FBI search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago (Update: Trump Indicted!)

[LBJer]

This is why we need immediate oversight and answers from the Justice Department on why the raid was conducted.  The DOJ seems to be downplaying the raid, which is not a very smart political calculation.    

Well they're not supposed to be political.

Merrick Garland is a political appointee.  Any raid/investigation into a former president is going to attract major political attention, so he should have been out in front of this with a major press conference the day after the raid was conducted.  Staying silent makes it seem like they're hiding something.  

And why exactly?  What about equal treatment under the law?  The fact that a bunch of pathetic Republicans are whining about this doesn't mean Garland is obligated to give them an explanation.  If he wouldn't be explaining something like this if it was done to anyone else, there's no particular reason why he should do so in the case of Donald Trump.

[LBJer]

I'm not going to go to bat for the FBI as some kind of saintly organization that has never abused it's powers, it has done so all too frequently in the past. But the hysteria coming out of conservative circles over this demonstrates how they've been itching to find any reason they can to validate their self-righteous outrage and paranoia so as to justify the destruction of their perceived enemies. Apparently they have decided that holding up a depraved fiend of an individual as a martyr to be shielded from the consequences of his own actions like some kind of naïve innocent child is the vehicle for achieving this narrative of group solidarity and purpose.

Trump has hoisted himself on his own petard. He's the one that signed the law making mishandling of classified documents into a more serious crime. And he's the one that appointed Christopher Wray to the post of FBI Director. He can release a copy of the warrant to give some of the answers that every conservative commentator is screaming their head off for. This is is only controversial because Trump thinks literally anything other than slavishly loyal favoritism and being elevated to a different standard of privilege than everybody else is the only kind of treatment he will find personally acceptable. It has become the modus operandi among the Republican party's voters to use Trump's unbridled narcissistic ego as a mirror for their own grievances and a conduit for their will, so they have since long ago agreed that this ridiculously selfish demand from Trump is morally correct as the leader of their identity in-group and will also get outraged if its not respected.

I implore Republicans to find a better reason than protecting this man to justify unleashing political chaos through the republic. It's as pathetic to watch as it is frightening.

One of the best posts I've ever seen on Atlas.  Well done. 

[LBJer]

This piece by Noah Feldman came out three days ago:

https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/opinion/contributors/2022/08/10/three-major-takeaways-fbi-search-trumps-home/10286817002/

Wow! It aged like Walter Donovan after drinking from a false Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!

[LBJer]

There is a reason the NYT is number one:

"The search warrant for Trump’s residence cited three criminal laws, all from Title 18 of the United States Code. Section 793, better known as the Espionage Act, which covers the unlawful retention of defense-related information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; Section 1519, which covers destroying or concealing documents to obstruct government investigations or administrative proceedings; and Section 2071, which covers the unlawful removal of government records. Notably, none of those laws turn on whether information was deemed to be unclassified."

Twitter user @KDbyProxy (wonderful follow btw, whip smart, especially wrt this sort of thing) caught this yesterday. Here's the relevant tweet:

https://twitter.com/KDbyProxy/status/1557872185959751681

This seems like a stretch.

They're going to put Trump in jail for ten years for possessing unclassified documents?  That doesn't pass the smell test

I mean, they weren’t unclassified, for one. They were top secret in some cases.

Still seems like a novel application of the Espionage Act when we have a separate law that explicitly deals with presidential records

Dream on. 

[LBJer]

There is a reason the NYT is number one:

"The search warrant for Trump’s residence cited three criminal laws, all from Title 18 of the United States Code. Section 793, better known as the Espionage Act, which covers the unlawful retention of defense-related information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; Section 1519, which covers destroying or concealing documents to obstruct government investigations or administrative proceedings; and Section 2071, which covers the unlawful removal of government records. Notably, none of those laws turn on whether information was deemed to be unclassified."

Twitter user @KDbyProxy (wonderful follow btw, whip smart, especially wrt this sort of thing) caught this yesterday. Here's the relevant tweet:

https://twitter.com/KDbyProxy/status/1557872185959751681

This seems like a stretch.

They're going to put Trump in jail for ten years for possessing unclassified documents?  That doesn't pass the smell test

If the documents are sensitive enough, it's not gonna matter to a court whether Trump says they were declassified or not. 

[LBJer]

https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera/status/1558234570654375940

What scum the people making the threats are.  Human vermin.  

[LBJer]

This seems like a stretch.

They're going to put Trump in jail for ten years for possessing unclassified documents?  That doesn't pass the smell test

I'm late to the party here but let me get this straight: according to you, Trump stole a bunch of documents which legally were supposed to return to the government upon his exiting office, including numerous top secret and nuclear documents; used his psychic legal powers asserted by the Heritage Foundation to declassify these documents, without ever communicating that they were declassified; stashed them in his beach house; refused to turn them over to the government for a year and a half, breaking a law which says that keeping government documents carries a legal penalty; and finally gets them snatched back once his beach house is raided. And the part of this saga you find objectionable is that the law Trump broke did not differentiate between government documents which were and were not declassified by Trump's mind powers.

No, that's not what I'm saying.  Stop enjoying listening to yourself so much and consider this nuance:  not all documents presidents are supposed to return to NARA under the PRA would be classified.  If the Espionage Act is being used to potentially prosecute Trump for not returning these records upon "demand of an officer or employee of the United States" then that is prosecutorial overkill.

