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The FBI in general

The FBI vs Carter Page

The FBI vs Michael Flynn

The FBI vs Roger Stone

President Trump vs the Deep State

Why do FBI agents so regularly abuse their power?  The American people are learning by dribs and drabs that the raid on Mar-a-Lago was not only unconstitutional, it was a set-up, an attempt to frame former President Trump for having documents illegally stored there.  The set-up proves the lie.  Both the National Archives and the FBI knew said documents, which Trump was legally allowed to have, were carefully stored in a locked storage room.  Many of those boxes were packed and sent there by the National Archives; they likely knew what was in those boxes better than Trump did.  In short, it was a Gestapo-like ploy to both incriminate and humiliate Donald Trump.  As the truth of the raid leaks out (such as the authorization of lethal force) thanks to Judge Cannon who has ordered Jack Smith's redactions unredacted, it is becoming clearer and clearer that it is the FBI and the National Archives working with the Biden administration that plotted to create a situation by which they could indict Trump.  Jack Smith, a known legal thug who has no respect for the actual law, was then appointed, illegally and unconfirmed by the Senate, to prosecute Trump and convict by any means necessary.  That case seems to be falling apart.  It was a farce from the outset and Judge Cannon is allowing the American people to see just how much of a farce by releasing unredacted Smith documents.

8 Injustices to Be Redressed against Donald Trump.  [#4] Obama's Executive Order 13526 was issued on December 29, 2009 by President Barack Obama.  It is one of a series of executive orders from U.S. presidents outlining how classified information should be handled.  In Judicial Watch, Inc. v. US Dept. of Defense, 715 F. 3d 937, 941, D.C. Circuit 2013, the appellate court held that Executive Order 15326 covers "all substantive and procedural criteria for classification."  Section 4.1(a)(3) says that access to classified records may be granted to persons with a right to know.  Section 4.4 of the E.O. states that the "right to know" application is waived for a former president or vice president.  Pursuant to Executive Order 13526, Trump was an "authorized holder of classified documents" as per Section 6.1(c), which cross-references Sections 4.1(a)(3) and 4.4(a)(3). [...] If any federal court had decided that Executive Order 13526 applied to Trump's actions, then Jack Smith's garbage filing should have ended right there.  No attention was given to the Obama executive order, because it did not fit the lawfare narrative.

Trump Shreds FBI Director Christopher Wray — 'He Invaded My Home'.  Donald Trump appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday and laid into (soon to be former) FBI Director Christopher Wray over his participation in the weaponization of the Justice Department that has taken place under the Biden-Harris regime.  The president-elect was angered that Wray "invaded" his home during the FBI's August 2002 Mar-a-Lago raid in the classified documents case and also that the director spread conspiracy theories about the July assassination attempt on Trump. [...] In fact, it's pretty obvious that Trump will dump Wray on day one, not just because of these remarks, but because he's already announced the tough-talking Kash Patel — the former chief of staff at the Department of Defense — as Wray's replacement.

Melania Trump slams FBI for Mar-a-Lago raid, says search serves as a 'warning to all Americans'.  Former first lady Melania Trump on Saturday slammed the FBI's raid of Mar-A-Lago in 2022 and noted that the search should serve as a "warning to all Americans."  Ms. Trump recalled the raid in a post on X promoting her new memoir, "Melania."  The video included an image of the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures performed by the government.  "I never imagined my privacy would be invaded by the government here in America," she said.  "The FBI raided my home in Florida and searched through my personal belongings.  This is not just my story, it serves as a warning to all Americans, a reminder that our freedom and rights must be respected."

Inside the bitter personal battle between top FBI and DOJ officials over Mar-a-Lago.  On Aug. 1, 2022, senior Justice Department and FBI officials gathered on the seventh floor of the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., for a historic meeting. [...] The stakes were high for all of those in the room — potentially career-ending — and for the country.  The DOJ and FBI officials were deadlocked over how to retrieve what were believed to be dozens of top-secret documents that Trump had taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago and declined to return.  The DOJ and FBI officials shared the same feeling about the case: dread.  After the National Archives repeatedly requested that Trump return the documents, some officials assumed Trump would simply hand over the materials.  When he didn't, all of them saw no good options.

FBI Field Agents Were Concerned the Mar-a-Lago Search Was Political.  Last March the Washington Post published an exclusive story about the behind the scenes arguments that took place prior to the search of Mar-a-Lago.  The gist of the piece was that DOJ prosecutors, led by Jay Bratt, were eager to get a search warrant and have the FBI carry out an unannounced raid.  This all came to a head during an early August meeting where the head of the FBI's Washington, DC field office, Steven D'Antuono, pushed back. [...] As we all know, the DOJ got their way.  D'Antuono was ordered to have agents search Mar-a-Lago and they did so, though without the blue and yellow FBI jackets agents often wear.  D'Antuono has since retired and today NBC News published its own exclusive version of the story, recounting the same meeting between the FBI and DOJ prosecutors which preceded the search.  NBC's version seems to be based mostly on D'Antuono's recollections and it has a different flavor from the earlier Post story.  This time we learn there was concern at the FBI field office that the DOJ's approach might be motivated by politics.

The Editor says...
The rank-and-file FBI guys thought the raid might have been political.  Brilliant deduction, Holmes.  But they didn't refuse to participate in the raid, did they?

Trump To File Lawsuit Against Biden DOJ For Breaking Federal Law In Florida Raid.  Former President Donald Trump is preparing to take legal action against the Justice Department, seeking $100 million in damages for what he and his legal team claim was "political persecution" during the unprecedented raid on his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2022.  Trump's lawyers allege that the raid was conducted with a clear intent to harm him and that it violated established protocols for investigations involving former U.S. presidents.  In a memo obtained by Fox News, Trump asserts "tortious conduct by the United States against President Trump" and outlines his intention to sue the Justice Department.  The raid, which took place on August 8, 2022, was part of a federal investigation into Trump's alleged mishandling of classified records.  Special Counsel Jack Smith subsequently brought 37 felony counts against Trump, including charges of retaining national defense information, obstructing justice, and making false statements.  Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Judge In Docs Case Throws Out DOJ's Lawfare Against Trump, Rules Jack Smith's Appointment Unconstitutional.  Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday threw out the lawfare prosecution against former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents after finding the Biden administration unconstitutionally appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith.  As part of the Biden Justice Department's effort to jail the president's political opponent, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith to prosecute Trump.  The appointment served as the pretext for the armed 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago — where the use of deadly force was authorized — and led to Smith indicting Trump in June 2023 on 40 federal charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.  Cannon postponed the trial indefinitely in May, and she heard arguments from Trump's attorneys in June alleging Smith's appointment was unconstitutional under the Appointments Clause.  Cannon agreed in an order on Monday.

Judge dismisses classified documents case against Donald Trump.  Federal district judge Aileen Cannon has dismissed the classified documents case against Donald Trump.  In a ruling Monday, Cannon said the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith violated the Constitution.  "In the end, it seems the Executive's growing comfort in appointing 'regulatory' special counsels in the more recent era has followed an ad hoc pattern with little judicial scrutiny," Cannon wrote.  The earth-shattering ruling by Cannon, a judge Trump appointed in 2020, clears away one of the major legal challenges facing the former president, and comes on the first day of the Republican National Convention.  Many legal experts had viewed the classified documents case as the strongest one of the four cases that were pending against the former president.

Judge dismisses Trump's classified documents case, rules special counsel unlawfully appointed.  The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump's classified documents case in the Southern District of Florida dismissed the case Monday [7/15/2024] on constitutional grounds.  "The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith's appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution," Judge Aileen Cannon wrote in her order granting Trump's motion to dismiss.  The judge ruled that no federal statute cited by the Justice Department authorized the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith by the Attorney General, meaning he has no authority to prosecute the case.

FBI Turned Off Security Cameras During Mar-a-Lago Raid — Legal Experts Weigh In.  Special Counsel Jack Smith's team filed a response to President Trump's motion to dismiss the classified documents case based on spoliation of evidence seized by agents during the 2022 raid of Mar-a-Lago.  According to the new motion filed, the FBI turned off security cameras at Mar-a-Lago out of "concern for agent safety."  Biden's FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and seized boxes of records from Trump's Florida estate.  Machine-gun-toting agents descended on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and by November Biden's DOJ appointed a special counsel to investigate the documents stored at the Florida residence.

Court Docs Show Pics From Mar-A-Lago Raid Were Part Of Media Stunt.  The FBI purchased glossy cover sheets to use in photos of authorities' unprecedented raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.  On Tuesday, journalist Julie Kelly posted court documents on X showing Special Counsel Jack Smith "admitted the FBI added cover sheets to alleged classified documents found at MAL and took photos for evidence."  [Advertisement]  "This confirms my report from last month that the FBI doctored evidence to produce stunt photos of classified documents at [Mar-a-Lago]," Kelly said.  [Tweet]  In May, District Court Judge Aileen Cannon ordered an indefinite postponement of the criminal classified documents case against the former president to allow an independent review of the documents in the case tampered with by prosecutors.  Prosecutors admitted to mishandling the evidence triggering the delay demanded by the judge which now threatens the possibility for Smith's team to go to trial before the November election.

How January 6 and the Raid at Mar-a-Lago Emboldened DHS to Expand Monitoring of Americans.  Today [6/24/2024], following its victory in disbanding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "Homeland Intelligence Experts Group," America First Legal (AFL) is releasing the third tranche of the group's internal meeting notes, exclusively obtained from litigation.  This is the third installment of #DeepStateDiaries, a multi-part series of releases including newly obtained documents.  Today's installment shows how the Biden administration's allies on the Brennan-Clapper committee discussed using January 6 and the manufactured raid at Mar-a-Lago to justify further targeting and surveillance of political dissent.

Searching for the Truth About the Raid at Trumps Mar-a-Lago.  Top officials at the Department of Justice are downplaying recently disclosed documents showing FBI agents were authorized to use deadly force during their 2022 raid of Donald Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. [...] But critics argue that there was nothing ordinary about the Mar-a-Lago raid, in which more than 30 FBI agents descended on Trump's Palm Beach estate, potentially creating a dangerous situation with the armed Secret Service agents on site.  "There was zero reason to create an unnecessary, even one in a thousand chance, of a blue-on-blue situation with firearms," former Secret Service agent and political commentator Dan Bongino said on his podcast.  "The FBI, DOJ, and management of the Secret Service effed this up royally."  Even as the DOJ presents its actions as business as usual, the newly released documents and other public records suggest the department's actions entered uncharted territory.

The Biden deep fakery of Merrick Garland.  That Biden violated even the Espionage Act by knowingly providing classified information to a ghost writer isn't sufficient cause for prosecution.  Not so for Donald Trump who kept some such materials exclusively at Mar-A-Lago under continuous guard by the Secret Service.  Trump did not provide materials to unqualified persons, was negotiating with the National Archives, gave the FBI unrestricted access, and made security upgrades they suggested — before being raided by the same FBI.  Unlike Joe Biden, former presidents have authority under the Presidential Records Act — a civil, not a criminal, statute — to remove such documents.  Biden kept documents in multiple, unsecured places, including in an open box in his garage.

America's Corrupt Political Class Should Be Prosecuted, Not Trump.  Trump's alleged taking of classified documents to Mar-A-Lago is the closest thing to what looks like a conventional legal case with an understandable crime.  However, the case has been aggressively prosecuted with yet more novel legal moves in an attempt to rush a conviction before the election.  There were egregious leaks to the press from the prosecution that misrepresented the seriousness of the national security threat allegedly posed.  The judge, assisted by the prosecution's own incompetence after screwing up the chain of custody on the documents, has kept the case from getting out of control or moving on a rushed timeline.  But the political motivations of the prosecution here cannot be in question — they wanted a conviction in time to influence the election.

Did Federal Agencies Plant Classified Documents To Frame Trump?  On May 7, Florida Judge Aileen Cannon postponed former President Donald Trump's classified documents trial after explosive information dropped late Friday afternoon.  Several new pieces of evidence indicate it's even possible federal employees planted classified documents to frame Trump.  Even if what happened isn't that nefarious — although exactly that scenario has already been deployed against Trump several times — not only could the case be thrown out of court, but some federal lawyers may have risked their licenses for mishandling evidence.  As time goes on, the lawfare cases are looking increasingly like coverups of government attempts to imprison Democrats' top political opponent by framing him with crimes he didn't do.  It's yet another indication the federal government is using the U.S. legal system to serve extremist partisans instead of justice, destroying equality before the law.

Unsealed Docs in Trump Mar-a-Lago Case Further Reveal Just How Ludicrous the Raid Was.  Like many, I was appalled when the FBI raided former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in August of 2022.  While it was difficult in the fog of the ordeal to get a solid fix on what exactly the feds were after, the notion that the raid and subsequent prosecution were highly political in nature was inescapable — particularly when President Joe Biden's own classified document imbroglio came to light... and then was allowed to shuffle off into oblivion due to Biden's being deemed a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." [...] But wait — there's more.  FBI documents included in the unsealed filings also revealed that shortly before the raid was authorized and executed, Trump was cooperating with the FBI:  [Tweet]  [Advertisement]  As the above tweets indicate, FBI notes regarding a June 3, 2022, meeting at Mar-a-Lago lay out their discussions with Trump's representatives and Trump himself.

Was the FBI really ready to shoot Donald Trump as part of the Mar-a-Lago raid?  UPDATE: Turns out it was standard operating procedure to include those documents in the search warrant but the fact that the FBI would use such standard operating procedures against the President of the United States and his Secret Service detail is itself a scandal.  Just sayin'.  We know that the FBI and DOJ made a point of conducting the Mar-a-Lago raid when they knew Trump would not be there.  However, newly released documents associated with the raid empowered the FBI and DOJ agents present on the scene to shoot Donald Trump and his Secret Service detail if necessary.  We don't know if this was standard operating procedure or not, but it's certainly concerning on its face.  This new information emerged in newly unsealed documents in Judge Aileen Cannon's courtroom.

