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Home » Margot Cleveland and new revelations about the MAL raid

Margot Cleveland and new revelations about the MAL raid

The New Neo Posted on by

At The Federalist, Margot Cleveland has seven very interesting observations about Judge Cannon’s written decision ordering a Special Master to review the documents seized in the MAL raid. Here are three of them I want to highlight.

The first concerns a letter sent by the NARA archivist to Trump’s lawyer back in May, after Trump had claimed executive privilege for some documents and the acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall had consulted with the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, and then had decided not to honor Trump’s claim of privilege. Here’s what Cleveland writes:

Monday’s order highlighted a key sentence in that same letter and that went less noticed by the press: “NARA will provide the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President, beginning as early as Thursday, May 12, 2022” (emphasis added).

This language indicates that Biden did not merely defer to the NARA but asked the NARA to give the documents to the FBI. Of course, deferring to the NARA’s judgment equated to Biden authorizing the hand-off to the FBI, but this passage suggests a more direct connection between Biden and the investigation into Trump.

Biden has denied any connection or even any knowledge, of course.

This subsequent point of Cleveland’s is connected:

In opposing Trump’s request for a special master, the Biden administration argued that Trump lacked the right to assert “executive privilege” against the current executive branch. The court concluded that the Biden administration’s “position arguably overstates the law,” noting that the Supreme Court has not “rule[d] out the possibility of a former President overcoming an incumbent President on executive privilege matters.”

“Further, just this year,” Cannon continued, “the Supreme Court noted that, at least in connection with a congressional investigation, ‘[t]he questions whether and in what circumstances a former President may obtain a court order preventing disclosure of privileged records from his tenure in office, in the face of a determination by the incumbent President to waive the privilege, are unprecedented and raise serious and substantial concerns.’” To protect former President Trump’s ability to raise a question of executive privilege, then, a special master should review the documents and make an initial assessment, the court concluded.

And in my opinion that should have been done at the outset, either prior to the raid or immediately afterward. Apparently for some unknown reason, however, Trump’s lawyers didn’t file to do this immediately; perhaps it took them a while to research the law on it, or perhaps it was something else. And then the judge took a long time after that to issue the ruling.

To me the behavior of the DOJ is just another indication that the left doesn’t ever expect to lose power. It’s my impression (as far as I know, anyway) that one of the reasons this issue has not been adjudicated before – of a later president who is hostile to the previous president waiving privilege for the former president for matters involving that former president’s administration – is that no previous president has attempted to do so. And if that’s correct, it seems rather obvious to me that no president would want to set that precedent for fear that a subsequent president hostile to him would respond in kind. Each president would seem to want to preserve his own right to assert executive privilege for himself.

That’s why it seems to me that the Biden administration doesn’t ever expect to encounter such a scenario because they don’t ever expect a president from the other side to take office, and even if such a thing were to somehow happen, the DOJ would remain firmly in the left’s hands.

More from Cleveland:

Another revelation from Monday’s order concerned the amount of personal material the FBI seized. “The Government’s inventory reflects a seizure of approximately 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items from Plaintiff’s residence,” the court wrote. Of the material seized, the court said approximately 100 documents contained classification markings. But the FBI also seized some 500 pages of material potentially protected by attorney-client privilege, medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information.

That the FBI seized Trump’s passports, articles of clothing, medical records, and accounting and tax documents during the raid of Mar-a-Lago highlights both the breadth (and lack of particularity) of the search warrant and the potential for the Biden administration to use the search as a fishing expedition.

Please read the whole thing.

Comments

Margot Cleveland and new revelations about the MAL raid — 71 Comments

  2. Seems to me the timeliness is documents under the Trump administration are up to DJT to decide, he is not holding on to documents after he has left office. Sundowner trying to reclassification those is rewriting law then calling the new law to convict a event previously.
    #4 on Margot ‘s articleI fully assume by midnight of the raid everything was photographed and copied to be spread around.

