FBI Raids Fmr. President's Mar-A-Lago Residence

[Webster]

...say whatever you want about the FBI, but they don't do this unless either (a) they've got a fuck-ton of evidence and (b) the Atty. Gen. himself signed off on it....

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

Are you kidding the fbi stopped being a trustworthy organization since Obama era. It’s just a political organization that carries guns. Evidence is something they don’t worry about much anymore.


So this is what a banana republic looks like. The fbi is now the new third world dictators left hand to go after people they don’t like.

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

The American storm troopers got him.

 

[Webster]

@WHO IS SERAFIN, if Trump's done nothing wrong, he's got nothing to worry about.

 

[Webster]

(The Guardian) Overnight Donald Trump launched a new campaign video on his Truth Social network, just hours after he had complained bitterly about his Mar-a-Lago residence being searched by the FBI.

The nearly four minute video paints a bleak picture of life in the United States during a lengthy black and white section which opens “we are a nation in decline, we are a failing nation”, then bursts into colour later on with a promise from Trump that “the best is yet to come”.

The video stops short of saying that Trump will run for 2024, but is as close as you can get to an election campaign video.

Clearly filmed before the FBI executed their search warrant, nevertheless at one point in the video Trump tells viewers “We’re a nation that has weaponized its law enforcement against the opposing political party like never before. We’ve never seen anything like this. We’re a nation that no longer has a free and fair press. Fake news is about all you get. We are a nation where free speech is no longer allowed.”

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You may recall Alexander Vindman, the retired United States Army lieutenant colonel who retired claiming he had been bullied by President Trump and administration officials after he responded to a subpoena and testified in front of Congress during the hearings for Trump’s first impeachment.

Vindman has clearly woken up with a zing in his step today, and has fired off this tweet: Hey GOP/MAGA/Fox News , if Trump and his henchmen can launch a campaign of harassment, intimidation, and retaliation against a serving Army Officer for testifying before Congress, it can happen to anyone.

 

[Webster]

Admin's Note: Due to the seriousness of what happened here, I've decided to go ahead and sticky the thread for the time being. Thank you.

 

[Webster]

(The Guardian) If you missed it earlier, the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief David Smith offered this analysis, saying that Republicans have dusted off a familiar playbook to weaponise the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search: Republicans responded furiously to the development, following Trump’s lead in claiming that the search showed the justice department waging a politically motivated witch-hunt. Their florid rhetoric will do little to assuage fears that a prosecution of Trump could lead to social unrest and even political violence. Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Countless times we have examples of Democrats flouting the law and abusing power with no recourse.

The Republican response on Monday drew from a familiar playbook: Trump has long maintained that the Russia investigation, for example, was a “hoax” and part of a “deep state” conspiracy against him. Scrutiny of his removal of presidential records, or his role in the January 6 insurrection, is likely to produce a similar backlash.

David Axelrod, ex-strategist under Barack Obama, said: “This is why Trump is going to run. He wants to portray any criminal probe or prosecution as a plot to prevent him from once again becoming POTUS. Many of his followers will believe it – as they did his lies about the LAST election.”

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Over at the Washington Post, in his analysis piece, Aaron Blake goes straight for what he sees as a weakness in Republican arguments that the FBI executing a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago is an unprecedented politically motivated abuse of the justice system. He writes this morning: Trump has marshalled his army of supporters to declare, in knee-jerk fashion, any legal scrutiny of him a deep-state operation. It’s also an army that, it bears noting, was once quite consumed with the import of document security by would-be presidential candidates — and quite happy to promote the idea that their preferred candidate ought to “lock” such an opponent “up.”

Trump’s handling of government documents has long been a focal point. The question from there is whether this is a matter that merits a search warrant. That the Justice Department would go this route would seem to suggest it sees something potentially incriminating beyond merely shoddy record-keeping and document retention. The department knows this decision will be harshly scrutinized; going down this path only for its destination to be a minor finding, ending in a slap on the wrist, isn’t worth the blowback it’ll get from 40 to 45 percent of the country.

It also bears noting that this portion of the country was once quite laser-focused on keeping tabs on potentially sensitive government documents. Trump’s best attack on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign was her private email server. Many of those who raised alarm bells about that were very quiet when we learned that government documents had made their way to Mar-a-Lago.