FBI Authorized Deadly Force in Trump's Mar-a-Lago Raid.  Judge Cannon on Tuesday unsealed numerous motions related to Jack Smith's classified documents case against Trump.  One filing revealed Biden's FBI authorized the use of deadly force during their raid on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.  [Tweet]  Armed FBI agents were prepared to confront Trump!!  "Should FPOTUS [Trump] arrive at MAL [Mar-a-Lago], FBI MM EM and OSCs will be prepared to engage with FPOTUS and USSS Security Team."  "Should USSS provide resistance or interfere with FBI timeline or accesses, FBI MM EM will engage with [redacted] and [redacted] will engage with USSS POC's per existing liaison relationships."  [Tweet]

Trump [Mpves] To Dismiss Classified Docs Case Based On 'Unconstitutional' Mar-A-Lago Raid, 'Prosecutorial Misconduct'.  Former President Donald Trump's attorneys alleged in filings docketed Tuesday that prosecutors in the classified documents case violated his constitutional rights on several occasions.  Trump's attorneys filed multiple motions to dismiss his classified documents case, including one for "prosecutorial misconduct and due process violations" and another based on the "unconstitutional" Mar-a-Lago raid.  In their filing on the raid, Trump's attorneys argued the warrant, which they said was "executed in an egregious fashion and in bad faith," lacked "the particularity required by the Fourth Amendment."  [Advertisement]  The warrant did not establish a basis for "rummaging through the majority" of the rooms at Mar-a-Lago, including "the private bedrooms of the First Lady and President Trump's youngest son," Trump's attorneys wrote.  They asked that evidence gathered from the raid, along with through a "subsequent unlawful violation of President Trump's attorney-client privilege," be suppressed.

An Honest Judge Exposes The Dishonesty Around The Mar-A-Lago Case.  It appears that the Deep State is embroiled in an ongoing RICO criminal conspiracy that began with interference in the 2016 election to block Trump.  It then became sabotage to unseat Trump and then to prevent his reelection (i.e., the false Russian Collusion narrative and the lies about Hunter's laptop).  Now, in 2024, it's lawfare, whether in Florida, Georgia, or New York.  The raid on Mar-a-Lago is only the tip of the iceberg of Deep State criminality.  A cadre of domestic and foreign enemies engaged in, aided, and abetted this coup.  The Biden and Clinton crime families have for decades conspired with both foreign and domestic enemies to gain wealth and power at the expense of America's national security interests and the American people's well-being and democratic rights.

DOJ & NARA Officials Colluded with Biden White House to fabricate a Classified Documents Case against Trump.  This is a timeline of events leading up to Trump's classified documents case.  The timeline covers GSA's handling and shipment of documents, along with actions taken by NARA, DOJ & White House Officials.  This timeline was created by Jeff Carlson on April 28, 2024 as backing documentation for an episode of Truth Over News.  Many of the details came from Court documents that were first highlighted by journalist Julie Kelly.  Additional details on the parallel saga of documents relating to Trump's Declassified Binder that were withheld by the DOJ come from court documents previously filed by journalist John Solomon.  If you use this timeline, please provide attribution.

Trump [is] Triumphing Over Evil.  [Scroll down]  Which brings me to Mar-A-Lago.  In the summer of 2022, an FBI SWAT team raided Donald Trump's home.  30 agents spent 9 hours rifling through his stuff.  They confiscated 100,000 items and claimed 100 of them were classified material that Trump should not have.  That means 99.9% of the stuff the FBI took the agents had no business taking.  They stole it.  The full list of items taken is [elsew]here.  The items seized included 1,693 newspapers and news clippings. [...] Fox reported the judge on Tuesday postponed the trial indefinitely.  This came after chief witch hunter Jack R. Smith admitted on Friday that he tampered with evidence.  The Fox story said, "Smith and federal prosecutors admitted in a court filing that documents seized during the raid on Mar-a-Lago are no longer in their original order and sequence.  "'There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,' Smith's filing states.  "The prosecutors had previously told the court that the documents were 'in their original, intact form as seized.'"  I am not a lawyer but it looks like the judge must dismiss the case with prejudice because of this tampering.  How can anyone trust the FBI when it claims this paper or that document was at Mar-A-Lago when they raided the place?  Jack S lying to the court should result in an investigation.

FBI Staged Fake Photo of Classified Documents for PR Purposes.  You know that famous photo of Trump's purloined Top Secret documents?  The one that the FBI released that showed all those classified documents hidden in folders?  [Advertisement]  It's kinda, sorta faked.  Staged.  Not accurate at all.  A sham.  A con.  [Photo]  No, it's not a photoshop.  That would be worse, I suppose.  Maybe.  You see, those folders that scream Top Secret were brought by the FBI and the documents were inserted in them by FBI agents.  Think about this for a minute.  The General Services Administration shipped these documents to Trump, which is why they are stuffed away in Mar a Lago in the first place.  Then, the Archives met with the Biden administration to prod it to investigate Trump.  Then the FBI raids Mar a Lago, armed with folders screaming "Top Secret," photographs them, and releases the photo to the world, suggesting that Trump stole away with these documents in these folders screaming Top Secret.  Smells like a setup.

The DOJ's Doctored Crime Scene Photo of Mar-a-Lago Raid.  A few weeks after the armed FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, the Department of Justice released a stunning photograph depicting alleged contraband seized from Donald Trump's Palm Beach estate that day; the image showed colored sheets representing scary classification levels attached to files purportedly discovered in Trump's private office.  Included as a government exhibit to oppose Trump's lawsuit requesting a special master to vet the 13,000 items taken from his residence, the crime scene pic immediately went viral — just as Attorney General Merrick Garland, who authorized the unprecedented raid, intended.  At the time, even regime-friendly mouthpieces questioned the need and optics of the raid; the photo helped juice the DOJ's justification for the storming of Trump's castle. [...] New court filings in Special Counsel Jack Smith's espionage and obstruction case against Trump and two co-defendants conclusively demonstrate that the government used the cover sheets to deceive the public as well as the court.  The photo was a stunt, and one that adds more fuel to this dumpster-fire case.

"Stunning On Multiple Levels": DOJ Admits To Evidence Tampering In Trump Classified Docs Case.  Special Counsel Jack Smith's team admitted on Friday that key evidence in Trump's classified documents case was altered or manipulated — leaving two different chronologies; one that was digitally scanned vs. what's in the actual boxes.  Smith also misled the court, after originally telling U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the boxes remained "in their original, intact form as seized," when in a footnote they conceded that they removed classified documents and left placeholder sheets, which prosecutors acknowledged has created an "inconsistent" record[,] in which some of the documents are no longer in the same order as they appear in digital scans made in the fall of 2022.

Prosecutors admit key evidence in document case has been tampered with.  In a stunning admission, Special Counsel Jack Smith's team is admitting that key evidence in former President Donald Trump's classified documents criminal case was altered or manipulated since it was seized by the FBI, and that prosecutors misled the court about it for a period of time.  Legal experts told Just the News the revelation could prove to be a serious problem for prosecutors and a violation of court rules to preserve evidence in the state it was seized.  In a new filing Friday, Smith's team said that the order of documents in some of the boxes of memos that were seized by the FBI from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate was altered or jumbled, leaving two different chronologies: one that was digitally scanned and another the physical order in the boxes.

Federal Agency Had 'Pallets' Of Documents Sent To Mar-A-Lago One Year Before DOJ Raid.  A federal agency worked with the Trump transition team to send two pallets of "document boxes" relating to former President Donald Trump's presidency to his Mar-a-Lago home — one year before Special Counsel Jack Smith then raided the residence to look for classified documents.  Smith indicted Trump in June of 2023 for allegedly mishandling classified documents, one year after armed federal agents raided Mar-a-Lago in search of such documents.  The General Services Administration (GSA) was in talks with Trump's team both during and after his term regarding "pallets" of items from the president's tenure, emails show.  The GSA informed Trump's transition team that there were six pallets that needed to be transferred from Virginia to Florida.  Of the six pallets, two were designated to be sent to Mar-a-Lago and four to a West Palm Beach storage unit, according to emails.  The two pallets to be delivered to Mar-a-Lago from an Arlington, Virginia facility contained "document boxes," according to an email previewing the shipping charges.

New Bombshell Evidence Emerges:  Was Trump Set Up in Classified Docs Saga?  This week in Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon unsealed a trove of new documents that Jack Smith fought to keep hidden.  And you'll soon find out why.  Among the documents unsealed were extensive exhibits, motions, and other filings shedding light on the intricate web of communication between the Biden White House and the National Archives and Records Administration in the lead-up to Trump's indictment.  Investigative journalist Julie Kelly found something interesting in the documents that could change everything.  The first things is testimony from an FBI agent who testified that the General Services Administration (GSA) had been in possession of Trump's boxes in Virginia before ordering Trump's team to come get them.  [Tweet]

The crux of the Mar-a-Lago jury instruction dispute: property interest and authorization.  Prior to the mid-1970s, neither the Espionage Act, federal records law, nor executive orders on classified information did away with presidents' "complete dominion and control over their presidential papers."  Nixon's papers were seized not by executive branch regulation or at the whim of his successor, but pursuant to Congress's exercise of the federal eminent domain power in the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974.  Congress asserted public ownership of "presidential records" starting on January 20, 1981 in § 2202 of the Presidential Records Act.  Without the PRA, all presidential papers and "the right to possess, use and dispose of" them would still belong to former presidents.  Jack Smith's prosecutors consider a property interest to have no bearing on "unauthorized possession" under 18 U.S.C. § 793(e).  While acknowledging that diaries are former presidents' personal property under the PRA, they insist that a former president is not allowed to retain those diaries if he puts national defense information in them the way Reagan did.  They maintain "the Court should not infer from silence on Congress's part an intention to disturb the framework governing the handling of classified information that was in place at the time the PRA was passed."

Judge Unseals Documents Showing FBI Discussed 'Loose Surveillance' of Trump's Plane.  A federal judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's classified documents case unsealed a new trove of documents on Monday, revealing the FBI's code name for the investigation and how the FBI spoke about performing "loose surveillance" on the former president's aircraft before an unprecedented raid in 2022.  The name, "Plasmic Echo," was revealed in unredacted court filings that were made public by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.  A February 2022 case file that was attached was marked with, "[Redacted] PLASMIC ECHO; Mishandling of Classified or National Defense Information."  Notably, the FBI has used unusual names for prior investigations such as Crossfire Hurricane, Varsity Blues, Tin Panda, and Lemon-Aid.  Among the documents the judge released Monday also included an FBI claim from June 2022 in which a counterintelligence official, whose name was not included, talked about carrying out "loose surveillance" on President Trump's plane to see if "boxes were loaded onto the plane."

Unredacted motion reveals collaboration between Biden White House and NARA to concoct classified docs case against Trump.  On Monday, a version of Donald Trump's motion to compel discovery in the Mar-a-Lago documents case was released by Judge Aileen Cannon with much of the information originally redacted by Biden's special counsel Jack Smith being unredacted.  In one section titled "Early Indications of NARA Bias," which was heavily redacted in its original, January 16 version, it now states that NARA General Counsel Gary Stern sent an internal email attaching a draft letter to President Trump's [Presidential Records Act] representatives.  Stern noted that he 'had several conversations' with [White House Office of Records Management]'s [redacted] and that [redacted] had 'raised some of these concerns directly with David [Ferriero, NARA's Archivist]."  "Stern's draft concluded that 'things were very chaotic, as they always are in the course of a one-term transition,' and he acknowledged that 'the transfer of the Trump electronic records is still ongoing and won't be complete for several more months.'"

Judge Cannon Unmasks Redacted Documents Revealing Biden White House Direct Ties to Mar-a-Lago Raid, Jack Smith Investigation.  Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday ordered key evidence in Jack Smith's classified documents case to be unredacted.  The newly unredacted documents revealed Biden's White House had direct ties to the Mar-a-Lago raid.  The Biden Regime was also directly tied to Jack Smith's investigation despite claims to the contrary from US Attorney General Merrick Garland.  Before with redactions:  Jack Smith wanted to hide the fact that the National Archives had several conversations with the Biden White House.

The Deep State's Accelerating Attacks On Trump Show A Consciousness Of Guilt.  My professional opinion as a criminal investigator is that Trump was investigating officials and agencies subordinate to him for potential illegal or seditious acts in order to hold the Administrative State accountable.  The Democrats' raid on Mar-a-Lago was to recover any copies of the Russian collusion binder or incriminating documents that Trump still possessed.  Also, this raid was a warning to others who would seek to expose the government's criminal activity by reminding them that the Administrative State can retaliate by using a flagrant and unaccountable abuse of power.  After the raid, the FBI didn't disclose anything incriminating.  Instead, it released photos staged for public consumption showing empty file folders spread on the floor with classified markings, along with carefully placed boxes.  It's entirely possible the FBI did not find what it was looking for.  If it's ever released, the binder will expose the Democrats' criminal activity.  It's likely to touch on every power player:  President Biden and his operatives, former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Director of the CIA John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Director of the FBI James Comey, the current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray, and others.

Judge Seems Receptive to Trump's Defense Claims in Documents Case.  Of all of the legal cases currently being piled up against Donald Trump in the Democrats' ongoing lawfare efforts against him, the one I've probably found the most troubling is the allegation of mishandling classified documents.  It's a fairly serious charge and it's one of the few cases against him that does at least appear to involve the possibility of an actual crime being committed (more on that in a moment) and physical evidence to support the claim.  It has thus far sounded as if the court was taking it seriously as well.  But now, a possible ray of hope has emerged for the former president.  U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has signaled an openness to the line of defense being claimed by Trump's attorneys, asking both the prosecution and the defense to propose jury instructions that would take those claims into account.  Both sides are expected to respond to the request this week.

Judge Cannon Takes Wrecking Ball to Trump Classified Docs Case Citing Robert Hur's Report.  Former President Donald Trump appeared in a Florida courtroom on Thursday to appeal his classified documents case, while citing Special Counsel Robert Hur's decision not to bring charges against sitting President Joe Biden.  Hur's report showed that Joe Biden not only willfully and intentionally mishandled classified documents, stored them in multiple insecure locations, and procured them while Senator and Vice President, but he also misled federal investigators, obstructed justice, and divulged national security secrets.  Biden's leaks of classified information are deemed to be so serious that the Intelligence Community is now performing a "damage assessment" to ascertain the extent they compromised national security.  Judge Cannon on Thursday, as reported by legal analyst Julie Kelly, took a wrecking ball to the Department of Justice's case against Donald Trump.  [Tweet]

Judge Questions Why Trump Was The Only President Charged Over Handling Of Classified Material.  The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's Florida case questioned during a Thursday hearing why he was the only president who has been charged over his handling of classified material, according to multiple reports.  During a hearing to consider various motions Trump filed to dismiss the case, Judge Aileen Cannon noted no former president had similarly faced criminal charges over the handling of classified material, according to NBC News.  Trump's attorneys brought up special counsel Robert Hur's report finding evidence President Joe Biden willfully kept classified documents, but declining to charge him, according to CNN.  "Even with other former presidents, there was never a situation remotely similar to this one," prosecutor Jay Bratt told Cannon, according to CNN.

