The warrant and the inventory
William Jacobson writes this about the warrant and inventory:
The affidavits supporting the warrant have not been unsealed, and it’s unclear whether Trump would have a copy.
The inventory does not give any indication what the records were, other than that some were marked as having high classifications, such as:
2A – Various classified/TS/SCI documents
lOA – Miscellaneous Secret Documents
11A – Miscellanous Top Secret Documents
14-A – Miscellaneous Confidential DocumentsWhat also is clear is this was a wholesale rummaging through Trump’s office. They even seized a lot of boxes of documents that had no classification markings…
Fishing expedition, of course. That was a foregone conclusion.
There’s a lot more information at the link, including quotes from that WSJ article I quoted earlier today in my previous post.
Also from Professor Jacobson, this is Trump, writing on Truth Social:
Number one, it was all declassified [by Trump]. Number two, they didn’t need to “seize” anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request…
…They could have had it anytime they wanted—and that includes LONG ago. ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS ASK. The bigger problem is, what are they going to do with the 33 million pages of documents, many of which are classified, that President Obama took to Chicago?
That last question is rhetorical, of course. Trump knows, you know, and I know, they did nothing about that; he was allowed to just give them back (NOTE: actually, they are apparently still in storage with NARA – has no one gone through them yet?), just as Hillary was allowed to do whatever she did with her server.
Obama doesn’t exist. Only Trump exists. And he must be stopped by any means necessary.
I am not without hope; however, the Left’ victories have reached the point that we are in a rearguard stance.
And most cannot comprehend that we are fighting for our freedom because there have been no “bullets” fired at them.
I am 95% certain that at some point – our lifetimes, children’s lifetimes – we will be conquered unless we fight back now. See history.
• Either we will be conquered and forced to live under doctrine & laws we do not believe or support [not benefit all]
• Or those who we defeat will be forced to live under doctrine & laws they do not believe or support [benefit all]
• Even if we win, that dynamic and conflict will not end in our lifetimes because destructive & dangerous concepts have taken root
“…over a dozen more boxes not involving classified information. This supports Andy McCarthy’s theory that the possession of classified documents was a pretext for a more wide-ranging sweep of Trump.”
From the LI article you quoted.
It still doesn’t preclude the retrieval of the Crossfire Hurricane binder. This has been studiously ignored by the media- not even casually mentioning them. Everything has focused on the nuclear secrets head fake. It does make it sound serious though.
I think that, after spending years trying to get “crossfire Hurricane” documents declassified, he just decided “to Hell with it” and to fight it out in the open. Barr, by the way, is a villain in this.
That’s definitely plausible, Mike K.
Barr, by the way, is a villain in this.
Mike K:
Curious why you say that…. I haven’t followed Barr all that closely.
He stood against declassification except in the flynn case he enabled the election fraud to be unpunished he was very reactive with the hunter laptop etc etc
I’ll just remind everyone that early in Barr’s tenure as AG, he was asked rather incredulously in open House session “You aren’t saying spying on Trump by the FBI actually occurred are you?!” To which he basically responded “Yes, it did.”
From that point on, Barr was obligated to do something about it, and he behaved as if he simply forgot about it! He had the chance to defend America and he chose not to, and we are living with that choice today!
They classify documents mostly to coverup the government’s misdeeds.
I once had a Top-Secret clearance a long time ago. I had the read all the TS messages that came to our Air Group aboard the USS Midway. I was dumbfounded to find information classified as TS that I later read in Stars and Stripes and Newsweek. It seemed to me that much of the traffic was over classified. I imagine it may be worse today.
Since Trump had the authority to declassify anything, he declassified things the Deep State didn’t want out. This may explain the RAID.
The DOJ thinks they are Inspector Javert. I think they are closer to Inspector Clouseau. They are alarming a lot of people who might have voted for the Ds.
Nate with the current facts of the case He also did a new one on Breonna Taylor.
Theres a whole lot of conjecture there
That escalated quickly
https://meaninginhistory.substack.com/p/jonathan-turleys-5-questions-re-the
Interesting points raised by commenters at LI …
… and MIH.
Note that this is not the only time someone has pointed out the nuanced quality of Garland’s statement.
There were 315 comments at Turley’s post itself, so I didn’t check through those.