  3. The breadth of the seizures indicates that the fight over archive documents is a diversion. This was a fishing expedition looking for damning material about J6. I bet they thought it was in the safe.

  4. … that went less noticed by the press:

    Sometimes sarcasm isn’t obvious when it’s written. Is this sarcasm?

  5. the give away was in one of the non redacted lines, any document in the previous four years was fair game,

  6. I saw Bill Barr on Fox this afternoon. He says that the Special Master ruling is premature, because all of the materials are still within the executive branch. This is naïveté in the extreme. He’s a good man, but an institutionalist one, and apparently can’t let go of the idea that the DOJ is to some extent impartial.

  7. “the left doesn’t ever expect to lose power” neo

    Were that the case, they would not be so fearful of Trump regaining the Presidency.

    It is fair to conclude that the left is determined to never again lose power.

    Yet in seeking to solidify their power to an unchallengeable extent, they are forced to resort to unprecedented levels of the very extremism they purport to deplore, most recently evidenced by their mouthpiece now having effectively declared at least 74 million American adults to be traitors.

    As what other term might better apply to Americans who threaten “the very foundation of our republic”?

    That is an all or nothing bet. One they have to act upon. They mean “to cut down all the laws” to get after those deplorable, traitorous MAGA Republicans, starting with those 87,000 IRS Brownshirts.

    Filled with righteous arrogance, they cannot imagine that they might in turn reap the whirlwind.

  8. Kate, yes I agree, Barr is unable to see the horse in the bathroom.

    Amadeus, you are exactly right. A fishing expedition using an archive dispute as the basis for the raid. Looking for J6 evidence? Maybe, but looking for anything damning for sure. Especially clothing.

  9. Kate:

    It is becomming increasingly difficult to believe that Bill Barr is a good man; ever so careful in 2020 to never do too much; how long did Portland burn and the Chaz stand, while he said many stern things and accomplished nothing.

    A good man? Maybe, but totally useless when it counted. Something about him in the Yeates poem.

    Sessions and then Barr. Two strikes.

  10. Bill Barr pretends to be a good man but its under false pretences. He has to know how corrupted and politicized the DOJ and FBI have become. In pretending otherwise, he reveals that he stands in support of that politicized corruption.

  11. lets go back to barr’s previous stint as atty general shall we, when he served his previous employer, the company, by shutting down the investigation into bcci, many of those players reemerged as the golden chain that funded al Queda, lawfare prevents any public source from pointing that out, mueller was the one who did the deed,

  12. The democrats have shown no hesitancy in manufacturing ‘evidence’. No doubt its creation has already commenced.

    There was more to this than just a fishing expedition. Taking the clothes and Presidential memorabilia. Fingering Melania’s underwear. Trashing Barron’s room is a message of intimidation; drop out or we’ll destroy you and yours.

  13. then we have the events of ruby ridge, where lon horuichi’s marksmanship, helped reignite the militia movement, had their been any good faith accountability, (hah that’s a laugh) maybe there wouldn’t have been an oklahoma city bombing,

  14. Okay, you guys may be right. I’ll have to stick with “institutionalist” for Barr, and let the quality of his character be judged by God.

    On topic: Any person at least trying to be impartial can surely see that a Special Master should have been part of the process from the get-go. The only thing better would have been not to execute a search warrant on a former president at all. These people crying “election denial” won’t admit that they never looked at Trump as a validly elected president at any time, during his tenure or afterwards.

  15. My suspicion about Barr is that he made a successful play for the job in order to protect the career officials at Justice from a general housecleaning. His wife and Mueller’s wife are friends and he had to know that Mueller was impaired. He figured that Weissman and his crew of partisan attack dogs were endangering what he valued and it was important to head them off at the pass. I’m going to wager that Rosenstein got in touch with him and told him that he, Rosenstein, couldn’t ride the tiger anymore. Barr is an advocate of customary abuse of power, not the blatant sort in which Weissmann and Garland engage.

