early 2021 when it was learned he had taken it is an example of that and could lead to people claiming that Trump was treated as though he was above the law. At some point push comes to shove.

Will this ultimately be helpful to Trump's cause to be re-elected by idiots? I don't know. I do know that there will be a lot of Trump "critics" who will continue to shield him from criticism. Not you, but others here and certainly others out there.

"Trump is the first POTUS to be raided by the FBI. He's also the first to be impeached twice, the first to be a Kremlin asset, and the first to be a central figure in a transnational crime syndicate for numerous decades while our intel and law enforcement looked the other way."

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) August 10, 2022

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Fair points. I do remain bothered and would love for there to be more clarity. I wish this administration had some actual professionals on the PR front. Their messaging has been absolutely horrible on so many fronts on so many big events.

As a point of clarification (as I think I also indicated here at the time), I think what Comey did right before the election with his letter and press conference was horrible violation of norms, showed lack of judgment, and was very CYA and self-serving. And we ended up with Trump. Purists will be the death of us all.

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You got Trump because more people voted for him. Hillary was an unlikable clown responsible for the deaths of US servicemen because of her own incompetence. Comey can't fix that.

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False. More people voted for Hillary.