The post just prior to Turley’s “Five Questions” was on which should also give us pause – can we even be sure that the truth of the raid is getting out to the non-conservative-outlet-reading public?
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/08/12/twitter-permanently-bans-paul-sperry-after-posting-on-the-mar-a-lago-raid/
Here’s Turley’s own post on the raid.
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/08/11/the-mar-a-lago-raid-criminal-prosecution-or-political-indemnification/
From his post at The Hill (which is not always totally loony left):
“Appears” is the operative word.
The Archivists’ Lament is the cover story.
Everybody except the lawyers-cum-pundits seems to understand that.
And Turley never even mentions here the most popular candidate for the FBI’s actual goal (he does throw it in later): the retrieval of incriminating records from the Crossfire Hurricane & Dossier coup attempts showing in clear text who did what to persecute and obstruct President Trump for 4 years (and more perfidy before and after, if Sundance at CTH is correct, and he is very persuasive IMO).
For those interested in the opinions of Sundance at The Conservative Tree House aka The Last Refuge.
These are very long posts, and somewhat repetitious, because they cover a lot of territory that he has been investigating since 2017. Much of it will be familiar to Neo’s readers; some may be new to some of you, if you don’t read him regularly.
These four posts put it all in one narrative package.
He makes a plausible case about the malfeasance (much too mild a word) of the Obama and Biden administrations as both primaries and agents of the Deep State (yes, Mollie Hemingway got that right), how they were enabled to pervert well-intentioned resources (and maybe not so well-intentioned), and what they did to subvert America’s government and democratic values.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/08/11/part-1-why-did-the-doj-and-fbi-execute-the-raid-on-trump-the-story-behind-the-documents/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/08/11/part-2-why-did-the-doj-and-fbi-execute-the-raid-on-trump-the-evidence-within-the-documents/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/08/11/part-3-why-did-the-doj-and-fbi-execute-the-raid-on-trump-a-culmination-of-four-years-of-threats-and-betrayals/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/08/11/part-4-what-was-in-the-trump-documents-creating-such-fear-in-doj-and-fbi/
Bonus from CTH: post and comment.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/08/11/watch-for-falling-anvils-the-washington-post-claims-fbi-raid-was-looking-for-super-secret-nuclear-intel-in-mar-a-lago/
They should have gone with the aliens angle. I said earlier today after watching the frozen-faced, nervous teleprompter reading from AG Merrick Garland, that Main Justice and the FBI had completely embarrassed themselves and likely came up empty in their raid on Mar-a-Lago.
The reason is simple, when you put a tribe of rabid leftists together in a room long enough, they will collectively concoct the goofiest plans in an effort to advance their quests. The DOJ and FBI lawfare tribe are no different. The Washington Post is now claiming the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago was connected to some “nuclear information” in Donald Trump’s possession.
…
As the theory is presented, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un were speaking in coded language about rockets and missiles. President Trump called Chairman Kim “little rocket man”, and said the USA had bigger missiles.
Contemplate that type of insufferably innocuous nonsense long enough and in desperation it evolves into a plan to claim a national security threat might exist. Quick, grab Boris and Natasha and raid the estate…. but watch for dropping Acme anvils.
…
Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket. Comrade Donald and Comrade Melania were building an atomic missile in the Mar-a-Lago basement in order to advance their insurrection efforts.
Good grief. Can these Deep State stenographers even hear themselves as they type?
I am more convinced than ever they DOJ/FBI were on a fishing expedition, looking for something, anything, that could compromise Donald Trump legally. They came up empty, and now the entire world is looking at the way the FBI acted. The DOJ is stuck grasping for any justification -regardless of how silly it is- in order to extricate themselves from the mess they created.
It has to be something super serious in order to justify the extreme nature of the raid itself. Probable cause likely came down to aliens or nuclear missile technology… they chose the latter.
“Boris” to “Natasha”:
‘Quick Melania, before we go to New Jersey, put the nuclear missile plans in your sock drawer.’
Sarasotosfan
August 12, 2022 3:31 am
Those types of documents have a paper trail miles long. Anyone who believes this explanation is rational is a damn fool.
Hmmm. Got my HTML reversed somehow. Missed the edit window.