The Missing Crossfire Hurricane Binder:  The FBI Wants It Hidden from the American Public and Will Do Anything to Prevent Its Release.  President Trump declassified a binder on January 19th, 2021.  The now infamous binder contains hundreds of pages about the Crossfire Hurricane scandal.  It contains damaging information about the corrupt actors involved in our government.  Two different DOJ Attorney General's have defied President Trump's direct lawful order to publish the binder in the Federal Register.  It's been over three years now, and the DOJ continues to defy the presidential order and every FOIA request to make it public.  Can we now raid the homes of former acting AG Monty Wilkinson, and current AG Merrick Garland? [...] The DOJ had already made redactions to protect sources and methods, and returned the binder back to the White House before Trump left office.  But the corrupt FBI also wanted to hide names of those involved in the scandal.  So, at the last minute, the DOJ demanded the binder comply with the 1974 Privacy Act.

So, Is That Why the FBI Ransacked Mar-a-Lago?  You know the story behind why the FBI raided the home of former President Donald Trump in August of 2022. It arguably was an event that helped Trump galvanize the GOP base to his side ahead of his anticipated 2024 announcement.  The ransacking culminated a lengthy back-and-forth between the National Archives and Records Administration and Trump's lawyers — federal officials still felt sensitive materials resided on location.  It set off the debate about classified materials and the protocols for taking them, a Democratic Party attack line that blew up in their faces when Biden got caught for doing the same thing.  The only difference is that Trump got indicted.  But there was one file that the FBI might have thought was at Mar-a-Lago.  It's not confirmed, but sources told Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag that the federal raid on Trump's house might have been on a hunch that the Russian collusion binder was on the premises.

CNN Begins Apoplexy Narrative Around "Missing" 10 Inch Declassified Dossier That Details Trump-Russia Conspiracy.  [Scroll down]  In short, President Trump declassified documents that show how the institutions within the U.S. government targeted him.  However, the institutions that illegally targeted President Trump are the same institutions who control the specific evidence of their unlawful targeting.  These examples of evidence held by President Donald Trump reveal the background of how the DC surveillance state exists.  THAT was/is the national security threat behind the DOJ-NSD search warrant and affidavit.  The risk to the fabric of the U.S. government is why we see lawyers and pundits so confused as they try to figure out the disproportionate response from the DOJ and FBI, toward "simple records" held by President Trump in Mar-a-Lago.  Very few people can comprehend what has been done since January 2009, and the current state of corruption, as it now exists, amid all of the agencies and institutions of government.  Barack Obama spent 8 years building out and refining the political surveillance state.  The operators of the institutions have spent the last six years hiding the construct.  President Donald Trump declassified the material then likely took the evidence to Mar-a-Lago, leaving the DOJ to make it public.  The people currently in charge of managing the corrupt system, like Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Chris Wray and the Senate allies, are going bananas.  From their DC perspective, Donald Trump is an existential threat.

Eric, Merrick, and Jeff.  Garland also wasn't shy about using the long arm of the FBI when it aided Biden's agenda.  On August 8, 2022 he approved a raid on former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home by some 30 FBI agents.  No former president had ever been subjected to a similar SWAT-like raid.  As for the national security documents which supposedly prompted the raid, National Archive officials testified that every administration had mishandled such documents.  So why the jackboot tactics?  The raid was the prelude to the filing of 40 federal counts against Trump related to classified documents.  Plus the timing of the raid ensured that charges would be filed during the 2024 election cycle and, if things worked out, Trump would be defending himself in federal court before the 2024 election.  Such was Garland's commitment to equal justice.

Judge in Trump Mar-a-Lago classified documents case demands to know why the DOJ wants to use a grand jury from out of state.  The federal judge in Donald Trump's classified documents case on Monday asked prosecutors why they had used grand juries in Florida and in Washington to build their case when charges were filed in South Florida.  Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, asked Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team to respond by August 22.  'The response shall address the legal propriety of using an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate and/or to seek post-indictment hearings on matters pertinent to the instant indicted matter in this district,' she wrote in a court filing.

Florida District Court Judge Cannon Denies Special Counsel Motions to Seal Evidence from Public Review.  Florida District Judge Aileen Cannon denied a DOJ request to keep evidence sealed in the Mar-a-Lago documents case against President Donald J Trump.  Additionally, Cannon has demanded that Special Counsel Jack Smith explain why he is using an out of district grand jury to construct additional charges against the defendant.  Cannon has presided over the document issues even before the indictment against Donald Trump was unsealed.  As a result, she has a good frame of reference for the Lawfare tactics the Special Counsel is attempting to deploy.

A Florida Trial and a D.C. Grand Jury for Trump.  The elites may have to hold one of their show trials in Florida, but the grand jury had to be in D.C.  ["]Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday asked the Justice Department to explain its use of an out-of-state grand jury in the Mar-a-Lago case.  While the Mar-a-Lago case is being handled out of her Fort Pierce, Fla., courtroom, much of the grand jury work ahead of the indictment was conducted through a Washington, D.C., grand jury.["]  A D.C. grand jury is an obvious rubber stamp for political prosecutors.  A D.C. grand jury would indict a ham sandwich, as long as it was a Republican.  That's why the real show is in Washington D.C.  Going down to Florida is a bit inconvenient because it's one of those provinces of the empire.

Judge Aileen Cannon "Comes Out Swinging" and Delivers Blow to Jack Smith in Classified Documents Case.  Judge Aileen Cannon in the Southern District for Florida federal court delivered a blow to Special Counsel Jack Smith's inquisition against President Trump regarding the "classified documents" case.  In their process, she also caused the liberals to go into unhinged meltdowns where they demanded her dismissal.  Previous reports on her coverage can be found here and here.  As previously covered by Cristina Laila, Cannon was appointed to oversee the classified documents case to the chagrin of liberals everywhere.  More examples of her coverage can be found here and here.  As Politico's Kyle Cheney reported, Cannon struck down two of Special Counsel Jack Smith's sealed filings in her ruling today.  Cheney said she came out swinging. [...]

Two Sets of Laws for Two Americas.  Two sets of laws now operate in an increasingly unrecognizable America.  Consider the matter of unlawfully removing and storing classified papers.  Donald Trump may go to prison for removing contested White House files to his home.  So far Joe Biden seems exempt from just such legal jeopardy.  But as a senator and Vice President with no right, as does a president, to declassify files, Biden removed and, as a private citizen kept for years classified files in unsecure locations.  Biden's team strangely revealed the unlawful removals after years of silence.  It did so because the Biden administration found itself in the untenable position of prosecuting the former president for "crimes" that the current president committed as well — albeit far earlier and longer.

Irony: Jack Smith's Team Admits Incorrectly Telling Court DOJ Turned Over All Materials.  Special Counsel Jack Smith's team admitted in a federal court filing in Miami this week that the government had not, in fact, given all of its evidence to the court for President Donald Trump's defense team to review — the same thing Trump is alleged to have done.  Smith has charged Trump with 40 counts in the so-called "documents" case.  Among them is the accusation that Trump caused his lawyers to tell the government that they had handed over all of the documents the government wanted, when in fact they had not.

Reporter Paul Sperry reveals devious new twist in the "classified docs" case against President Trump.  It's widely recognized that our justice system and the DOJ have been compromised and weaponized by the left.  Just take a look at the treatment of the J6 political prisoners or the case of a Trump supporter convicted of conspiracy for sharing an anti-Hillary meme on Twitter and facing a potential 10-year prison sentence.  These examples highlight an alarming shift towards a truly immoral and unjust "communist" system that the left is pushing.  And of course, the cherry on top is the Biden DOJ's persecution of President Trump.  Once again, we're well aware that this is all about politics, but the recent revelations by investigative journalist Paul Sperry shed light on the truly sinister agenda behind the relentless efforts to undermine Trump and keep him imprisoned indefinitely.  According to Paul's findings, the DOJ prosecutor, who also happens to be a donor to the DNC, meticulously redacted any mention of President Trump's cooperation with federal authorities during the investigation of classified documents.

Latest Leaks Don't Incriminate Trump, They Incriminate Democrats.  It has long been universally established that when it comes to the possession and declassification of so-called "classified documents," U.S. Presidents enjoy a unique power and privilege.  In 2017, the New York Times acknowledged that "Mr. Trump has the power to declassify or disclose anything he wants."  The Times quoted Steven Afterfood, a government secrecy specialist, who said that "the classification system is not based on a law" and that "it is an expression of presidential authority, and that means that the president and his designees decide what is classified, and they have the essentially unlimited authority to declassify at will."  In 2017, CNN posed the following question: "If the president says it, is it no longer classified?"  The article goes on to quote Senator Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican, who asserted that "the minute the President speaks about it to someone, he has the ability to declassify anything at any time without any process."

Judge Cannon Smacks Down Jack Smith, Denies Government's Motion to Keep List of 84 Witnesses Under Wraps.  Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, issued her first smackdown of Special Counsel Jack Smith.  Judge Cannon on Monday denied Jack Smith's motion to keep a list of 84 potential witnesses under seal in the classified documents case.  The judge said Jack Smith failed to explain why it was necessary to keep the names of the witnesses a secret.  Jack Smith was also trying to block Trump and his alleged co-conspirator, Walt Nauta, from communicating with the 84 witnesses.  [Tweet]

8 Cases Where Mishandling of Classified Information Went Unpunished.  The core of the accusation against former President Donald Trump is the allegation that he retained and mishandled classified information and national defense secrets.  Special Counsel Jack Smith justified this unprecedented prosecution by citing the need to protect classified information and the rule of law.  But do we really have "one set of laws in this country"?  Here is a list of eight past examples of high-profile individuals who were never prosecuted for the same basic or similar allegations.

Let's apply the Jack Smith standard to Biden and Hillary Clinton.  I read the Department of Justice's indictment this weekend, and yes, it was a mess.  Frankly, one can easily imagine former President Donald Trump ordering the movement of storage boxes from one location to another (and back again) and even waving a "senior military officials'" attack plan in front of a writer for dramatic effect.  Reckless?  Yes.  A violation of the law?  Maybe.  As corrupt as Hillary Clinton's mishandling and destruction of classified material?  Or the Biden family's alleged influence-peddling operation?  Not by a long shot.  One need not defend Trump's behavior as outlined in the indictment to point out that the Justice Department's charges in this case are the result of selective prosecution.  Consider, for example, the many cases of rule-bending and breaking that the DOJ has turned a blind eye to at Trump's expense.

The Trump Records Indictment Is Banana Republic [stuff], Too.  I mean, we know how fun it is for the media wing of the Democrat Party to gleefully spin The Walls Are Closing in on Donald Trump! stories, but we'll cut to the chase by telling you why these charges would make a fine addition to my compost pile. [...] Now, this is not to say that Donald Trump may not end up in Ted Kaczynski's old cell at the Florence, Colo., Super Max prison, hanging out with Ramzi Yousef.  This is a banana republic, after all — just ask that meme guy in New York.  But I am making the point that even some certified smart guys and Hillary Clinton believe these charges are absurd.  You know, just like all the others.

Our justice system is being weaponized to prevent Trump from becoming president again.  In case you didn't see it over the weekend, a Wall Street Journal editorial makes the point that the long and complicated indictment of former President Trump never once mentioned the Presidential Records Act that allows a president access to documents, both classified and unclassified, once he leaves the office.  And everybody should read that editorial.  The Journal goes on to say the indictment assumes Trump had no right to take any classified documents.  This assumption is completely false.  The whole point of this discussion, going all the way back to the insane invasion of Mar-a-Lago last summer, was about discussions and disagreements between Mr. Trump on the one hand and the National Archives on the other.

Mrs. Obama — we're looking for the Fast & Furious files.  We've crossed two dangerous lines in the last year.  First, the FBI showed up at Mr. Trump's home looking for files.  Second, a Special Counsel followed up with an indictment about those files.  Why hadn't this happened before?  Maybe it's because the people who came before us were smart enough to know that political passions go both ways. [...] Before Trump, no one would have dared consider that.  After Trump, anything can happen and probably will.  This is why I believe that this indictment against President Trump is going to backfire.  Yes, Trump, like Biden, made mistakes.  However, an indictment is over the top.  This is to going to blow up in their faces.

Trump Was 1st POTUS in 40 Years Who Feds Didn't Help Archive Classified Docs, Attorneys Say.  As we all now know, former President Donald Trump has been indicted on 37 counts of willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements after a special counsel investigation.  However, was the president set up by the federal government?  That is a possible defense that floated into a letter to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in April by Trump's attorneys, in which they allege the National Archives and Records Administration "has become overtly political and declined to provide archival assistance to President Trump's transition team" — the first such incidence of this to happen in 40 years.  And there's a reason why NARA usually aids presidents in the transition.

FBI official in charge of Mar-a-Lago raid had strong misgivings about the operation.  A senior FBI official involved in planning the raid of former President Donald Trump's Florida residence told Congress two days ago he had strong reservations about the operation and the investigation.  The House Judiciary released new information about the raid of Mr. Trump's residence and his indictment that details several deviations from the Justice Department's usual protocol.  The information was provided to the Committee via a June 7 transcribed interview of Steven D'Antuono, the former assistant director-in-charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office.

Same Plot, Different Actors.  [Scroll down]  The indictment shows many boxes stacked in a bathroom and ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, but most of those seem to be simply memorabilia that Trump saved, like presidents before him.  In fact, the government claims that of the 13,000 documents they seized at Trump's residence, only 102 had "classified markings" and only 31 are in issue, of which only 21 are claimed to be related to "national defense."  The President retains his secret clearance after leaving office.  Why show all those boxes stored unsecured?  Certainly, to create a certain impression of massive amounts of secret materials.  The indictment indicates just six top-secret and 18 secret documents were in his office.  The other 11 top-secret and 36 secret documents were in a storage facility onsite, which had a lock and key that was specified by the government in a security audit weeks before the raid in the midst of a discussion over which documents were to be kept by Trump, a fact omitted from the indictment.  Moreover, the entire facility was guarded round the clock by the Secret Service.  Compare and contrast with Biden's careless treatment of 1850 boxes of government documents scattered about unsecured in the University of Delaware, University of Pennsylvania, Chinatown D.C., and a garage.

