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

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

And even if Trump did commit some crime...

But this would set an extremely dangerous precedent because if it applies to Trump, then it would need to apply to Biden or Desantis or President Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, etc. etc.  

Future presidents would be free to commit crimes without reprisal.  And it would also open up the treacherous discussion of what crimes are "permissible".  

No one has as many staunch supporters as Trump and we both know very well that if the Democrats go down this path, things will not end well. Trump's personality, his staunch supporters and the current polarized climate are exceptional.

Serg it doesn't change that if (and I'll stress IF) Trump committed a crime, his apparent popularity should have no bearing on facing legal consequences. 

Sorry, your defense of Trump is that his supporters are violent, rabid dogs who would burn the country down if they aren't placated?

Think you quoted one tier too far, Ferg

[GeorgiaModerate]

I can identify with this...

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1563332300930428929

[Alben Barkley]

I can identify with this...

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1563332300930428929

It's like if MacArthur won the GOP Nomination in 1952, just several decades later.

[Alben Barkley]

I like to think Trump is locked in his room weeping while listening to Jay-Z's "Fallin'"

But there's a price for overdoing it
Doing it this big'll put you on the map, stick-up kids is out to tax
Plus the FBI boys with the cameras in the back
Damn...

I know I shouldn'tve did that
I know it's gon' come right back
I know it's gon' destroy everything I made
It's probably gon' get ya boy sent away
But this game I play, ain't no way to fix it
It's inevitable (now ya) fallin'

When you should've fell back
Now you (fallin'), right into they lap
Fallin', they applauding, they screaming at the screen
Damn, you ed up like your favorite movie scene
Godfather, Goodfellas, Scarface, Casino
You seen what that last run did to De Niro in Heat
Can't beat the odds, can't cheat the Gods
Can't blow too hard, life's a deck of cards
Now your tumbling is humbling, you're falling, you're mumbling
Under your breath like you knew this day was coming (fallin')
Now let's pray that arm candy
That you left your ex for stay down and come in handy
'Cause come January it gets cold, when the letters start to slow
And your commissary's low and lawyers screams appeal
Only thinking about a bill and your chances are nil
Damn, gravity's ill...

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/PaulaChertok/status/1563343353319550976

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

https://twitter.com/PaulaChertok/status/1563343353319550976

Well. That's alarming.

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/PaulaChertok/status/1563343353319550976

Holy f##k!

Every Trump supporter is a bona fide complete f****** idiot or traitor or both.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/PaulaChertok/status/1563343353319550976

...

Good god...

[Beet]

https://twitter.com/PaulaChertok/status/1563343353319550976

...

Good god...

But Hillary's emails.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

https://twitter.com/PaulaChertok/status/1563343353319550976

...

Good god...

I mean, if he actually got CIA sources killed with his recklessness. Hoo boy, I don't know. We are really far off the map if it gets to that. HIC SVNT DRACONES territory.

[Yoda]

And even if Trump did commit some crime...

But this would set an extremely dangerous precedent because if it applies to Trump, then it would need to apply to Biden or Desantis or President Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, etc. etc.  

Future presidents would be free to commit crimes without reprisal.  And it would also open up the treacherous discussion of what crimes are "permissible".  

No one has as many staunch supporters as Trump and we both know very well that if the Democrats go down this path, things will not end well. Trump's personality, his staunch supporters and the current polarized climate are exceptional.

You don't seem to understand that none of this scares Merrick Garland, and thank God for that. trump committed a very, very serious crime. Garland, by his own standards he has laid out repeatedly, now has little choice but to charge trump. This isn't some weak campaign finance law that was violated. This is compromising human intelligence sources. He's gonna get charged, and the MAGAtards can riot and do another 1/6 if they want to go to prison.

Word of warning to you and your fellow MAGA terrorists, though.....

this time, the Capitol will be defended.

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/PaulaChertok/status/1563343353319550976

...

Good god...

I mean, if he actually got CIA sources killed with his recklessness. Hoo boy, I don't know. We are really far off the map if it gets to that. HIC SVNT DRACONES territory.

Well, let's not pretend that this is going to move the needle one iota for the following three reasons.