Well, well, well… Paul Sperry | FBI agents who raided Trump under criminal investigation by John Durham…”
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/paul-sperry-fbi-agents-who-raided-trump-under-criminal-investigation-by-john-durham/
“Sen. Ron Johnson Calls For FBI, DOJ Employees To Come Forward With Info On Trump Mar-A-Lago Raid”
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2022%2F08%2F11%2Fsenator-ron-johnson-letter-mar-a-lago-trump-raid-fbi-doj-whistleblower%2F
They thought that the news that FBI agents had conducted a raid on Mar A Lago would cause the public to believe that their inquisition is serious business, and “the walls are closing in;”
They thought that this would result in Trump’s political career being ended, as his political credibility would plummet
They thought that Trump would fold, give up his plans to disclose the corruption of the DOJ and FBI.
They were wrong, and it backfired hugely on them.
They never learn, but they don’t pay any price, so why should they.
The national pundit class is now playing the game of–“let’s pretend that there must be some really good, non-corrupt reason for this–if true, then Trump must be in real trouble.”
Instead of–Holy crap–this is government corruption absolutely out of control-this is the biggest scandal in our political history.
John Hindraker’s comment is probably what the deepstate was looking for. Basically slime Trump with the raid, and then claim can’t comment due to the midterms, or it’s an active investigation.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/08/the-latest-on-the-mar-a-lago-raid.php
“ blackened Trump, rightly or wrongly, with a charge of careless handling of government secrets”
Lots of the eGOP is going along with this, hoping this destroys Trump finally.
What they missed due to hubris, is Trump is an amazing counter puncher.
Just a reminder— Bill and Hillary knowingly took bags of illegal cash from the top Chinese military spy. Entertained him in the Oval Office. The payoff was appointing John Huang to Commerce with a top secret clearance. Huang had no duties at Commerce other than monitoring top secret cables and receiving briefings from the CIA. 57 times CIA brought secret files to his office for him to review and take notes. After the CIA meetings, Huang would go to a secret office down the street in a bank run by an Arkansas crony of the Clintons and send a detailed fax to his handlers in the Far East. CIA assets working undercover for the US were liquidated as a result.
“Obama doesn’t exist. Only Trump exists. And he must be stopped by any means necessary.”
If Trump’s enemies – the entire DC establishment and their pals – believe that Trump will become the next president, Trump will die prematurely and not due to natural causes.
I would remind people here about the “two movie” phenomenon that Scott Adams so deftly described a few years ago. I saw it play out last February with the Canadian truckers, thinking that even my left-wing Canadian friends might have a glimmer of sympathy with them (they were sick of lockdowns themselves), but no — they wholly subscribed to “Nazis are descending on Ottawa!” narrative.
The raid might seem obvious overreach to us here. But my husband listens to mainstream radio while in the car, and he tells me the radio was filled with Michael Beschloss and others ranting about nuclear secrets and treason and the death penalty. My mother and sister for two, who aren’t particularly political (i.e. MSNBC and NPR are their only news sources) *believe* every word that those odious outlets purvey, and I think they aren’t unusual at all.
We can’t talk politics with my family of course (which also means I can’t even talk about the weather! or inflation, etc. — whatever happen to discussion in America?), so I measure the tension in the air when I’m around them. It was very high at the election, the inauguration, the initial phase of the Ukraine war, and I am getting very bad vibes right now as well. The J6 thing failed somewhat as an agitation (although it is accepted as gospel) as the “insurrection” obviously didn’t come off, and inflation and supply chain problems dampen the mood. But this has has a whole “the FBI has “kept us safe, he was about to kill us all!!!” about it.
I am always a pessimist, but I think the danger here is real.
“Cornflour” in some thread recommended N. S. Lyons’ essay “It’s Not Hypocrisy, You’re Just Powerless”, which I’d like to second:
https://tinyurl.com/32kvakep
American Greatness this morning had an essay:
https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/12/america-never-existed/
which attempts to categorize the various conservative camps as to how we should respond to the obvious decay/collapse of our system. Not great, but worth a read.
well except for major hasan, the tsarnaev brother, the san bernandino gang, the pulse shooter, the parkland shooter, the las vegas shooter, et al, well that’s true as far as it goes,
mccabe one of the more odious deepstaters, was involved in the process that should have flagged any of all of these characters, yet he kept getting promoted,
@ Geoffrey > “Paul Sperry | FBI agents who raided Trump under criminal investigation by John Durham”
Well, well, well indeed. We’ll have to see how that plays out.