Latest Trump Indictment Proves Deep State Is Trying To Rig Yet Another Election.  First, the FBI, at the direction of President Joe Biden's Department of Justice, raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.  Then, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, encouraged by corporate media and Democrats, revived a case against Trump that several officials previously declined to pursue.  Now, Trump faces punishment for the retention of presidential documents following his departure from the White House, something his predecessors did without any consequences.  If the Biden administration gets its way, Trump will also be penalized for exercising his First Amendment rights on Jan. 6, 2021.  The Biden administration's many cases against Trump are, by all legal standards, weak.  This latest documents indictment, specifically, was clearly "a set-up from the start."  Even some of Trump's biggest haters admit that the prosecutions conjured up by seething Democrats are a feeble attempt to keep the former president from winning the White House again.

Donald Trump Floats That FBI Staged Knocked-Over Box Of Classified Docs.  Former President Donald Trump said Friday that the FBI staged a knocked-over box of documents for photographs included in the indictment over his alleged mishandling of classified material in a Truth Social post.  "Strange!  Everything about the boxes was so neat, orderly, and clean," Trump posted on the social network.  "Did the FBI tip over the one box the way they 'staged' the papers on the floor during the raid of Mar-a-Lago, only to apologize after getting caught?"  Trump announced Thursday on Truth Social that his attorneys had been told he was being indicted as the result of an investigation into classified documents that were the subject of an Aug. 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago, the Florida estate he owns.

Trump Suggests That FBI Planted Classified Material Into Evidence They Took During Raid.  Former President Donald Trump responded to the federal indictment unsealed on Friday by suggesting that federal agents "stuffed" classified material into evidence that they collected from Mar-a-Lago after they raided the property last year.  A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida indicted the president on 37 felony counts for his alleged retention of national defense information, his alleged attempts to obstruct the investigation, and for allegedly lying to investigators.  "When the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, they wouldn't let my lawyers or representatives anywhere near them," Trump wrote on social media. "They wouldn't tell us what they took.  Knowing them, and based on past performance, they probably later 'stuffed' in other documents.  My lawyers had to wait outside, on a very hot day.  The FBI took my medical records, birth certificate, and passports, and just about anything else they were able to get their hands on.  What a group!  They didn't do this to Crooked Joe Biden or Hillary."

Indicting a Former President over Nonsense Is Playing with Fire.  Reports are circulating that federal prosecutors are about to ask a grand jury to indict former President Donald Trump over his handling of classified documents after leaving office.  If those reports are true, and prosecutors do move against Trump, it would be the first time in American history that the government had prosecuted the leading opposition candidate.  It would also destroy public faith in the rule of law and voters' trust in democracy.  The documents charges are incredibly weak, from what has been reported publicly thus far.  The president has full declassification authority, and there is no formal procedure for declassifying documents.  Breathless claims of "national security" secrets, even nuclear codes, being brought to Trump's estate at Mar-a-Lago turned out to be fantasies.  Prosecutors may fall back on charges of obstruction of justice, which seem to be just as speculative.

Former Trump Lawyer Describes 'Stunning' Prosecutorial Misconduct in Jack Smith's Classified Docs Probe.  President Trump's former lawyer Tim Parlatore believes the former president's defense team will claim prosecutorial misconduct in Jack Smith's ongoing classified documents probe.  Special Counsel Jack Smith has been investigating Trump after he stored presidential records at Mar-a-Lago and whether the former president tried to obstruct the probe.  Tim Parlatore told CBS's Catherine Herridge he was "stunned" by what he saw in the grand jury room by the conduct of the prosecutors.  "I witnessed a lot of misconduct," Tim Parlatore told CBS's Catherine Herridge Wednesday evening, explaining he went before the grand jury himself.

Reminder, What Was in The Mar-a-Lago Documents.  Last year, CTH outlined a four-part series of articles going deep into the background of the DOJ-FBI raid of President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, along with the outline into why it was important to them.  It doesn't matter how many different legal angles and Deep State justifications the DOJ attempts to deploy in order to divert away from what took place; the background of who, what, when and why they raided Mar-a-Lago will not change. [...] It is important to remember, the Presidential Records Act — the presented pretext for the document conflict — is not a criminal statute.  An FBI raid cannot be predicated on a document conflict between the National Archives and a former president.

Jim Jordan Demands Merrick Garland Forfeit Records Over The FBI's Mar-A-Lago Raid.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday demanding documentation related to the FBI's raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate last year.  The raid — which took place on Aug 8, 2022 — was reportedly aimed at retrieving "any document Trump ever saw, read, or created for the entirety of his four years as commander-in-chief."  Due to the unprecedented nature of the Biden DOJ conducting a raid on a former president and a potential 2024 rival, House Judiciary Republicans sent letters to Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and then-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain demanding records pertaining to "the execution of a search warrant" and "the decision to seek a search warrant" for Trump's estate.  The affidavit released by the FBI later that month justifying the agency's warrant application to raid Trump's Florida residence was nearly all redacted.

19 Times Democrats And DOJ Deliberately Politicized Law Enforcement.  [#5]  In August, the FBI conducted an unprecedented raid of former President Trump's Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago.  The search, personally approved by Biden's attorney general after Trump blocked Garland's 2016 Supreme Court nomination, authorized agents to confiscate any and all documents Trump may have come in contact with as president.  Federal law enforcement officials ultimately left with 15 boxes of allegedly classified material after their search of the 128-room complex, including through former First Lady Melania Trump's wardrobe.

Biden Removed President Trump's Executive Privilege in Order to Raid Mar-a-Lago to Cover-Up His Own Illegal Possession of Classified Docs.  Right after the illegal raid on Mar-a-Lago, Attorney Mike Davis went on Fox News.  He pointed out that the raid was unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful.  President Trump had the Presidential Records Act that allowed him to take whatever documents he wanted, classified or not, with him to Mar-a-Lago when he left the White House.  There must have been a major reason why Biden and AG Garland would raid the President's iconic home to take documents from President Trump.  It was suggested that Biden wanted to steal President Trump's documents that showed the criminal acts by the Clintons, Obamas, Bidens and the corrupt DOJ and FBI.  The documents were related to the Russia collusion lie made up against President Trump.  Now we know there is more to this story.  This week more evidence came out that Biden was involved with the raid on Mar-a-Lago.

Biden's White House was up to its neck in the Mar-a-Lago raid.  America First Legal ("AFL") filed a FOIA request with the Office of the Inspector General ("OIG") for the National Archives and Records Administration ("NARA") to find out more information about the raid on Mar-a-Lago last year.  Rather unexpectedly, the OIG responded honestly to the request, turning over records that revealed the White House helping to set up the FBI for the raid.  As a preliminary matter, Trump had an absolute right to possess any records he wanted, if he gained possession of them (as he did) while he was still president.  It is black-letter law (that is, unquestioned, uncontested, absolute law) in America that the President of the United States is the last, best word when it comes to document classification: [...]

Report: Joe Biden's White House Involved in Raid on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Residence.  President Joe Biden's administration was involved in the raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence through a "special access request," according to documents obtained from the National Archives by America First Legal.  On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided Mar-a-Lago on the grounds of retrieving alleged classified documents.  According to the establishment media, Biden administration officials were "stunned" to hear of the unprecedented action.  The Archives also claimed that it had "not been involved in the DOJ investigation."  But documents show the FBI obtained access to the records through a "special access request" from the Biden White House on behalf of the DOJ, contradicting what the Archives told Congress, America First Legal revealed Monday [4/10/2023].

Biden Administration Asked National Archives to Let FBI Access Boxes From Mar-a-Lago: Letter.  The Biden administration, months before the Mar-a-Lago raid, asked the federal agency in charge of keeping the nation's records to let the FBI pore over documents from former President Donald Trump's home, a newly disclosed letter shows.  The White House Counsel's Office sent the request to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in April, acting Archivist Debra Wall later told Evan Corcoran, a lawyer for Trump.  "On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel's Office — affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum — formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes," Wall said in the letter, which was first published by Just the News.  NARA released a copy on Aug. 23.  The boxes were transferred to NARA in mid-January from Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida resort, after months of negotiations, NARA has said.

Joe Biden Knew Everything — The Regime Worked with the FBI Prior to the Raid of President Trump's Home.  In August as the FBI was raiding his father's home at Mar-a-Lago, an unprecedented abuse on a former US President, Eric Trump told FOX News that this only took place with Joe Biden and his handler's explicit approval.  [Tweet]  And Eric was right!  On Monday [4/10/2023] America First Legal revealed that the Biden White House was involved in the unprecedented raid on former President Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.  The DOJ and Biden White House then lied about their efforts.

WaPo: FBI resisted Mar-a-Lago raid, DoJ prosecutors demanded it.  Why?  Did the FBI get a bad rap in the wake of the raid on Mar-a-Lago?  According to the Washington Post, the raid took place only after months of debate between the FBI and prosecutors from the Department of Justice.  The FBI argued that a request for a full search of the property would have sufficed, according to two senior officials from the bureau.  The prosecutors wanted a raid, however, and the DoJ agreed: [...] Some of the field agents wanted to end the standoff altogether.  FBI executives didn't want to go that far, according to the WaPo's sources, but they didn't want to escalate matters with a splashy raid when a quieter and more cooperative search might have sufficed.  Part of that sprang from precedents set with Hillary Clinton and blowback the bureau received over how that was handled, but part of it was concern over the political costs of escalation.

Report: FBI Agents Did Not Want to Raid Mar-a-Lago.  A stunning report in Wednesday's Washington Post details the tensions between FBI agents and Justice Department attorneys over the August raid of former President Donald Trump's Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.  FBI officials were leery of the plan, and pleaded for a more measured approach, while DOJ prosecutors were hell-bent on a surprise incursion to search for classified documents:  ["]Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property.  But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump's permission to search his property, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive investigation.["]

Joe Biden, expert witness.  No, Donald Trump is not going to be either indicted or tried in the "documents scandal."  The reason is simple:  Joe Biden's collection of half the documents classified by the U.S. government during the past twenty years, with more turning up every other week, opens the door for any hypothetical Trump defense team to subpoena Biden as a witness for the defense.  The grounds for this are straightforward.  With his vast caches of secret documents, Biden has become the poster child for document hoarding, much more so than Trump or Pence, or just about any other president or vice-president since the modern classification system went into effect.  Who better than Slow Joe to testify on how easy it is to "accidentally" wind up with gaylords full of classified material, how effortlessly it can be lost track of, and how difficult it is to prevent access by a hustler and foreign agent?  There is nobody better.

The Paul Pelosi attack coverup was another instance of the Democrats rigging the 2022 midterms.  [Scroll down] President Trump's home was raided in August 2022.  That raid was conducted despite ongoing negotiations between the authorities and Trump's lawyers about the handover of the documents.  There was no indication that Trump's team was trying to impede the transfer of documents back to the National Archives.  The goal of the raid was political.  It was a bid to create the appearance that Trump's actions were nefarious and that Trump was the only president in the history of the nation to mishandle classified information.  The raid was used by the media to promote conspiracy theories about Trump wanting to sell nuclear secrets to adversarial foreign powers.  It was sort of a sequel to the Trump-Russia collusion hoax and the claim that Trump is a force of chaos and recklessness.  But news of classified documents at Biden's former office became public more than two months after their discovery, on Jan. 9, 2023.  This was obviously to prevent any harm to the Democrats during the midterms.  Government agencies once again were found working for the Democrats as they led this act of suppression of key information to protect the White House.

Is the Justice Department Pursuing Biden Just to Get Trump?  If the Justice Department can pick and choose the president, then we don't really have a "democracy" at all but an oligarchy with a Praetorian guard.  Of course, many suspect this has been the case for some time.  We all saw how Trump was sandbagged with a bogus criminal probe into Russian "collusion," and the witch-hunt is ongoing.  It's worth considering whether the Justice Department, by going after Biden, is creating a pretense of fairness to justify indicting Trump.  This would be a truly egregious interference in the democratic process.  Some factions of the Left and Right might be happy with an outcome where both Trump and Biden go down.  But if anyone is going to get shafted, it's probably Trump.

Discovery Of More Biden Docs Proves Mar-A-Lago Raid Was Just Another Russia-Collusion Hoax.  The FBI recovered an additional cache of classified documents from President Joe Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware, following a 12-hour search conducted by federal agents on Friday.  While this development adds to the scandal surrounding the current president, it does much more:  It highlights the ridiculous plot launched to destroy Donald Trump that culminated in the raid of his Mar-a-Lago home.  "Six items" were recovered on Friday from Biden's Delaware home, which consisted of "documents with classification markings and surrounding materials," the president's lawyer said in a statement released after the search.  While the "crafty legalese" deployed by the attorney left unclear how many classified documents were contained within the "six items" recovered, Biden's lawyer confirmed that the documents dated back to the Delaware Democrat's time as both vice president and senator, so spanning from 2017 to as far back as 1973.

Was the Mar-a-Lago Raid a Biden Insurance Policy?  Much of the commentary concerning the presence of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center office and the President's Delaware home has focused on the delay between the discovery and the public revelation of that discovery.  And it is difficult to believe that the timing was apolitical.  There is another question about the timing, however, that no one seems to have asked:  Why were classified documents that had been in Biden's possession since 2017 suddenly found less than 90 days after the FBI raid on former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound?  That raid was obviously a well-orchestrated piece of theater calculated to draw maximum coverage by the corporate news media and to be seen by the American public. [...] Biden's people all but certainly learned long before Nov. 2 or Aug. 8 of last year that he was illegally in possession of classified material — and had been stunningly sloppy about security.  These people are smart enough to know Biden's classified document problem would eventually become public knowledge, and that damage control would be necessary.  What better way to preemptively indemnify the Big Guy than to raid the home of former President Trump on the pretext that he was committing a crime of which Biden himself is guilty?

Biden Just Tanked Democrats' Chances of Using the Mar-a-Lago Raid Against Trump.  President Joe Biden may have singlehandedly deprived his party of what might have been one of its most powerful weapons to use against former President Donald Trump.  At the moment, story after story is emerging showing that he is guilty of what Democrats and members of the activist media have accused Trump of. [...] The first batch of Biden's documents was discovered on November 2.  The second, which was found in his garage was revealed on December 20.  The latest batch, which was located in Biden's Delaware residence came to light on January 12.  Is it possible that the DOJ has not moved on Trump because Attorney General Merrick Garland and the gang knew Biden was possibly guilty of the same offense with which they planned to charge the former president?  I would say so.