One, this information isn't going to gain traction as, barring it unexpectedly becoming the literal centerpiece of any investigation against trump, no Republicans will ever hear this story. Fox News will have to be dragged kicking and screaming before they report a whisper of it. Second, what's they do, they and all their ever so gullible Republican viewers will immediately write it off as the New York Times fake news blah blah blah. Third, and perhaps most importantly, if these folks had to meet their maker today and had to answer with all the honesty their souls could muster, even anyone who deep down thinks there's truth to this wood have to admit that they don't care because Trump (pick one or more) got abortion band / cut taxes for wealthy people like me/ kept environmental wackos from shutting down fossil fuel production, slash fought against those punks trying to put critical race theory in the schools and who kneel during the national anthem.

[emailking]

I don't think BigSerg realizes that the topic got merged into here lol.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Setting aside for the nonce all the juicy but unproved speculation about Trump leaking or selling classified info, the DOJ has already built their case, and Trump and his lawyers have helped them do so. NARA and the DOJ very kindly gave Trump a rope (something they would not have done for anyone posting here) and let him decide what to do with it. Rather than climbing out of his self-dug hole, he wrapped it around his neck.

No matter how much Trump whines and lies, the DOJ's case is already very well documented.

Trump stole classified documents and presidential records from the White House.

He stored those records insecurely and illegally  at his clubhouse/home.

When clearly told he was breaking the law, both by having them and storing them improperly, he lied and kept doing it.

That's Espionage Act and Presidential Records Act violations, all documented and lined up. There are likely more crimes still not fully documented, almost certainly including obstruction, but the Espionage and PRA violations are all in the open, well established by the combination of Trump's shamelessness and the government's forbearance.

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/PaulaChertok/status/1563343353319550976

Well that connects a lot of dots (the bit about the CIA attrition rate being alarmingly high). I wonder if anyone at the DOJ etc, told Trump how dire the situation was/is.  What is not clear to me, is if more such HIS documents were found via the warrant.  

If at least in the first two rounds all of the really sensitive stuff had been turned over that would be mitigatory (i.e. no more was found by the FBI). If that "Rothschild" woman is on tape wandering into the storage room or Trump's office closet, that would be exacerbatory. Will we ever know if the leaks emanated out of MAL?

After this news drop, I wonder if that will quiet Trump down a bit in the role of victim.

[Inmate Trump]

This just keeps getting worse and worse.

Does anyone still think I'm going too far in calling those who continue to support Trump traitors? Because if someone is out there defending all of this, and would still vote for Trump to be president, then that someone is a traitor to the US.

[Torie]

This article is just outstanding, particularly for those interested in the labyrinth of legalities (we all know who you are   ). Consistent with the 200 word/20% copyright metric (yeah I had to make the effort to trim, and then trim again, to get below 200 words and so should you - always), the bits below caught my eye in particular. But there is a lot of other “good” stuff in it as well.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-did-we-learn-mar-lago-search-warrant-affidavit

“The memorandum also argues that certain redactions are necessary to protect the privacy and “reputational interests” of the individuals who are being investigated. In doing so, the memorandum acknowledges that former President Trump has “spoken publicly about this investigation and has said in a public statement that he wishes for the affidavit to be disclosed in its entirety[,]” confirming that he is among the people being investigated. But it also notes that Trump has not filed any actual pleadings in support of efforts to have the affidavit unsealed, leaving his actual preferences unclear. While it does not say as much in the memorandum, the Justice Department’s redactions in the affidavit withhold nearly all information about Trump’s conduct, suggesting that both the department and Reinhardt ultimately declined to take Trump’s public claims that he supports disclosure as a waiver of his privacy rights, at least absent more clear follow-through on his part.

…

‘Notably absent, however, is any discussion of statutory provisions that protect and punish the mishandling of U.S. nuclear secrets. … .”

The article then goes on to say that may be because despite media reports to the contrary, they were not in play, or that the DOJ thought the evidence too thin, and that they may be swept up in other security classifications. I would note that Trump has crowed about that, as one of the few scraps left on the table for him perhaps.

[GeorgiaModerate]

This article is just outstanding, particularly for those interested in the labyrinth of legalities (we all know who you are   ). Consistent with the 200 word/20% copyright metric (yeah I had to make the effort to trim, and then trim again, to get below 200 words and so should you - always), the bits below caught my eye in particular. But there is a lot of other “good” stuff in it as well.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-did-we-learn-mar-lago-search-warrant-affidavit

“The memorandum also argues that certain redactions are necessary to protect the privacy and “reputational interests” of the individuals who are being investigated. In doing so, the memorandum acknowledges that former President Trump has “spoken publicly about this investigation and has said in a public statement that he wishes for the affidavit to be disclosed in its entirety[,]” confirming that he is among the people being investigated. But it also notes that Trump has not filed any actual pleadings in support of efforts to have the affidavit unsealed, leaving his actual preferences unclear. While it does not say as much in the memorandum, the Justice Department’s redactions in the affidavit withhold nearly all information about Trump’s conduct, suggesting that both the department and Reinhardt ultimately declined to take Trump’s public claims that he supports disclosure as a waiver of his privacy rights, at least absent more clear follow-through on his part.