 

[Webster]

(The Guardian) George Conway, a lawyer and a Washington Post contributing columnist, has appeared on CNN early this morning in the US from Ventnor City in New Jersey, questioning what could have made US Attorney General Merrick Garland sign off a search like this. Conway said: You have to meet the basic standard of any search warrant. You have to show probable cause that someone – might not be Donald Trump – committed a crime and probable cause that there is evidence of that crime in the location being searched. And you have to particularise exactly what it is that you’re looking for. And you have to put that all in an affidavit that a federal judge reviews and then makes a determination that there is sufficient cause to invade someone’s privacy and to come into someone’s home and to do this.

That’s one thing, but this is a former president, and the political consequences, the national consequences, of going over your skis on this are just too huge for anything. But [it would take] the most significant evidence I think, that would justify Merrick Garland, who is a cautious person, to authorise this, and it had to be authorised by him personally.

And so you have to ask, what is it about this particular circumstance that has led the Justice Department to this step? Obviously, they don’t quite trust him [Trump], because they obviously don’t think that subpoenaing or requesting documents from him, will get them the answers they want, but what is it that they want?

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Richard Wolffe has written is column for us today on the topic of Donald Trump. He argues that, finally, Donald Trump’s misdeeds are catching up with him: Sources close to the FBI (normally the secret code for the FBI press office) say that Monday’s raid was concerned with finding any more of those rogue records that mysteriously accompanied Trump to Florida. Trump somehow purloined 15 boxes of materials requested by the National Archives.

In the hands of any other president, these records might have helped with the writing of those all-important presidential memoirs. But in the tiny hands of Donald Trump, they are unlikely to be intended for book-writing purposes.

That leads us to speculate what kind of probable cause the FBI has to seek a warrant to bust open Trump’s safe. The pressing needs of the National Archives are almost certainly not the foundation for this particular exercise of law enforcement powers.

We obviously could speculate about the kind of papers the FBI might be looking for. There has been a singular tear in the time-space continuum around the person of Donald Trump on January 6 of last year. Secret service texts have disappeared down digital wormholes, along with Pentagon records. Presidential call logs appear mysteriously blank.

 

[Smiley]

 

[Webster]

(The Guardian) The big question behind the FBI search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home is that of the documents seized by agents.

As the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, Trump has previously come under scrutiny for his flagrant violations of the Presidential Records Act of 1978 – mandating the preservation of White House documents – and that the justice department was at Mar-a-Lago over the removal of 15 boxes of presidential records from the White House, including classified documents, as well as the destruction of other materials.

Some appear to be downplaying the seriousness of this offense. A legal expert told Politico Playbook today that if the FBI conducted the search of Mar-a-Lago just for the classified documents, then Trump will be re-elected president in 2024. “If they raided his home just to find classified documents he took from the White House,” the legal expert told Politico, “he will be re-elected president in 2024, hands down. It will prove to be the greatest law enforcement mistake in history.”

However, a violation of the presidential records act has consequences – most significantly, disqualification from holding office.

 

[Smiley]

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

@WHO IS SERAFIN, if Trump's done nothing wrong, he's got nothing to worry about.

Ha!!! Lol! That’s the most silly thing said in the 21st century. They have the most corrupt agents doing this I wonder what the setup will be with the planted evidence?

 

[Webster]

Ha!!! Lol! That’s the most silly thing said in the 21st century. They have the most corrupt agents doing this I wonder what the setup will be with the planted evidence?

Its' the truth. And if anyone "planted" evidence it was Trump thinking he was above the law....

 

[Webster]

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

Its' the truth. And if anyone "planted" evidence it was Trump thinking he was above the law....

It ain’t the truth, lol! The government our founders created is gone.

 

[Webster]

The government our founders created is gone.

Where? Its' still there.....

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

Where? Its' still there.....

It’s just a shadow.

 

[Webster]

It’s just a shadow.

But its' still there.

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

But its' still there.

For now, it’s just a matter of being the survivor when it all comes down. I suspect 20 years unless we get a successful constitution convention

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]