Flashback: Joe Biden Slammed Donald Trump as 'Irresponsible' for Keeping Documents at Mar-a-Lago.  President Joe Biden slammed former President Donald Trump in September on 60 Minutes as "irresponsible" for allegedly keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.  "How could that possibly happen?" Biden responded in the interview about Trump's documents at Mar-a-Lago.&n bsp;"How anyone could be that irresponsible?" [...] Biden's statement came four months before CBS News reported Monday that a Biden think tank had been storing ten classified documents at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington.

Biden's Ten files were found day before midterms — but Department of Justice investigation has only just been made public.  Joe Biden on Monday refused to answer why classified documents had been found inside the offices of his Washington D.C. think tank in November — news that has only been made public now.  Biden was in Mexico City on Monday, for a meeting with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.  As the press was being ushered out of the meeting room, one reporter yelled out: 'Mr President, any response to the discovery of classified documents?'  Biden, flanked by his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and the Attorney General Merrick Garland, did not respond to the question, which was shouted as a Mexican government official began thanking the visiting U.S. delegation.

Classified Documents Found In Joe Biden's Old Office, DOJ Investigating.  Well, this is certainly an interesting turn of events.  According to CBS News, 10 classified documents were located at Joe Biden's vice-presidential office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington.  The documents were discovered by Biden's attorneys, who were reportedly packing up Biden's stuff to vacate the office.  Attorney General Merrick Garland has assigned a US attorney to review what was found.

DOJ Investigating Classified Documents Biden Kept After Leaving VP Office.  When former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate was raided by the FBI last year and government documents marked as sensitive were found by agents, President Joe Biden called his predecessor "irresponsible" and fretted about "what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods?"  Well, as it turns out, Biden is not the best person to cast aspersions on Trump for having classified and top secret documents in a private setting as new reporting suggests Biden took similar action after leaving office as vice president in the Obama administration.  This revelation comes courtesy of reporting from CBS News and CNN, which said Monday evening that "several classified documents from President Joe Biden's time as vice president were discovered last fall in a private office" according to "a source with knowledge of the matter."

Classified Information: A Personal Perspective.  [Scroll down] Anyway, a picture of documents strewn on the floor at Mar a Lago with classification covers paperclipped (!?!) seems oddly anachronistic in 2022.  Yet, of some 33 boxes of documents seized that day in August, it is reported that 100 documents bear classified markings, although what level of classification is not specified.  In recent weeks, President Trump's team found two additional documents with "classified" markings (again, what level we do not know) and sent them to the archives.  Beyond this, the Justice Department has not disclosed what other "classified" materials it believes have been withheld.  It will indeed be interesting to observe how this current controversy plays out, probably over the next couple of years.

Justice Department Lies About Absent Prosecutor.  To hear the media tell it, Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Donald Trump's alleged theft of classified documents and any illegal interference in the certification of the 2020 election results, is feverishly working away.  Smith, according to a recent story in Yahoo News, issued subpoenas seeking more information related to Trump's attempts to "overturn" the 2020 election.  The subpoenas target "election officials in seven battleground states that were key to former President Trump and his allies after the 2020 election," Brad Dress reported on December 14.  "These grand jury subpoenas make clear that Special Counsel Jack Smith is aggressively pursuing the January 6th investigation, including the 'fake electors' scheme,'" legal analyst Renato Mariotti swooned on Twitter.

President Trump Special Master Appointment Overturned by Appeals Court — If Secret Search Warrant is Valid, All Seizure Valid.  The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals having previously ruled the special master cannot review classified documents, also ruled today against the special master having any involvement in the filtering of seized documents from Mar-a-Lago.  Previously, the lower court appointed a special master to review the seized documents and ensure no privileged material was exploited by the DOJ.  However, the appellate court determined the DOJ can independently define a national security interest and classify documents with no legal basis for challenge, therefore the special master cannot filter classified documents.

Appeals court vacates order appointing Trump Mar-a-Lago search warrant watchdog.  A federal appeals court on Thursday overturned a judge's decision to appoint a watchdog known as a special master to review thousands of documents seized by the FBI from the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump as part of a criminal investigation.  "This appeal requires us to consider whether the district court had jurisdiction to block the United States from using lawfully seized records in a criminal investigation," a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit wrote in its ruling.  "The answer is no," the panel wrote.

Special master reviewing Mar-a-Lago documents cancels status conference.  The special master tasked with reviewing documents seized from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home on Monday canceled a scheduled hearing later this week, signaling that his work might be wrapping up.  In a brief order, the special master, Judge Raymond Dearie, canceled a conference with Justice Department attorneys and Mr. Trump's legal team scheduled for Thursday in Brooklyn.  Judge Dearie said in-person appearances are no longer needed and asked both parties instead to submit paperwork clarifying the categorization of documents that remain in dispute.

DOJ Once Again Changes Trump Seizure Evidence List Dropping "Empty Classified Folders".  In a recent court filing, President Trump through his legal counsel has requested Judge Cannon to unredact and unseal the search warrant affidavit used as the predicate for the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.  Apparently, the DOJ have yet to provide President Trump with the constitutionally required predicate documents to support their search.  Additionally, the DOJ previously leaked to media about "empty folders with classified banners" as part of the evidence cache they collected.  According to the filing the DOJ has since presented three different versions of their evidence collection list, with the most recent list dropping any claims of "two empty folders with classified banners."

Washington Post Quietly Reports Construct of FBI Top Secret Narrative Around Trump Mar-a-Lago Documents Was False.  If you read between the lines of the Washington Post's current description of the "classified" documents, as noted by anonymous federal officials connected to the investigation, the 'classified' documents in context were personal correspondence between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un about the need to chill out on the nuclear stuff.  President Trump considered these types of papers personal mementos, while the administrative state — seeking to weaponize the DOJ/FBI for maximum political damage and narrative engineering — considered them top secret national security documents.  The election is over, so the narrative is no longer needed.

WaPo Sheepishly Admits the FBI Found No Nuclear Secrets, or Anything Else, in Mar-a-Lago Raid.  Remember when the FBI raided Trump's home supposedly looking for "nuclear secrets" a few months back?  Guess how that turned out?  I'll let the quislings at the Washinton Post spell it out:  ["]Federal agents and prosecutors have come to believe former president Donald Trump's motive for allegedly taking and keeping classified documents was largely his ego and a desire to hold on to the materials as trophies or mementos, according to people familiar with the matter.["]  In other words, Trump was keeping souvenirs, as everyone else does.  Funny how WaPo sat on that story until after the midterms, right?

Key Takeaways from the FBI Whistleblowers Report.  On November 4, 2022, the Republican staff of the House Judiciary Committee published a report based primarily on whistleblower testimony, describing how the FBI and the Justice Department have become politically weaponized against conservatives.  I strongly urge every AT reader to download the report and spend 30 to 60 minutes reading the first 50 pages.  Here are a few of the salient points. [...] [#4] The Justice Department and FBI conducted an unprecedented raid on a former president's home.  "This unprecedented raid comes after months of ongoing discussions and negotiations between President Trump and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) regarding records from his time in office.  The FBI's use of such aggressive law-enforcement tactics against a political opponent of the Biden Administration is another indication of how the FBI is guided by political considerations."  Contrast this to the treatment received by Hilary Clinton.  "The FBI never raided her private residence to recover classified information on her personal server, executed a search warrant or served a subpoena.  Instead, the Justice Department allowed her lawyers to sort through Secretary Clinton's emails and determine which emails to preserve and which to delete."

The Politicization of the Department of Justice.  Consider first the raid's timing.  President Biden's approval ratings have been abysmal, and it is a mid-term election year.  Bloomberg reports that the DOJ will likely delay "charging" Trump with anything arising from the raid on his home until after the mid-terms.  The effect of this is to create a cloud of perceived guilt running up to November 8, and use that as a political tool to smear pro-Trump voters and candidates.  The DOJ hides behind its longstanding policy of not taking politically portentous actions close to an election — but how could the raid itself be construed as anything but such a portentous action?  President Trump and his lawyers were engaged in a cooperative dialogue with both the DOJ and National Archives representatives on the issue of storing and archiving confidential documents.  He went as far as to invite the DOJ to survey the documents he had on his property, and the DOJ seemed to have expressed little urgency in pursuing the matter.

DOJ Moves to Purge Trump's Special Master From Mar-a-Lago Investigation.  The Department of Justice clinched its legal win at the Supreme Court, which refused to intervene in the case involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation's raid on Mar-a-Lago this past summer.  Trump and his legal team are on their own.  The Justice Department's access to the files that were seized during the raid that reportedly contained classified information was restored by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.  The special master appointed by Judge Aileen Cannon is also barred from reviewing some 100 documents since that could inflict irreparable damage to the government.  It's hogwash, but the courts have expanded the search power of the DOJ to near-universal limits post-9/11.  Now, the Justice Department is moving to appeal the special master ruling and toss the Trump legal team's challenger altogether.

Trump Team Savages New York Times For Hyping The Movement Of Boxes.  Donald Trump's spokesperson claimed The New York Times engaged in "some of the most irresponsible reporting imaginable" after the outlet published a story claiming an aide for the former president moved around boxes at Mar-a-Lago before and after a subpoena to return classified materials — despite not knowing what was actually inside the boxes.  The NYT published a story Thursday claiming a Trump aide was caught on camera moving boxes "out of a storage room" at Mar-a-Lago "both before and after" the Department of Justice issued a subpoena asking for the former president to return all classified materials.  The storage room in question was one of the rooms subject to investigation by the DOJ in its August raid, the outlet said, citing anonymous sources "familiar with the matter."  The NYT states twice in its reporting that "it is unclear if the boxes that were moved were among the material later retrieved by the F.B.I.," apparently indicating that the outlet is not certain that the boxes being moved had any classified materials that the FBI was looking for.

DOJ to Supreme Court: Don't Intervene in the Case Involving Our Ransacking of Mar-a-Lago.  This story began as a napalm raid but has now been reduced to a fire used to toast marshmallows for smores.  That's due to this FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago being boiled down to lawyer's work, which is dull and torturously slow.  We've reached the end of the road here regarding the lawfare, as the Trump team asked the Supreme Court to intervene.  The Justice Department is asking the high court to avoid this case since they need to keep it alive in the hopes that they can find something to weaponize against the former president.  The Trump team is arguing that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled on the most recent DOJ appeal about their August raid, didn't have the jurisdiction to rule on the special master ruling[.]

National Archives Scraps 'Transparency' Mission When It Comes to Trump Documents.  The Biden administration has turned what should be the most transparent of government agencies, the National Archives and Records Administration, into one of the least transparent agencies — rivaling even the FBI.  Established in 1934, the National Archives has a mission to identify, protect, preserve, and make publicly available all historically valuable records.  But the National Archives has become politicized by the Biden administration and no longer provides transparency in public records.  Jodi Foor, the National Archives' deputy Freedom of Information Act officer, would not answer a FOIA request from The Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project for records related to the FBI's raid on former President Donald Trump's Florida home within the statutory timeline.  This inaction forced The Heritage Foundation to sue to get a response to our request.

Trump goes to Supreme Court over Mar-a-Lago search and seizure of documents.  Former President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday [10/4/2022] to intervene in the dispute over materials marked as classified that the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate this summer.  His emergency request with the Supreme Court is the latest example of the former President seeking to involve the justices in investigations that entangle him — at a time when the high court's legitimacy in politically explosive cases is under intense scrutiny.  Trump is specifically asking the court to ensure that the more than 100 documents marked as classified are part of the special master's review.

Donald Trump's Latest Move Over Mar-a-Lago Document Fiasco Will Energize His Haters.  It seems like ten years ago, but the legal drama surrounding the Department of Justice's arguably unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago is still being fought.  The Justice Department is appealing the Trump motion for a special master, even as that person is reviewing the records seized by FBI agents on August 8.  The DOJ tried to make the case that such a delay would constitute a national security risk.  Judge Aileen Cannon issued an injunction against the FBI from further investigating the documents and granted the special master motion.  The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled her, permitting the Justice Department to resume its investigation and excluding some 100 documents marked as classified from review by the special master.

It Was Okay for Bill Clinton to Keep Presidential Records, But Not Trump?  A former president can keep whatever presidential records he wants and the government has no authority to seize them.  Period.  That was the Department of Justice's legal opinion a decade ago.  It was a conclusion shared by both the National Archives and a U.S. District Court in Washington D.C.  On that basis, ex-president Bill Clinton was allowed to maintain custody of whatever he wanted, including allegedly classified audio tapes that he stored in his home.  Fast forward to August 8, 2022 when Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered a team of FBI agents to raid and forcibly seize presidential records from the home and office of former President Donald Trump.  Garland did it because it was Trump, not Clinton.  It was purely political and contrary to the established policy of the DOJ, the controlling law under the Presidential Records Act, and the earlier federal court decision.

Judge rebuffs special master, rules Trump need not submit declaration on document planting.  Former President Donald Trump does not have to submit a declaration on whether the Justice Department planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago before his legal team reviews the stash, a judge ruled in a victory for his legal team.  U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon overruled the special master she appointed, who sought a sworn document from Trump's legal team on whether the DOJ planted evidence.  She also pushed back key deadlines for the third-party special master review of material seized.  "There shall be no separate requirement on Plaintiff at this stage, prior to the review of any of the Seized Materials, to lodge ex ante final objections to the accuracy of Defendant's Inventory, its descriptions, or its contents.  The Court's Appointment Order did not contemplate that obligation," Cannon wrote.

Judge says Trump does not have to comment on accuracy of DOJ inventory.  U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said that Former President Donald Trump does not have to declare in court whether or not the Justice Department's updated inventory of the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago is accurate.  In response to Trump's suggestion that the FBI planted evidence during its search on Aug. 8, Special Master Raymond Dearie had said that Trump had to submit a declaration of the accuracy of the Justice Department's inquiry.