…

‘Notably absent, however, is any discussion of statutory provisions that protect and punish the mishandling of U.S. nuclear secrets. … .”

The article then goes on to say that may be because despite media reports to the contrary, they were not in play, or that the DOJ thought the evidence too thin, and that they may be swept up in other security classifications. I would note that Trump has crowed about that, as one of the few scraps left on the table for him perhaps.

That is indeed a good article; thanks for posting the link.  It does bug me slightly that such an otherwise well-written article would consistently misspell the judge's name.  It's Reinhart, not Reinhardt.

[Torie]

And here is another article about Trump’s legal exposure.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/us/politics/obstruction-trump-search-documents.html

“Julie O’Sullivan, a Georgetown University law professor who specializes in white-collar crime, said the emerging timeline of the government’s repeatedly stymied attempts to retrieve all the documents, coupled with claims by Mr. Trump that he did nothing wrong because he had declassified all the documents in his possession, raised significant legal peril for him.

‘ “He is making a mistake in believing that it matters whether it’s top secret or not,” she said. “He is essentially conceding that he knew he had them.” If so, she added, then not giving them back was “obstructing the return of these documents. ‘ “

I don’t agree with the above. Trump is claiming nothing was classified due to his own hand as an interior line of defense. That hardly proves that he was aware that they were classified in and of itself. The problem with Trump’s claim that he declassified everything is that some of the docs, such as listing CIA agents in sensitive situations, would have never been declassified, even by Trump. So that assertion of fact by him is ludicrous.

One more bit:

"“He would probably look to throw his lawyers under the bus and deny that he had the requisite knowledge that he was concealing them with the intent to obstruct the return of the documents,” she said. “That is what we don’t know yet because of the affidavit redactions — whether the Department of Justice has proof that he did know that they were still concealing documents on an ongoing basis.”

I wonder how attorney client privilege works vis a vis a client claiming his lawyer told him X, when in fact the lawyer told him Y, where the lawyer is in legal trouble for false representations to the government.

[Torie]

...

That is indeed a good article; thanks for posting the link.  It does bug me slightly that such an otherwise well-written article would consistently misspell the judge's name.  It's Reinhart, not Reinhardt.

Reinhart is an unusual spelling of the name. Be merciful. 

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/ritholtz/status/1563503905262030850

[GeorgiaModerate]

What does Trump do if this story gets much worse for him? Whether showing that criminal negligence let Russian spies into Mar-a-Lago or confirming that the Russians and Saudis used this info to murder our operatives?

Would he try to ride out a trial, get a MAGA freak onto the jury and hope there's nothing from the docs that can be shown? Pull out some "I pardoned all my future crimes" bullsh**t and hope his Supreme Court is willing to push every Dem into supporting court stacking? If not sold, this information would have been leverage to get sanctuary with America's enemies.

Not so much interested in his supporters' response. Despite what BigSerg thinks, his Nazi partisans threatening suicide by Union isn't going to make America surrender.

If things get worse, his best bet is probably to get a list of countries that don't have extradition treaties with the U.S. 

Second best would be to (1) stop talking, (2) hire some high-powered national security lawyers, if any would take him on (he'd undoubtedly have to put up a huge retainer), (3) follow their advice to the letter, and (4) STOP TALKING.  All of those are at odds with Trump's history and personality.

What he would most likely do is double and triple down, make a huge stink, get convicted, and go down in flames -- taking the Republican Party with him for at least the next couple of cycles.

[windjammer]

Why did he even do that frankly?

[President Johnson]

This just keeps getting worse and worse.

Does anyone still think I'm going too far in calling those who continue to support Trump traitors? Because if someone is out there defending all of this, and would still vote for Trump to be president, then that someone is a traitor to the US.

The problem is that these people either don't pay attention or just don't think it's credible. And there's pretty much nothing that can convince them of the opposite. Anything the FBI or Justice Department say is just a hitjob by Biden and the Democrats to deny their cult leader's well deserved return to power.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/1563574364213129219