Earlier this morning, I referenced a post by Turley about this incident:
Surely that’s just a coincidence.
@ RaySoCal > “John Hindraker’s comment is probably what the deepstate was looking for. Basically slime Trump with the raid, and then claim can’t comment due to the midterms, or it’s an active investigation.”
You are correct to a point, because they certainly will do what you paraphrased here (note my reference above to the importance of the date of the raid), although it’s not exactly what John said.
However, he continued in the same vein we usually associate with the RINOs, GOPe, NeverTrumpers, and other faux conservatives (which I don’t believe him to be), and got soundly ratioed in his own comment section, especially over the bolded remarks.
The lowest blows were by the commenters wondering if he was really Paul Mirengoff using John’s byline.
IMO that was more a bit of careless phrasing concerning the legal process and outcome, rather than a lack of concern about the tactics of the raid itself (which he doesn’t quite denounce here but did earlier*), because he is focusing on the alleged reason for the raid, which is now generally dismissed by the right as being a pretext for a fishing expedition, or something even more malign.
It’s kind of like John is taking the FBI literally but not seriously, and the rest of us are taking them seriously, but not literally.
In this case, I am siding with the commenters who ARE concerned about the circumstances of the raid and its ultimate objective, which has not been disclosed yet, but may be in the documents that we haven’t seen – the reasons they gave the judge for requesting the warrant.
*Relevant passage
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/08/observations-on-the-mir-a-lago-raid.php
BTW, I scan the comments sections at several blogs for those which have a high standard of discourse, because they usually include people with expertise in relevant fields, good reasoning ability, articulateness, and sometimes a shrewder appreciation for the realities of a blog post’s substance than does its author.
Remember that it was the crowd-sourced investigation at Powerline itself that revealed the truth about Dan Rather’s faked Bush National Guard memo.
President Trump “trained” with the NY Corruptocrats. He knows the game. I loved the empty safe. The Feebes expected a trove of documents, and especially data about the “Grifters” and lists of Epstein’s ” Pedo People”. They got laughter and a chance to sniff Melania’s undies.
AF,
The RAID was pure thuggery on an extravagant** scale.
And it points to even more incendiary thuggery in the future, such is the nature of “Biden” and the highest of high stakes for which “he” “plays”…with absolutely no compunction, limit, conscience or morals.
Count on it.
** One might hesitate to use the word “UNPRECEDENTED”—even if in this context it is precisely that—simply because of all the thuggery demonstrated since 2009; simply because it perfectly fits Obama’s thuggish M.O. WRT to his early-career Chicago shenanigans, the “Fast and Furious” scandal, the Tea Party/IRS scandal, going after journalists, the JCPOA BS, Russiagate, the Flynn defenestration, the fake impeachments, the Obamacare fiasco, the Nov. 2020 election, the Jan. 6. entrapment hoax, ETC…
As VPOTUS Biden—make that “DECENT” Joe Biden—is famous for declaring, once upon a time (I’m paraphrasing), the MOST “scandal-free” administration in history!!
‘ “DECENT” Joe Biden’ (continued)…
“Spokin’ Joe is wheely spiteful”—
https://nypost.com/2022/08/14/joe-biden-is-really-spiteful/
H/T Powerline blog.
Few can say it better than the perceptive, fearless Miranda Devine:
‘…If there is one defining adjective for Biden’s presidency, it probably is spite. His consuming hatred for “the former guy”, whose name he often can’t bring himself to utter, is palpable.
‘He makes no secret of the fact that he despises Trump voters, too, all 74,223,369 of them. . His unusual malice…has had a corrosive effect on America….’
(Um, just a second, “unusual”? Really? Hmm, maybe it OUGHT TO BE unusual…except that it’s become “de rigueur”…)
Well…maybe a rare slip-up; or maybe…just a dose of irony….