Trump Suffers Zero Electoral Fallout From FBI's Mar-A-Lago Raid: I&I/TIPP Poll.  Did the Aug. 8 raid on former President Donald Trump's Florida home damage his electoral chances for 2024 and those of the Republican Party in the upcoming midterm elections?  Data from the recent I&I/TIPP Poll suggest the answer is no.  First of all, comparison data from the I&I/TIPP Polls (one taken of 1,182 registered voters online from August 2-4, the other of 1,145 voters from September 7-9) show that those who thought the FBI raid on Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate would badly tarnish his image in the public eye and damage his future prospects were likely wrong.

Raid on Mar-a-Lago: Judge Cannon Stands in the Breech Against the Deep State.  US District Court Judge Aileen M. Cannon is single-handedly holding the DOJ and FBI accountable to the people and the US Constitution.  The DOJ and FBI have run amok and gone full Stasi in support of the fascistic Biden Administration.  Judge Cannon is now taking heat from biased legal pundits claiming her rulings are flawed. [...] The raid is an excellent example of how the Deep State uses the full power and weight of the federal government to intimidate, harass, and imprison those who dare to stand up in opposition to the unconstitutional acts and abuse of power.  With the Biden Administration's blatant lies assisted by Big Tech and the complicit media, the people may now realize the government has been and is lying to them.  This unconstitutional raid lays bare the DOJ's and FBI's blatant disregard for the rule of law and equal justice for all.

Special Master Calls for Outside Help in Mar-a-Lago Documents Case, Bills Trump $500 an Hour.  Judge Raymond Dearie, the court-appointed Special Master in former President Donald Trump's 'classified' documents case, is calling for outside help.  Trump will be billed $500 an hour for aid from a retired judge with "top secret" clearance, as well as staff from the Eastern District of New York.  "The undersigned has determined that the efficient administration of the Special Master's duties requires the assistance of the Honorable James Orenstein (Ret.), a former United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of New York, who has experience with complex case management, privilege review, warrant procedures, and other matters that may arise in the course of the Special Master's duties," the court order state. "Judge Orenstein has served as an appointed amicus curiae in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court pursuant to 50 U.S.C. § 1803(i)(2) and currently holds Top Secret clearance."

The Eleventh Circuit's unconstitutional ruling against Trump.  The Eleventh Circuit issued an unconstitutional ruling against President Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago matter.  The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that the president himself, not any other part of the U.S. government, has the final say over what constitutes a classified document.  No one can second-guess the president, yet that's what the Eleventh Circuit did by issuing an order ceding control over classification decisions to the Department of Justice.  A district court judge granted Trump's motion for a special master to review the documents the FBI seized from his property, many of which Trump argued were privileged.  The DOJ appealed, seeking a stay of the order as it related to documents it claims are classified.

Democrats move to criminalize opposition.  A hallmark of banana republics is that those who lose power are apt to wind up in prison, or on the wrong end of a firing squad.  Even more advanced countries, like Israel, sometimes have a regrettable tendency to prosecute former political leaders.  It is hard to think of anything more destructive to a democracy, and yet the Democrats are going down that path.  It seems clear that they intend to bring criminal charges against President Trump over his keeping some White House documents at Mar-a-Lago — a trivial offense, as far as anyone knows.  And that's not all.  The Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to a large number of people who were associated in some way with the Trump campaign or administration.  They generally seek information about efforts to challenge the reported election results in several states. [...] Nearly all of the documents relate to activities that are plainly lawful.  Alleging or denying the existence of fraud in the 2020 election, offering evidence of such fraud or the absence of such fraud, planning to have someone serve as a Trump elector, arguing that the vice president has important constitutional powers in the context of certifying a presidential election, discussing strategies whereby Donald Trump might be found, legally, to have won the 2020 election — these are all legal activities that have long been engaged in by members of both parties.  There are also requests relating to the funding of efforts to contest the 2020 election and for the rally that occurred on January 6, 2021.  These, too, were perfectly legal activities.

Letter Reveals Obama Foundation Is Keeping Classified Docs in Abandoned Furniture Warehouse.  The Obama Foundation stored classified documents in an abandoned furniture warehouse, according to a 2018 letter from the Obama Foundation to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).  The letter, available on the Obama Foundation website and dated Sept. 11, 2018, reveals that the Obama Foundation not only acknowledged possessing classified documents but also admitted that they kept them in a facility that did not meet NARA standards for the storage of those documents. [...] This means that, as the debate over the supposedly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is unfolding, the Obama Foundation is, at this very moment, storing classified documents in unused retail space in the suburbs of Chicago.  While the storage of these documents appears to be with the full knowledge and coordination of NARA, it still raises significant questions, not just concerning the raid of Mar-a-Lago, but also surrounding the legal actions being taken by the Biden administration against Trump over the storage of these documents.

Appeals court sides with DOJ, overrules judge, allows full access to docs seized during Mar-a-Lago raid.  A federal appeals court has sided with the Biden Justice Department by authorizing the government to continue its criminal investigation against former President Donald. J. Trump by allowing it to regain access to documents seized by the FBI during the storming of Mar-a-Lago last month.  On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta overruled federal Judge Aileen Cannon who blocked the feds from using around 100 documents that were marked as classified when she approved the appointment of a special master to review the material confiscated from Trump's residence.  "For our part, we cannot discern why Plaintiff would have an individual interest in or need for any of the one-hundred documents with classification markings," the panel wrote in its 29-page ruling.  They are "owned by, produced by or for, or ... under the control of the United States Government."

Trump claims he had right to hold classified docs seized by FBI and says agents even took his WILL from Mar-a-Lago.  Donald Trump has said he could declassify documents just 'by thinking about it' as he again slapped down the FBI's right to raid his Mar-a-Lago mansion.  The former president furiously insisted he had a right to the items seized by agents at the Florida home last month — and even claimed they took his last will and testament.  He also threatened to release security camera footage of them digging through the house, but hinted he would pixilate their faces

Appeals court rules DOJ can regain access to sensitive documents seized in Trump search.  A federal appeals court on Wednesday granted a request from the Justice Department to allow its investigators to regain access to the roughly 100 documents bearing classification markings that were seized by the FBI during its search at former President Donald Trump's Florida residence.  A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit agreed to put on hold a lower court's order that kept the subset of sensitive records off-limits for the Justice Department to use for investigative purposes, pending the review of the materials by an independent arbiter known as a special master.  In its 29-page opinion, the panel said it agreed with the Justice Department that the federal district court in South Florida likely erred in blocking investigators' use of the classified records and then requiring them to submit the sensitive documents to the outside arbiter for review.

Fake Documents Struck From Trump Search Case.  Purported U.S. government documents that ordered CNN to preserve "leaked tax records" and were entered into the search warrant case for former President Donald Trump have been struck from the U.S. court system after the government disavowed them.  The documents were purportedly submitted to the U.S. court in West Palm Beach, Florida, by the U.S. Department of Treasury.  The department motioned to intervene in the case because federal officials had obtained "Seized Federal Securities" containing sensitive information that was subject to the FBI's search warrant against Trump, according to one of the documents.  That document and others filed by the same party contained multiple errors but were still entered into the system by Angela Noble, the clerk for the court.  Another document was allegedly an arrest warrant served by federal agents at CNN at the network's headquarters in Atlanta.  The warrant ordered CNN to maintain the securities, which were described as "Leaked Tax Records" until further notice.  Another supposed warrant was to a towing company in Michigan.  A top U.S. lawyer said Monday [9/19/2022] that the filings were fake.

Trump Returns to Mar-a-Lago, Reveals 'Place Will Never Be the Same' After Raid.  Former President Donald Trump revealed Monday that he returned to his Mar-a-Lago property while decrying the FBI's raid targeting the resort last month.  "Arrived in Florida last night and had a long and detailed chance to check out the scene of yet another government 'crime,' the FBI's Raid and Break-In of my home, Mar-a-Lago," he wrote on Truth Social. "I guess they don't think there is a Fourth Amendment anymore, and to them, there isn't.  In any event, after what they have done, the place will never be the same."  Trump said the residence "was 'ransacked,' and in far different condition than the way I left it," adding that FBI agents "didn't even take off their shoes in my bedroom."  Members of Trump's family and his lawyers have indicated that the 45th president was not there when the FBI agents targeted his Palm Beach, Florida, residence.  When the agents searched his home, Trump and family members watched them via CCTV cameras from New York, his lawyers have said.

Few Trust The DOJ, Which Is Why Court Should Reject Its Request To Freeze Special Master.  The race is on between the Biden administration, which on Friday filed a motion to stay the special master's review of some 100 documents the FBI seized from Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, and the special master, who could begin reviewing those documents as early as this week.  Over the weekend, the 11th Circuit accelerated the contest by ordering Trump's legal team to respond to the DOJ's motion to stay by Tuesday at noon, even as the special master already called a conference with the lawyers for that same afternoon to discuss the review process.  For the sake of the country, the 11th Circuit should deny the DOJ's request and allow the special master to proceed with the review.

The Justice Department Was Dangerous Before Trump.  It's Out of Control.  On Monday, August 8, Justice Department officials spent nine hours raiding the Mar-a-Lago home of Donald Trump, carrying out 12 boxes of material.  When criticism ensued, FBI spokespeople in wounded tones insisted the press eschew the harsh term "raid," and use "execution of a search warrant" instead.  "Agents don't like the word 'raid,' they don't like it," complained former assistant FBI counterintelligence director turned MSNBC analyst Frank Figliuzzi.  He added with unintentional irony: "It sounds like it's some sort of extrajudicial, non-legal thing."  But it was a raid, as the surprisingly enormous number of people who've been on the business end of such actions since 9/11 will report.  The state more and more now avails itself of a procedural trick that would have horrified everyone from Jefferson to to Potter Stewart to Thurgood Marshall.  Investigating, say, one lawyer, prosecutors raid a whole firm, taking everything — emails, client files, cell phones and personal computers — then have a supposedly separate group of lawyers, called a "taint" or "filter" team, examine it all.  In this way they learn the private details of hundreds or even thousands of clients in a shot, all people unrelated to the supposed case at hand.  But, they say, don't worry, we're not using any of those secrets, you can trust us.

DOJ Does Not Want Classified Documents Reviewed.  As the DOJ-NSD originally threatened, they have filed an appeal of the ruling by Judge Cannon in the Trump Mar-a-Lago document case.  The DOJ is requesting the 11th Circuit Court to intervene and "stay" or block a part of the ruling allowing the Special Master, Judge Raymond J Dearie, to review the "classified documents" and make an independent determination as to the validity of the DOJ-NSD claims.  Having read all the motions in the case, you can get a sense of the authorship from the motion.  From my perspective this effort appears to have been written by the Lawfare group and filed by their allies in Main Justice at the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD).  The bottom line is they really don't want any outside party making a determination as to the status of the 100 "classified documents," and/or consider if President Trump had previously declassified them.  The crux of their position is outlined in this part of the motion, which appears to hold a logical fallacy[.]

Biden DOJ's Appeal of 'Special Master' Review to Higher Court Reveals FBI's Mar-a-Lago Raid was a Classic 'Trap'.  The Department of Justice fired off an angry appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, which followed upon Florida Judge Aileen Cannon refusing to bend to its demands to return documents with 'classified' markings to prosecutors after the appointment of a 'special master' to review them.  In its appeal, the DOJ took exception to the court's appointment of a "special master" to review the documents seized at the former president's property at Mar-a-Lago on August 8 for those covered by attorney-client or executive privilege.  However, the Justice Department's partial appeal did not challenge the appointment of the special master, but rather argued that the documents bearing classified markings be returned.

The FBI: Disturbing the Peace and Creating Inter-Party War.  [Scroll down] Having sent a pack of marauders to Mar-a-Lago to grab everything in sight, including some clothing, medical records, tax records, over a thousand news clippings and privileged attorney-client correspondence, the agency was taken aback when Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida threw a wrench into the agency's very obvious plan to affect the midterms with lies — as it did the 2020 election with the phony baloney Russian Collusion fairytale.  Desperately seeking a stay of the judge's order to halt reviewing and using the materials seized until an outside observer could weigh the merit of its claim that 100 of the 11,000 seized documents were classified, they sought this week a stay of that portion of the order and lost again as Judge Cannon made clear that the Court granted the Bureau no special credibility.  Without this ruling, it would have seemed near impossible for Trump to defend himself on the grounds of executive and lawyer-client privilege, in part because he has never been allowed to see a list of the documents seized, let alone those 100 the Bureau claims are classified.  Moreover, the persistent leaks to the press from the Bureau and sensationalistic staged photographs of the raid clearly marked an intent to smear him in the eyes of the voters and the jury.  Judge Cannon "does not find it appropriate to accept the government's conclusions on these important and disputed issues."

Justice Department asks appeals court to block Trump judge's Mar-a-Lago ruling.  The Department of Justice is asking a federal appeals court to temporarily block a Trump-appointed judge's ruling that prevents it from accessing hundreds of pages of classified records seized amid the thousands of pages of government documents taken from the former president's Mar-a-Lago home.  "The district court has entered an unprecedented order enjoining the Executive Branch's use of its own highly classified records in a criminal investigation with direct implications for national security," the Justice Department wrote in its motion Friday.  The Justice Department had previously argued that any delay in its investigation into Donald Trump's handling and retention of government records, including classified records, could result in "irreparable harm" to the government and the public.

The Trump Raid — We're Missing the Point.  Seeking to prove that Trump did nothing wrong in possessing these documents is like trying to establish that the victims of Stalin's show trials weren't in fact Trotskyites.  Well, of course they weren't.  But Stalin didn't care if his enemies — perceived or real — were Trotskyites or "counter-revolutionaries."  What mattered to him was that they were his enemies.  And that's why we call their legal proceedings "show trials."  They weren't exercises in justice; they were facades for political suppression.  Did Trump commit a crime?  I doubt it.  Democrats have spent six years and tens of millions of dollars investigating virtually every step he's taken in his life.  So far, they've come up with nothing.  Which means that although Trump seems impetuous, he evidently hires excellent lawyers who ensure he always remains within the bounds of the law.  But at the end of the day, the question of Trump's innocence is irrelevant.  Because what we're witnessing is not a legal investigation but a political crusade — aided by the Justice Department — to crush a man it can't stand.  And if we allow the left to win this battle, we will have allowed it to cross a line from which there may be no turning back.  For this isn't about Trump.  It's about the left doing whatever it takes to retain political and ideological control of this country.  As one political commentator has pointed out, Trump represents everything the left hates, everything they've spent 50 years trying to eradicate.