  16. Barr has been a real a**hole about all of this. Those thugs were in Mar for a whole day, and no one knows what they took or planted. And we can’t forget the leakers who told WaPo that there were nuclear secrets. What ever happened to them? Maybe they were stuck in between Trump’s medical records or hidden in Melania’s underwear drawer.
    Barr is an organization man. I guess he thinks it was OK to ignore Hunter’s laptop for 2 years and then tell Zuckerberg that it was Russian disinformation

  21. Barr saved Trump’s bacon by out-lawyering Mueller/Weissmann and then taking the resulting heat from the hysterical left.

    Trump repaid Barr by repeatedly undermining him with tweets about active cases, publicly excoriating Barr for Durham’s failure to move on Trump’s schedule, bringing in quack lawyers to contradict Barr’s advice, and ultimately firing him for not agreeing with the quack lawyers’ conspiracy theories about election fraud.

    It’s typical Trump. Bring in good people, put them in impossible situations, screw them over, and then tar them with accusations of disloyalty or deep-state sympathies.

    Is it really a surprise that Barr isn’t willing to stick his neck out for Trump anymore? Barr understands better than most that, as egregious as the DOJ’s behavior is, the issue will ultimately turn on what documents Trump had and why. I don’t think Barr trusts that Trump hasn’t done something foolish and undiciplined – and frankly who would?

    A better question, if Trump does manage to get himself reelected, what fool would take a job in his administration?

  22. Typical Bauxite. Any specific comments about the Mar A Lago raid or the FBI and DOJ? Are Melania’s underwear or Trump’s medical records or pass ports nuclear secrets?

    Any other OMB concerns?

  23. Bauxite:

    Was General Milley one of those good people? Come, come you can name some others, Lt Col Vindmann?

    Don’t be shy. Tool.

  24. They stole the country so they could let the rioters go so we have a ready militia to terrorize citizens

    Barr did the most minimal thing to secure justice for citizens and now he rubber stamps injustice

  25. I’m not a lawyer but I wonder if the objective is to make the most of the time between ‘seize everything !’ until the time when the grownups put their foot down and demand the return of sensitive evidence. Maybe the biggest benefit of this ‘out-of-the-starting-gate’ access to everything is to see where it can point. Sure, you can’t use any of it in court, but it can give you a whole bunch of ideas for your next subpoenas. I bet @shipwreckedcrew could add insights galore here.

  26. Barr saved Trump’s bacon by out-lawyering Mueller/Weissmann and then taking the resulting heat from the hysterical left.

    1. Mueller did not know whether he was coming or going. He had to ‘testify’ with a minder present and drew a blank when he was asked about Fusion GPS, maintaining he’d never heard of the firm.

    2. Weissmann’s object was to secure an indictment of Trump for obstructing Weissmann’s obstruction investigation.

  28. I look at muellers career and i refuse to believe he didnt know just like he didnt who about whitey bulger dropping bodies all over the bay state as with bcci where he was an errand boy for barr.

    Moving on to his directorship when he rubberstamped the appointmemt of fitz looked askance at the mutiny againat gonzalez over stellar wind watched as they went after aipac did i mention the hatfill debacle

    Out of office he took an honoraria only 50 k from a corrupt citicorp subsidiary banamex which has a notorious reputation

  29. miguel. There was a picture, kind of sad. Tim McVeigh at Waco, wanting to hand out brochures on the horror which had happened there. Nobody showed up. Most especially those who are in charge of righteous outrage.
    Had the massacre at Waco been dealt with firmly, had the perps been prosecuted, had the Usual Suspects and those in charge of moral outrage made a tenth of the fuss they did about St. George of The Floyd, it’s possible McVeigh would have been mollified.
    You’ll note he went after a federal building, not a school and not a Best Western.

    To the extent any but the right wing said anything about the massacre, it was to excuse and exculpate and deflect. As one very nice Church lady said grimly, “They were a cult!”