Whatever. Here’s a mega-dose:
‘…If only Biden had been the unifying president he promised he would be, and shown a little grace in victory, commended Trump for Operation Warp Speed, perhaps, not spitefully unwound all his policies, not branded half the country “white supremacists” and “domestic terrorists” in his inaugural speech, not sicced the FBI onto parents at school board meetings, not weaponized the federal government’s security apparatus against his political enemies, not supersized the IRS to go after the little guy, not tanked the economy and lied about absolutely everything…” ‘
All too true…nonetheless, should one make allowances for the “President”‘s rather serious, um, limitations….? (Or for the fact that it’s not even him who’s initiating any of the “Presidential” decisions?)
Alas, the charade—puppet show, actually—continues….
For now, one must be grateful that there are still courageous and honest journalists who are willing and able to call it out for what it is.
File under: “O brave [New York Post], that has such people in ‘t…”
Remember that it was the crowd-sourced investigation at Powerline itself that revealed the truth about Dan Rather’s faked Bush National Guard memo.
I don’t think Powerline specifically. If there were nerve centers, it would have been Free Republic and Little Green Footballs. Among those exposing the fraud was an attorney in Atlanta who went by the handle ‘Buckhead’, Charles Johnson, and, especially, Joseph Newcomer. Dr. Newcomer at the time was a computer science professor without political affiliations and had the goods on features of the Killian material that could not have been produced on a typewriter. Other’s chimed in with images of advertisements for high-end specialty typewriters that IBM had placed in trade journals in the early 1970s.
simply because it perfectly fits Obama’s thuggish M.O. WRT to his early-career Chicago shenanigans,
Obama’s a spiteful and unscrupulous man, but he bears little resemblance to a Chicago pol. A lapsed reporter I correspond with (now employed in state government) offered this opinion: politics as practiced by Chicago aldermen and their minions is a labor-intensive enterprise that incorporates vigorous people skills and a genuine interest in others; Obama never had the interest or skill set to prosper in that world.
Former CIA director and retired four-star Army general David Petraeus was accused of giving access to classified information to his alleged lover. Although prosecutors reportedly wanted to file serious felony charges, Petraeus also was given a generous plea deal without jail time.
She wasn’t an alleged anything. She was his paramour. His wife was most distressed. She was also a veteran, engaged in writing a scholarly biography of him, and had been granted security clearances.
Art Deco:
He used signature challenges to kick his primary opponents off the ballot in his first race, and MSM campaigns to unseal unsavory court records for later opponents for his Senate race.
He used signature challenges to kick his primary opponents off the ballot in his first race, and MSM campaigns to unseal unsavory court records for later opponents for his Senate race.
It’s not altogether clear who was responsible other than the media for publishing other candidate’s confidential divorce files. The media is responsible, of course, and if they were men of honor the files would have been turned over to the candidates in question and the names of the sources who gave the records to the papers would have been published, forwarded to the injured party, or forwarded to the prosecutor. Since the media does not employ men of honor, this was not done. I would assume the Obama campaign had a co-operative mole in the court system or county clerk’s office, but it’s not clear to me who did what.
As for the petition challenges, that’s just rough-and-tumble local politics. Unless the judge was crooked (and that’s possible), her petitions got thrown off because she and her staff were negligent or deceitful. Yes, I have been both a plaintiff and a defendant in petition challenges. I’ve been told that Democratic and Republican petitions in my home county are often shot through with error and fraud, but there’s a gentlemen’s agreement between the parties to leave the other party’s petitions in peace. The challenges are derived from intra-party disputes. I should note that her conduct toward Obama was obnoxious enough that she was asking for it.
Art Deco:
It’s rough and tumble CHICAGO politics too. Very typical. That was the issue being discussed, wasn’t it?
I think it’s very clear that Obama and Obama forces were behind the unsealing. They had cooperation, of course. I wrote several posts about it.
It’s rough and tumble CHICAGO politics too. Very typical. That was the issue being discussed, wasn’t it?
I’ve set foot in Chicago once in my life leaving aside the airport and the train station. I apprenticed in a low-end-of-second-tier city in Upstate New York.
A challenge process is a necessary feature of a ballot designation system that includes petitioning. Some areas have less crud in the petition process than others, for reasons both structural and cultural. There are ways of improving the process, but state legislatures accomplish little on such matters. No candy in it for anyone.