Judge Cannon's Delivers the Money Shot in Her Special Master Ruling.  As RedState reported, Judge Aileen Cannon delivered a body blow to the Department of Justice, denying their request for a stay and appointing a special master in the case surrounding the FBI's raid on Donald Trump.  The DOJ had sought to exclude documents they deemed classified and to bring in a ringer who served as special master in the Michael Cohen and Project Veritas cases.  Instead, all the documents will be reviewed by U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie.  That name caused some consternation because he is the same judge that signed off on the Carter Page warrant.  But a judge can only work with what he has, and the FBI falsified the warrant, something Judge Dearie couldn't have known, so there's an expectation that he'll do his job as special master in this case without bias.  Regardless, reading through Judge Cannon's decision, there was one money shot that just nailed the feelings of so many on the right.  [Tweet]

Judge Cannon Rejects DOJ Motion for Stay, Appoints Special Master Judge Raymond J Dearie.  Judge Aileen Cannon has rejected the DOJ motion to stay her previous order and appointed a special master, Judge Raymond J Dearie, Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York[.]  As to the dispute of the 100 "classified" documents, Judge Cannon writes, "the Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government's conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion."  Judge Cannon urged Special Master Raymond Dearie to complete his review by Nov. 30, 2022, more than a month longer than DOJ requested.  However, she did say Trump's legal team has to pay the full cost of the special master.

Judge appoints special master, denying DOJ access to classified records.  A federal judge on Thursday denied the Justice Department's motion to access the classified records stored at Mar-a-Lago and installed a recently retired judge to serve as the special master former President Trump requested.  The duo of orders from federal district Judge Aileen Cannon will ignite a Department of Justice (DOJ) appeal to the 11th Circuit and also selects Judge Raymond Dearie to serve as the special master — the one candidate both the DOJ and Trump's legal team could agree on.  The order requires Dearie to complete his review by Nov. 30 — a slightly shorter deadline than the 90-day window Trump requested, but one that punts the determination past the midterms.  In a rare instance of siding with the DOJ, Cannon required Trump to pay for the full cost associated with a special master.

Judge announces Special Master and retains block on Mar-a-Lago files pending review.  Just yesterday [9/15/2022], Federal Judge Aileen Cannon declined to lift any part of an order she issued last week.  The order barred the Department of Justice from using records obtained by the F.B.I. during their raid on Trump's estate, Mar-a-Lago, until an appointed arbiter, known as a Special Master, had completed a review.  Judge Cannon had appointed semi-retired Judge Raymond J. Dearie a Special Master who has the authority to sift through the documents and set aside using any that potentially were covered by attorney-client privilege or, in a legally disputed move, executive privilege.  The DOJ had asked Judge Cannon to lift restrictions on its use of documents with classification markings and set a Thursday deadline for her to respond.  The DOJ says it would ask an appeals court to intervene.

The Biden Administration Isn't Interested In Governing But In Criminalizing The Opposition.  If Biden and the Democrats do not have much interest in actually governing, they have a keen interest in using force against their political opponents. [...] The DOJ has now charged more than 870 people in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and it is becoming obvious, in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid, that Attorney General Merrick Garland would like very much to indict Trump himself ahead of the November midterms on charges vaguely connected to Jan. 6.  He might not be able to now that a federal judge, at Trump's request, has appointed a special master in the case.  The appointment of a special master to review the material seized by the FBI from Trump's residence — a shocking 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items, including what the judge called "personal effects without evidentiary value" — means Garland might not be able to indict Trump before the November midterms, given the time it will take to go through all this material.  But that is a risk Garland ran when he sent the FBI on what was clearly a fishing expedition.

Federal Judge Unseals More Portions of Trump Search Warrant Affidavit.  A federal judge unsealed more portions of the Department of Justice (DOJ) affidavit that was used to obtain an FBI search warrant of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago last week, revealing that the former commander-in-chief turned over Human Intelligence Control Systems and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) materials.  What the documents entailed was not disclosed by the government, according to the newly released version of the affidavit, which was uploaded Tuesday.  More portions of the court document were unsealed, although much of it remained redacted.  In the copy of the document released on Friday, an FBI agent whose name was withheld said they "observed markings reflecting the following compliments/dissemination controls: HCS (Human Intelligence Control Systems), FISA, ORCON (originator controlled), NOFORN (not for release to foreign nationals), and SI (special intelligence)" earlier this year.

The Regime's 'Operation MAGA Fascist' Gains Ground.  After nearly two years of lies related to the events of January 6, 2021, the regime finally has admitted the truth:  The widening legal dragnet to scoop up Donald Trump, his associates, and his voters has nothing to do with the four-hour disturbance on Capitol Hill that afternoon.  It is, rather, a thus-far successful crusade to criminalize wrongthink about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.  A barrage of subpoenas issued recently by the Department of Justice — U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves' office specifically — against Trump aides is not seeking information about the Capitol protest but personal communications discussing what happened with the election and plans to fight the results. [...] Of course, this is what the January 6 hysteria has always been about.  As the chaos unfolded on January 6, Joe Biden and his apparatchiks immediately denounced believers of the so-called "Big Lie" — the claim the election had been rigged, if not stolen, by powerful interests who wanted nothing more than to defeat Trump — and vowed revenge would come swiftly.

Why FBI Agents Jumped MyPillow's Mike Lindell at a Hardee's Drive-Thru.  Do you sense that the Biden Department of Justice is getting desperate?  The clock is winding down to getting something significant on any of their ludicrous investigations into Donald Trump and his inner circle.  The FBI's August 8 raid adds more pressure to the charged climate since federal agents found nothing supporting the allegations of criminal intent regarding classified materials.  No evidence backs any justification for the raid.  All the documents the FBI seized aren't smoking guns, as the president of the United States has the indisputable authority to declassify any record.  We're not talking about Hillary Clinton, who is guilty of mishandling classified information, transmitting it through an unapproved and unsecured email server, and deleting 33,000 emails under federal subpoena.  With the special master ruling motion made by the Trump team granted by Judge Aileen Cannon and a Justice Department appeal filed — this Mar-a-Lago theater could last several months.  This story has hit the sandbar, and it's beached until further notice.  In the meantime, the Justice Department has issued at least 40 subpoenas relating to its January 6 investigation.

Trump attorney questions DOJ actions after Mar-a-Lago raid.  An attorney for former President Donald Trump scolded the Justice Department for fighting the appointment of a special master to review documents seized from Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.  James Trusty, a former federal prosecutor, told Fox News host Mark Levin it is a "fair question" to ask whether the Justice Department is attempting a cover-up as it conducts a criminal investigation into Trump's handling of records after leaving office. [...] U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon granted Trump's request for a special master despite the Justice Department's opposition, and the two sides have since turned in proposals for how to move forward, including nominees, access, and speed of the third-party review.

Sunday Talks, Senator Mark Warner Says "People Will Die" if Trump Mar-a-Lago Documents Become Public.  We must stop pretending.  Everyone, including everyone who reads here and specifically SSCI Chairman Mark Warner, already knows what is in those documents from Mar-a-Lago.  Those documents contain the evidence of the collective government effort to target candidate Trump and then effectively remove President Trump.  THAT effort included the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.  Stop pretending.  Senator Mark Warner was at the heart of the legislative branch effort in the aftermath of the failed attempt to stop candidate Trump from winning the 2016 election.  Senator Warner specifically instructed Senate Security Director James Wolfe to leak the Carter Page FISA application, with an intent to further the effort to install a special counsel to help cover-up the pre-election activity.  Warner is enmeshed in the corruption created by the false Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy nonsense.

Biden's DOJ Doesn't Want To Disclose 'Classified' Mar-A-Lago Documents — Except Through Selective Leaks To Leftist Media.  Hiding behind the horror of 9/11, the Biden administration demands that a federal judge and the country trust its targeting of a top political opponent — all while leaking details of classified documents to a pliant press.  This development and six others flow from recent court filings in former President Donald Trump's efforts to obtain a special master's oversight of the FBI's seizure of thousands of documents and personal effects from his Mar-a-Lago home.  The government doesn't want to allow an independent review of the documents it's seized.  Trump's legal team does.

The DoJ Argues that the Intelligence Community Overrides the Judiciary.  At this point in time I have no regard for the probity or competence of the Intelligence Community and neither, apparently, does Judge Aileen Cannon, who earlier this week ordered the appointment of a Special Master to review those documents seized in the Mar-a-Lago raid, which it claims are classified.  The Department of Justice appears to have been surprised that it has lost credibility and filed a motion seeking a stay on that portion of the order and a Notice of Appeal to the Eleventh Circuit indicating its intention to file an interlocutory appeal.  I don't think the trial judge who issued a very well-considered order will grant the stay.  I don't think the Eleventh Circuit will, either.  I don't think the Eleventh Circuit will even grant an interlocutory appeal on this matter.  I do think all of these pleadings reveal the weakness of the grounds for a search and seizure of materials at the home of Donald J. Trump, the overreach of the warrant, and the expansive search itself.  Worse for the DoJ and FBI, I believe their actions amount to a claim that under no circumstances does the judiciary have a right to question anything the Intelligence committee does as long as it makes a claim of "national security."  Such a claim is scary and should be — and I think will be — denied.

The DOJ's opposition to the special master exposes a nefarious motive.  When the federal judge ordered a special master to review the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago to determine whether the FBI possessed documents subject to "attorney-client and/or executive privilege" claims, I considered it a Pyrrhic victory because the DOJ had already reviewed all the documents.  I was more interested in whether the DOJ insisted that the appointed special master have a security clearance to review for classified or top-secret material.  Failing to do so would be a giveaway that the whole "classified information" claim was a scam.  On Thursday, however, the DOJ went one step further and did something that, to my mind, strongly indicates that its raid on Mar-a-Lago was intended to obtain and protect information that would be embarrassing to Obama, Biden, and the Deep State.

Merrick Garland Loses in Court.  Attorney General Merrick Garland went too far — he grabbed too much and gabbed too much.  That was some of the reasoning behind U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's decision to appoint a special master to scrutinize the capacious no-limits search and seizure at the home/office of former President Donald Trump.  On Garland's direct order, the FBI swiped everything except the carpets and chandeliers.  The volume of material they grabbed was stunning, as Judge Cannon recounted: "approximately 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items[.]"  Agents didn't confine themselves to confiscating the disputed presidential papers.  While ransacking the joint, they snatched Trump's "personal effects without evidentiary value," said the judge.  That included medical documents, tax correspondence, accounting information, photographs, newspaper articles, and even clothing.  If Trump had a dog, the poor mutt would have been frisked.

Are Democrats looking to provoke riots by arresting President Trump?  The unprecedented raid of President Trump's home was the first step toward criminal prosecution.  Democrats need an incendiary event to cause normally calm Republicans to riot, so they may arrest the former president and march him in leg irons in front of TV cameras.  It is not beyond the realm of imagination to believe that, while transporting him to prison, agents could say he grabbed the steering wheel and they had to shoot him dozens of times.  Or while in solitary confinement, the monitoring cameras become suddenly inoperative and the guards fall asleep and he hangs himself.  If you think that's too far for Democrats, remember they are your opposite, and don't think like you.

Bill Barr reveals his true colors... again.  Former Attorney General William Barr during an interview on Fox News last week said that if Trump did indeed have a standing order to declassify all documents that he took with him as he left the White House, that would amount to a worse abuse than actually taking the documents. [...] A federal judge recently granted Trump's request to assign a special master.  U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, from the Southern District of Florida, ordered that an independent third-party be appointed to "review the seized property, manage assertions of privilege and make recommendations thereon, evaluate claims for the return of property," and "enjoins the Government from reviewing and using the seized materials for investigative purposes[.]"  Barr called the order to appoint a special master a "deeply flawed" decision.

Democrats Dangerously Copy The Tactics Of Famous Fascists.  By politicizing the Department of Justice, the Biden administration and other Democrats have used the "insurrection" pretense to harass, intimidate, arrest, and jail Trump's supporters, members of his administration, and his legal team.  This harassment eventually led to the unprecedented step of the Justice Department and the FBI raiding the home of the former president and future presidential contender.

So Joe Biden was behind the FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid all along.  Joe Biden has made his obsession with President Trump known, most recently through his hellishly lit Mussolini-meltdown speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia last week, manically painting Trump and all his voters as "threats to the republic."  He may be doddering and insentient, but he still burns bright against his potential opponent in the 2024 presidential race, which even Democrats don't want him to get involved with.  On Trump, Biden's as obsessed with Trump as Stalin was with Trotsky.  So it comes to light that not only has Biden tried to smear Trump as a danger to democracy and "threat to the republic," in a sorry public relations campaign that isn't working, he's also trying to eliminate President Trump from the entire 2024 presidential race by probably the gamiest maneuvers ever played by a politician in U.S. history.  It turns out that Biden was behind the raid on Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago on August 4.

Apoplectic Rage Follows Special Master Decision in Trump Raid Case.  On Monday, the judge handling the case of the FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid made an official decision to appoint a special master to review the documents seized.  That came after she dropped a preliminary notice that she intended to do so at the end of August.  The DOJ's subsequent arguments apparently weren't very convincing, and now they will be forced to cease their investigation as the process plays out.  The judge found numerous instances of privileged material making it through the government's filter team, and revelations that medical records and tax returns were taken only provided more reason to move ahead with a special master.  Besides, as the judge essentially said in her decision, what can the move hurt?  The special master will have a security clearance, and they won't be leaking to the press what they've found.  How is too much transparency a bad thing?  No matter, because the decision favored Trump, that meant that the left was thrown into fits of apopletic rage.

Judge halts prosecutors from using Trump Mar-a-Lago materials for criminal investigation.  A judge placed a roadblock on federal prosecutors conducting a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump's handling of documents until a special master is appointed and has completed his or her work.  "The Court does not find that a temporary special master review under the present circumstances would cause undue delay" to the investigation, said U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida, granting Trump's motion for a third-party review to look for privileged materials.  She said the government is "temporarily enjoined from further review and use of any materials seized from" Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last month "for criminal investigative purposes" until the special master's review process is complete.

Federal Judge Notes in Special Master Order a Quoted DOJ Citation That Joe Biden Ordered FBI Access to Mar-a-Lago Documents.  Page #2 and Page #3 of Judge Aileen Cannon's ruling cites a quote from the DOJ own legal filing, dated May 10th, that Joe Biden ordered the National Archives and Records Administration to provide access to the FBI to review the Trump records. [...] August 24, 2022, Joe Biden was questioned about how much notice he had regarding the FBI raid on President Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.  Question: "Mr. President, how much advanced notice did you have of the FBI's plan to search Mar-a-Lago?"  BIDEN: "I didn't have any advanced notice.  None, zero, not one single bit."