  30. Im taking a long view of things, they want to destroy any avenue of peaceful change in point of fact destroy the Republic

  31. And destroy any foundation for a viable society thats why they are salting the earth about culture biology et al

  32. It is all pretty dark, isn’t it?
    Firstly, was the FBI justified in not letting Trump’s attorneys observe the raid? This seems like a rights violation and bad practice. If I was doing such a search, I would want the target’s representatives watching me, even taking video. As long as I was not being interfered with. Then, what about control over custody of the documents? How can the target of the raid be satisfied that the documents were securely stored and not copied? This one is a bit more difficult, but I would imagine that law enforcement agencies have such procedures, as probably required by law. Once those guys broke in, it seems the evidence was made unreliable. Anyone have thoughts on these points?
    And I am sympathetic to the notion that the Democrats are operating under the assumption that they will never lose power, as that certainly has seemed to be their aim for some time. Herr Biden’s recent speech made that pretty clear.

  33. Well there chain of custody issues like san bernardino they did almost no progress i could see with that case

    they threw those files out there in the open of course they redacted so much of the affidavit it is unreliable

  34. I don’t think neo or Geoffrey Britain are quite correct about what this says about the Left and any assumptions they have about winning, or losing.

    I don’t think the Left cares*. They take any inch they can, whenever they can. It almost never ricochets on them, whether they gain or lose the Presidency, Senate, House or Governorships. The Right is nearly never willing to go as hard and as forceful as the Left, but even if the Right fought back just as hard (and politicians like Trump and DeSantis have demonstrated a willingness to do this) I don’t think it would change the Left’s approach.

    *Well, of course they care. They want to win, but they don’t calculate their actions based on assumptions of future races. If any seam is open anywhere, they exploit it. Bullies gon’na bully.

  36. Art Deco – I think you’re right on both counts. But what would have happened if Sessions, Whitiker, or someone else without Barr’s stature and skill had been AG when Mueller/Weissman ran their endgame?

    I’m not sure they would have swung an obstruction indictment, but a report from a special counsel recommending indictment or suggesting indictment but for an OLC opinion might well have happened and would have made for a much more dangerous impeachment than the Ukraine farce.

    Barr deserved much better than he got from Trump.

  37. Whitaker tried they ran him put of town, remember they want unethical criminal thugs like holder who contributed to how many of the cartel deaths and lets not ignore his part in the oxycontin epidemid.

    If you actively aiding criminal and terrorisf and persecuting veterans and christians they want you in

  38. C’mon folks, it’s over. The American experiment in self-government still functions in places here and there. But it no longer functions at the national level.

    The opposition by 96% controls DC — now GET THE F$&# OUT OF OUR COUNTRY, bitter clinger “Believers” in dissent and nonconformity.

    Our time is over. They rule us. It doesn’t matter what you do.

  39. Rufus,

    A coward hides within every bully.

    So too with the left’s bullies.

    That’s why they default to “lawfare”, canceling and mob tactics.

  40. Bauxite:

    Focus on the present and on the a**hole that Barr appears to be. He is spouting off about what the FBI did, but had never done before, because OMB, and documents or papers or clothing that were not his nor in his house nor about which he like you, knows squat.

    The country deserves better than Barr.

  41. I don’t think the Left cares*.

    Rufus T. Firefly:

    Love the asterisk!

    Yes, that’s what I remember from my days on the left. You kept score *and* you kept going. There was always another battle coming up and you might win that one. It’s in the leftist DNA.

    As I see it, the conservative problem — for most conservatives anyway — is that conservatives are only in the game to right the ship then get back to business.

    For the left it’s a full-time job with overtime.

  42. Billy Bagpipes didn’t “outlawyer” nobody. Art Deco nailed it. The non-prosecution on obstruction was a slam-dunk given that even Weissman’s gang of thieves couldn’t prove collusion with the Russians, and would have been an egregious misuse of the DOJ which is why Weissman didn’t even bother to file sealed indictments. The report was always intended as a roadmap to an impeachment until that doddering old figurehead Mueller proved he was as non compos mentis as the Potato inhabiting the Oval Office which left the Democrats scrambling to find a plan B in Camerella and Vindamann. Barr was there to shield everybody from the general house cleaning that should have happened.