The only provision of the Espionage Act that he's actually being accused of violating merely concerns the unauthorized retention of national defense information. Just because it's called the "Espionage Act" doesn't mean that the DoJ is acting as if he transmitted state secrets to hostile nations because, flashy title aside, it's still one of its provisions that criminalizes the willful mishandling of these documents, which is still, y'know, a blatant federal crime even if/when it doesn't rise to the level of active, spy-like espionage. So if he's alleged to have not only retained & mishandled records that he was unauthorized to retain, but then willfully concealed his retention & mishandling of such documents from investigators, then where exactly is this supposed prosecutorial overkill that you speak of? What's wrong here??

Any charge under the Espionage Act is prosecutorial overkill because there is separate legislation that regulates presidential records, and Trump should be charged under that statute as he once had presidential custody over the documents in question (which is not a situation the Espionage Act was written to consider, per the legislative history of the act.) 

…

The search warrant literally cited that separate legislation, 18 USC 2071, the PRA. "Whoever, having the custody of any such record… willfully and unlawfully conceals [or] removes… the same, shall be fined… or imprisoned not more than three years, or both." You clearly seem to misunderstand how criminal investigations work, because when an investigation into potential instances of one crime, like violating the PRA, uncovers evidence of not only such violations but also of other crimes, like violating the Espionage Act & concealing the violations of both acts from investigators, then the accused will be liable for those actions too.

And yes, his alleged actions clearly fall under the purview of 18 USC 793, the section of the Espionage Act concerned, if, in undertaking those actions, he was retaining information related to the national defense that could be used to injure the U.S. or to the advantage of a foreign government without the necessary authorization to retain such information. That's a blatant violation of the provision at hand, not something that wasn't considered within the legislative history of the act, & we know that because it's been consistently prosecuted, except without the initial good-faith effort to treat the accused with a great amount of deference in light of their former job & figure all of this out cooperatively.

The Espionage Act is only at play here because the DOJ believes certain documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago contain "national defense" information (whatever that means.)  A former president or anyone else retaining presidential records is a violation of the Presidential Records Act, and should be prosecuted as such.  A lesser charge under the PRA is entirely appropriate given a "great amount of deference in light of [Trump's] former job" and no indication that he was attempting to transmit the information to hostile governments or individuals.

No offense, DT, but the cognitive dissonance that's being displayed here by you right now is frankly staggering. If I didn't know any better, then I'd presume that you were actively trying to portray a caricatured exemplification of the party of "law & order" & "national defense" now ironically being the party that doesn't give a sh*t about either at the altar of Donald Trump. Wow.

The only cognitive dissonance to see here are those giddy to defend the DOJ's heavy-handed approach here while the likes of Sandy Berger and Hillary Clinton were given great deference and administrative slaps-on-the-wrist for similar mishandlings of classified info.

Two wrongs don't make a right.  But different treatment for two equal wrongs is a third wrong, especially if AG Garland's high-minded rhetoric from last week about the "evenhanded application of the law" is to be believed. 

How exactly was it "heavy-handed"?  Trump was given every opportunity to surrender those documents without FBI agents going to his home to get them.  He declined--that's on him.  The job of the FBI and DOJ is to protect the United States of America, not cater to a singularly amoral, narcissistic ex-president.  

And the comparison with Hillary Clinton is quite invalid.  I suggest you read this:

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-search-warrant-draws-hillary-clinton-comparisons-big-difference-rcna42921

[LBJer]

I wonder how Trump gets himself out of this predicament.

Deny and deflect, how he so often got out.

I've become more skeptical that anything just finishes him off entirely. Because it should have happened hundreds of times and still didn't.

There's always a first time for everything.  In 1960 the idea that a president would ever have to resign in disgrace would have been dismissed as ridiculous.  

Also, it's rather misleading to talk of "hundreds of times" given that Trump's actions since the aftermath of the 2020 election have dwarfed in seriousness most of his previous misdeeds.  

[LBJer]

There's also the fact that even if Trump isn't prosecuted, the revelations that have come out and continue to come out will likely (it makes me very nervous saying this, given the consequences of being proven wrong, but I nevertheless believe it) make it impossible for him to win the 2024 election, even if he is nominated. 

[LBJer]

Not only should Trump be prosecuted, but his lawyers should be as well.  Throw the book at all of them. 

[LBJer]

The most funny part of all of that is Trump is de facto guilty of what he and Republican hacks accused Hillary Clinton of for years.

Like Nixon and Agnew talking about "law and order" and both having to resign for criminal behavior. 

[LBJer]

So I've been out of town and am just getting caught up on all of the details, but looking at just the legal aspects of this and not the politics: Holy s*** Trump is F***ED

Even I didn't think these morons were dumb enough to text each other back and forth essentially "The boss needs us to move all these boxes full of secrets before the lawyers and the investigators show up to search the storage room" with ATTACHED PICTURES OF THE SECRET BOXES

Smith has Trump completely dead to rights and Trump's only real hope in the trial is jury nullification.

"Jury nullification" traditionally means when a jury votes to acquit based on sympathy for the defendant.  There's absolutely no chance of all 12 people voting to do that here--at least half the country hates Trump.  Trump can hope for a hung jury, but in a case of this importance, if that happens the government will simply retry him and continue doing so until there's a conviction. 

[LBJer]

Prosecution can appeal a dismissal with prejudice to the 11th Circuit even though it's with prejudice. If it's a bench trial and he's acquitted then he's off the hook unless they can prove collusion (e.g. bribery).

Apparently the prosecution would have to agree to a bench trial, which they'd obviously never do.

[LBJer]

Honestly if I’m Trump I’d just take my chances with a bench trial. Isn’t there a good chance that Cannon just dismisses the charges since she’s a hack?

See reply #2645.