  43. That Biden was in the loop on this investigation and ordering the Archives to turn over Trump documents to the FBI was known two weeks ago. The WH was trying to keep their hands clean by deferring to the Archivist for the calls on Privilege from Trump.

    Posted on Fox 23 August.

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-signed-off-fbi-review-trump-records-national-archives-letter-reveals

    While the fishing expedition might further some investigation intended to actually charge Trump with a crime, given the broad nature the search warrant I still suspect that the more fundamental purpose is to simply deprive Trump of physical possession of any and all material that he might wish to allow a historian or writer to use for research. The PRA doesn’t give the Archives statutory authority to do that but if the FBI/DOJ claim they are ‘investigating’ then they can (try to) take control of the material and lock it away.

  45. om – Your guy is a reckless fool whose shenanigans both create opportunites for deep state actors and goad them into believing that overreach is necessary. That doesn’t excuse the DOJ or FBI in any way! But why was this conflict provoked?

    If Trump really does have documents proving government misconduct, what reason is there to keep them secret now? The man is publicly calling for a redo of the 2020 election and has been insisting that it was stolen for two years. If he has evidence supporting that, there’s no reason to hold back now.

    Maybe Trump really has or had documents proving things about Russiagate or the 2020 election. I have a sinking suspicion, though, that this is more about Trump’s ego and desire for leverage or souvenirs. Again, that wouldn’t justify the DOJ and FBI, but it would move the whole thing into the realm of “a pox on both your houses.”

    Remember that Barr knows where the bodies are buried regarding Russiagate and likely knows whether there is any evidence of straight-up fraud in the 2020 election. That means Barr probably has a very good idea of what Trump was actually doing with his MAL documents. I suspect he does and he doesn’t want to defend what Trump was up to.

  46. Agree that the raid had nothing to do with classification, with nuclear secrets, nor with archival disputes, but was a total fishing expedition. But let’s not forget that Trump sued a whole raft of these ********’s, including Hillary, etal. only back in March of 2022 under a RICO act, so they were most likely fishing for anything Trump had on them and could use in his RICO suit. One more thought, didn’t Trump just amend his RICO suit in June or July?

  47. “But why was this conflict provoked?”

    Because Trump won the election in 2016.

    Making it—UNDENIABLY!!—Trump’s fault.

    Oh, and also the fault of his supporters…whom “Biden” is trying to—finally and ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, JUSTIFIABLY—punish (make that, “put out of circulation for good”)…FOR THE SAKE OF THE COUNTRY…but no doubt more in sorrow than in anger…

  49. Bauxite condensed – Trump is guilty until proven innocent. If he wasn’t guilty he would not have been investigated by the choir boys and angels who swore a sacred oath to defend the Constitution. Saint Barr knows all. Otay.

    Bauxite, we suspect that you have some papers in you house that may say that you have committed or may commit a crime. You say you are innocent, Bauxite? Don’t worry, if you are innocent you will be safe, Trust us.

  50. om – Playing out your hypo, why do you suspect that I have papers in my house, what are the papers, and do I have a right to possess the papers. Those questions are all relevant.

    That isn’t guilty until proven innocent. It’s simply accepting the possibility that Trump might not be innocent. Most edge lords do step over the edge from time to time. Again, the DOJ and FBI have conducted a disasterous investigation, but that doesn’t mean the investigation wasn’t predicated to begin with.

    Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t. If it was properly predicated, a lot of the current critics are preemptively discrediting themselves. I suspect that Barr doesn’t want to do that.

  51. Barr ran directly towards the flames on Russia gate. The fact that he’s running away from this one should be a huge red flag for Trump fans.

  52. Bauxite:

    We (the feds) can search your papers and your possessions, you have spoken of the OMB after all, and we must protect “our democracy”™ from all who are not innocent. See, we have a warrant singned by a trustworthy judge. Trust us, turn off those cameras, and prove your innocence.

    We also will look at all your tax records, now.

    Where are you children by the way? They are the future of “our democracy”™ and must be protected.

    We are so happy that you trust us. But the enemies of “our democracy”™ are everywhere. Are there any nearby? Tell us Bauxite, then you may be shown to be innocent of the orange.

  54. I am uncertain as to WHO the Trump defense team asked for a Special Master immediately after the raid. The words of the Appellate Judge’s ruling do not clarify that, only that the request was denied. Is it possible that the defense team was inexperienced in how, or of whom, it “asked” for an SM, and this allowed the request to be ignored or shelved for an extended time? Something about the Appellate’s words seems strangely evasive.

  55. om – I can’t make heads or tails out of that response. I’ve never used the phrase “our democracy.” I think it is a verbal crutch for certain pseudo-intellectual types who either don’t know or would prefer to forget why we are a republic. And surely you’re not arguing that it is never proper for the government to execute warrants for documents.

    Ray Van Dune – The short answer is that Trump’s team was very late in moving for the special master. Trump is a nightmare client (his fault); law firms have become very hesitant to take clients with “incorrect” political views (not Trump’s fault – and bad); and a lot of good lawyers are scared off by the bar complaints, client losses, and even criminal indictments suffered by lawyers who, in good faith, represented Trump and/or the RNC in 2020 (not entirely Trump’s fault – and very bad). As a result, he’s had a very difficult time getting good representation.

  56. The short answer is that Trump’s team was very late in moving for the special master.

    The motion for one was filed within hours.

  57. Bauxite:

    I attribute “our democracy”™ the left and its media. Of course just because the FBI and DOJ have decided to execute a warrant on a former president for what appears to be a dispute with the National Archive, never done before, it is perfectly reasonable and routine (sarc). But you know that man, the orange one, has been served, searched, leaked about, and smeared (again?, sarc). So it’s all good (sarc). The process of federal justice (sarc) as it is now.

    Do you follow now?

    Heads or tails, eh?

  58. Art Deco:

    See this:

    Trump asked the judge to appoint a special master—a court-appointed third party who would review the documents and filter out privileged materials, instead of DOJ officials—on August 22, two weeks after federal officials conducted a search of Mar-A-Lago.

    Or this:

    Trump’s request for a special master came two weeks after the FBI executed the search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Aug. 8, when agents took 33 items from a storage room on the property and the former president’s office.

  60. What is confusing is that the Appellate Judge clearly states a “request” was made (for a Special Master), not a “motion”, and that was made the next morning, not two weeks later. Did the Trump lawyers ask the AG, and he told them to go away – that’s what it almost sounds like!

  61. Ray Van Dune – The footnote says that Trump’s team asked the government (i.e., the DOJ) to use a Special Master the day after the raid. The DOJ, presumably, said no. Trump’s team didn’t ask a court to force the DOJ to use a special master until two weeks later.

  62. OMB forced the DOJ not to appoint a Special Master the day after the raid and then caused the DOJ to comply with a judge and submit to a Special Master. OMB is mega MAGA ultra bad, almost fascistic.

  63. As to Bill Barr, Mussolini understood it– “All within the administrative state, nothing outside the administrative state, nothing against the administrative state.”

    It all makes sense now.

  67. Looks like I was right – Trump’s legal team first ASKED THE DOJ PRETTY-PLEASE to appoint a Special Master!

    Who the hell is the leader of Trump’s lawyers: Mitch McConnell, Mike Pence, Paul Ryan…?

  68. But the DOJ ever concious of precident and cleaving to equality under the law could not grant the request. The walls were closing in after all.

    Maybe they asked Bill Barr?

  69. Trump should have asked for the “Hillary Clinton protocol”: interview whole team together, nobody under oath, everybody under immunity, no recording devices.

    They could have taken an oath of loyalty to the DNC good for the day, so they could be treated with the deference due a Democrat!

  70. I can understand that Barr didn’t want to be Trump’s “wingman” as Eric Holder was for Obama, and didn’t want to be “political.”

    But he doesn’t understand that the Democrats and the bureaucracy play by different rules.

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