Judge reveals 40 years' worth of Trump tax docs, medical records seized in raid, halts review by FBI.  U.S. District Judge from the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen M. Cannon has revealed that among the documents seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago from former President Trump were 40 years' worth of medical records and accounting information connected to his taxes.  The judge halted on Monday the FBI's review of more than 11,000 documents the agency seized from Trump's residence, according to Fox News.  She ordered an independent special master be appointed to review the records for attorney-client and executive privilege.

Judge: Government Seized 'Medical Documents' from Trump's Home.  Federal District Judge Aileen M. Cannon issued an order today requiring that a "special master" be appointed to review what the Justice Department seized from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home when it was raided last month by the FBI.  In the order, the judge said that the FBI had seized "medical documents" from Mar-a-Lago.  "The court hereby authorizes the appointment of a special master to review the seized property for personal items and documents and potentially privileged material subject to claims of attorney-client and/or executive privilege," said Judge Cannon's order.

John Ratcliffe: The Government Didn't Find What They Were Looking For In Mar-a-Lago Raid.  Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to FNC host Jeanine Pirro: "The judge would appoint the special master and it would be an extension of the court.  I do think that it's the right thing to do.  The DOJ's position is number one, we don't need a special master.  We've already — we've already sorted everything and looked at everything.  Take our word for it that it was done.  As you pointed out, they had attorney-client privilege in there so the taint team that was looking at this didn't do their job. [...]"

6 Ways Democrats Are 'Threatening Democracy'.  [#1] Weaponization Of Federal Law Enforcement: Last month, President Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) signed off on an unprecedented raid of a former president to thwart a potential 2024 rival's ambitious return to the Oval Office.  On Aug. 8, more than 30 plain clothes FBI agents raided former President Donald Trump's 128-room Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago.  While Attorney General Merrick Garland claimed the search was "narrowly scoped," examination of the warrant revealed Biden's stormtroopers were authorized to confiscate any documents Trump came into contact with over his four years as president.  The raid has become the latest episode in the Democrats' years-long efforts to exploit the resources of federal law enforcement to target political opponents, from Jan. 6 demonstrators prosecuted for trespassing to supposed militiamen caught in FBI-orchestrated entrapment plots.  Trump is merely public enemy number one, whose potential return to power threatens the incumbent regime with comprehensive plans to gut the administrative state, starting with the DOJ and FBI.

Trump says DOJ made him look like a 'slob' and slams 'dishonest' photo of Mar-a-Lago office.  Former President Donald Trump complained Thursday that the FBI made him look like a 'slob' after a Department of Justice filing released Tuesday showed a photo of classified documents strewn on the floor of what's presumably an office space at Mar-a-Lago.  'A lot of people think that when you walk into my office, I have confidential documents or whatever it may be — all declassified — but I had confidential documents spread out all over my floor.  Like a slob,' Trump said Thursday morning on the John Fredericks Radio Show.  'Like I'm sitting there reading these documents all day long or somebody else would be.'  The ex-president had called into the right-leaning TV network to push that the DOJ's move was 'dishonest,' because investigators 'put them there in a messy fashion, and then they took a picture and they released it to the public.'

Bill Barr - All-In With the Mar-a-Lago Raid.  "Number one is that I think a lot of the attacks on the FBI are over the top because a decision like this is not made by the FBI," former Attorney General William Barr told the Bari Weiss podcast on August 25.  "In fact, I don't think the FBI would push a decision that it's best to go in and search and obtain those documents after being jerked around for a year and a half.  The decision would be made at the Department of Justice, by subordinates of the AG, and ultimately signed off on by the AG.  The FBI would be told to go and execute it.  I think the idea that the FBI is the problem here is misplaced."  The former AG was more disturbed by "the constant pandering to outrage" on the right, without discussion of whether the outrage had any merit.  The FBI seized Trump's passports, leaving the impression that the former president had committed a crime and was now a flight risk.  FBI agents also rummaged through the closets of Melania Trump, an act of pure intimidation.  With Trump attorneys forced outside, the FBI could easily have planted or destroyed information.  If that is not cause for outrage, it's hard to imagine what might qualify.

DOJ Responds To Trump's Demand For Special Master With A Staged Photo Of Alleged 'Classified' Documents Perfectly Lined Up On Mar-a-Lago Carpet.  Three classified documents were found in a desk drawer in Donald Trump's office at Mar-a-Lago, the Department of Justice revealed in a blockbuster filing, in addition to more than 100 documents discovered in 13 boxes with classification markings in the former president's residence.  The documents were discovered in the August raid of Trump's Florida home, which came after the former president's lawyers claimed a 'diligent search' produced all the requested documents.  'Three classified documents that were not located in boxes, but rather were located in the desks in the '45 Office,' were also seized,' the filing states Daly Mail reported.

Trump claims the FBI threw documents on the floor at Mar-a-Lago 'pretending it was me who did it' — and 'took pictures for the public to see'.  onald Trump has claimed the FBI agents were responsible for throwing classified documents on the floor of Mar-a-Lago — and said they were 'perhaps pretending it was me who did it'.  'Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see,' he said in a Truth Social post Wednesday morning.  'Thought they wanted them kept Secret?  Lucky I Declassified!' he added during a flurry of posts condemning the FBI agent who retired amid backlash over the Hunter Biden probe.

Kash Patel Confirms Seized Documents from Mar-a-Lago Raid Were Evidence Showing DOJ and FBI Corruption in Trump-Russia Probe.  During an appearance on Tucker Carlson's television show, former house intel staff and Trump aide Kash Patel confirms the documents targeted by the DOJ/FBI raid on Trump's home were documents of evidence showing DOJ/FBI political corruption in the Trump-Russia probe.  President Trump declassified documents that show how the institutions within the U.S. government targeted him.  However, the institutions that illegally targeted President Trump are now the same institutions seeking control of the specific evidence of their unlawful targeting.

Trump Says the Same FBI Agent 'Escorted Out' Friday for Hiding Hunter Biden's Laptop Was Involved in Mar-a-Lago Raid.  The Washington, D.C.-based FBI assistant special agent accused by a whistleblower of being the man who scuttled the Hunter Biden laptop investigation and who allegedly hid evidence favoring former President Trump, appears to be out of a job.  It's a start.  And from what former President Trump is declaring on his Truth Social account, Assistant Special Agent Tim Thibault also had a hand in the Mar-a-Lago raid.  [Tweet]  Indeed, according to the search warrant affidavit, the Washington Field Office of the FBI conducted the Mar-a-Lago raid, along with "a Special Agent with the FBI assigned to the Washington Field Office."

Redacted Mar-A-Lago Affidavit Confirms Biden's DOJ Fished For A Crime To Pin On Trump.  The search warrant affidavit unsealed on Friday confirms the Department of Justice used a bait-and-switch tactic to justify the FBI's unprecedented raid on former President Donald Trump's home.  The unredacted portions of the affidavit further expose the Biden administration's manipulative and tenuous basis for the search and its reliance on inapplicable federal criminal code provisions to justify the targeting of a political enemy.  At noon on Friday, the search warrant affidavit used by the DOJ to obtain a warrant to raid Trump's Mar-a-Lago home hit the public court docket, albeit with heavy redactions.  While sparse, the unredacted portions of the affidavit nonetheless proved significant, especially when read in conjunction with the previously unsealed search warrant and the leaks to the compliant media cartel.

More problems emerge with the Mar-a-Lago affidavit.  Paul Sperry is an independent journalist who pays attention to facts rather than following the mindless herd that is the mainstream media.  That's why he closely examined the Mar-a-Lago affidavit — or, at least, the parts that remained after the DOJ was done with redacting it.  That examination was fruitful because Sperry discovered all sorts of problems and inconsistencies on the document's face (what little of it we can see).  Also, I'll use this post to remind everyone again that nothing in Trump's possession is classified or can ever be considered classified (or top secret or anything else).  Twitter booted Sperry from the site within a short time of his August 9 tweet (very soon after the Mar-a-Lago) raid, saying that there was speculation that the FBI conducted the raid to grab copies of documents related to the Russia Hoax.  Despite the ban, Sperry is continuing to investigate and, with the help of friends, disseminating the results of his investigations.

Biden DNI Makes Troubling Announcement About Documents Seized During Trump Raid.  As we noted earlier, a judge has signaled that she's likely to grant the request of the Trump team to appoint a special master.  The special master would examine the documents to determine if any fall outside the scope of the raid, such as if they are privileged documents, thus providing some protection to the documents that they shouldn't have seized; one example would be documents that might be protected under attorney-client privilege.  But there are a few problems with this.  First, the FBI has already had them for 20 days at this point — who knows what might have been compromised by now with this fishing expedition?

The FBI: A Campaign Arm of the Democrat Party.  The Mar-a-Lago raid is a shot across the bow for any GOP presidential candidates for 2024, Trump being the presumptive nominee at this point.  Will the FBI ask the DoJ to indict Trump on nonsensical declassification accusations?  While they gave candidate Hillary Clinton a pass despite her using an unsecured server and personal email account to traffic highly classified emails?  The FBI is delivering a warning to Trump.  Will Governor Ron DeSantis be the next one to have his home raided by the FBI?  We expect this type of behavior from the corporate media, academia, Hollywood, big finance, big pharma, big tech, and other Democrat party constituent groups, but not the FBI and other government agencies.

The Mar-a-Lago Raid Case Could Get Interesting.  A federal judge in South Florida — yes, a Trump judge — preliminarily intends to appoint a special master to look into the raid. [...] But getting a proper inventory may not be the end of the story — which is why this could get quite interesting:  [Tweets] [...] A Special Master can do anything the judge empowers him to do — naturally, that has to be something that the judge has power to do.  Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure covers Search and Seizure matters.  Rule 41(g) gives the judge extensive powers to review demands for the return of seized property, and that means the Special Master can look at all issues affecting that determination — "any factual issue necessary to decide the motion" — including the scope of the warrant that was issued: [...]

Info in Trump Affidavit That Raises Even More Questions About FBI/DOJ Action.  As we previously reported, journalist Paul Sperry was booted off of Twitter after he raised questions about the FBI raid of President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.  Real Clear Investigations is now tweeting some further questions that Sperry is raising about the affidavit that was released with redactions on Friday.  They're likely to get the ban hammer next, if Twitter interprets that as an attempt to evade a suspension.  Sperry notes multiple oddities in the affidavit that he has questions about.  [Tweet]  When they refer to what was found in the 15 boxes, they refer to documents with "classification markings."  That leaves open the possibility that they aren't classified any longer — that they may have been declassified.  The affidavit says the documents "appear" to contain National Defense Information, but Sperry asks if they "triaged" the boxes, wouldn't they know if it did or not?

Judge Hands Trump a Win in Fight Against FBI, Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth Follows.  The exposition of the FBI's behavior in the month of August has been something to behold.  More recently, we learned that the FBI went to Facebook during the 2020 election and indicated that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation.  In reality, the bureau had known since 2019 that the story was real because they themselves were in possession of the laptop.  Prior to that, the big story has been the raid of Donald Trump's Florida home, which has led to numerous court clashes as the government has sought to keep the details secret.  On Friday, the affidavit was released, much to the chagrin of the powers that be.  What it revealed was a politically weaponized FBI working hand in hand with partisans at the National Archives to target Trump over a records dispute, partially based on a CBS News article.

'We Lied the Last 1,000 Times, Trust Us Now'.  Democrats, their media and their media's contracted experts tell us we should trust the DOJ, the FBI and the same folks who have been pulling some variation of this scam for the last six years to know what they're doing when they set out with a search warrant empowering them to grab every single box at Mar-a-Lago, every administration record and anything else they want. [...] This isn't a criminal case.  It can be a counterintelligence investigation, a fishing expedition for process crimes and procedural violations that never finds a justifiable original crime.  The one thing it can't produce is an original crime that justifies the original investigation.  That's also why the investigation has to be permanent.  If it were to ever end, there would have to be a reckoning.  An endless investigation however always holds out the promise that one day there will be something.  The fraudulence of the endless Trumpgate is why it can never end.

The Mar-A-Lago Affidavit Really Does Read As If They Were Confiscating Russiagate Evidence.  The affidavit is out.  The one wherein the U.S. government found it necessary to raid a former president's home earlier this month.  And despite a whopping 413 redacted lines (yes, I counted each one), the document appears to implicate the FBI, DOJ, and Judge Bruce Reinhart in colluding to remove documents related to the long-debunked "Russiagate" saga.  Here's why.  Page three of the document asserts U.S. Code 793 (e), 1519, and 2071, which means they were looking for general, "national defense information," and alleging that there had been some concealment, mutilation, or destruction of records without the approval of the bureaucracy.  The problem here is that everyone knows the President of the United States has no ability to perform these crimes, especially as he is the sole arbiter and "declassifier" of such information (as expressed in his lawyer's letter included with the affidavit).

The Raid on Mar-A-Lago: A Desperate Act by the Deep State.  The raid on Mar-A-Lago was a pretextual search using the National Archive rules and mischaracterize classified document laws to justify an unlawful search warrant.  This raid is only a part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy (RICO) or silent coup by the Deep State to take down Trump, first before his election in 2016, to prevent his reelection in 2020, and now to torpedo his possible re-election in 2024.  Trump is a direct threat to the coup's survival.  The Deep State is protected by the DOJ and FBI that have gone full Stasi.  I have written and served hundreds of search warrants in my career as a police detective.  I investigated complex criminal conspiracies — crimes of many types, including thefts and frauds, financial crimes, and political conflicts of interest.  I am biased in favor of law enforcement.  Nevertheless, the DOJ and the FBI have been politically weaponized.  We have no equal justice for all.  We now have a two-tier justice system.

Here's what we still don't know after release of redacted FBI Trump raid affidavit.  Friday's unsealing of the affidavit tied to the FBI's raid on former President Donald Trump's Florida estate has raised more questions than answers.  West Palm Beach US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhardt had ordered the Justice Department earlier in the week to prepare a redacted version of the document in which authorities laid out their reasons for the controversial Aug. 8 search-and-seizure operation at Mar-a-Lago.  Friday's unsealing came amid what Reinhardt called "intense public and historical interest" into the raid.  The feds have described their probe as centering on the alleged mishandling of classified information, theft of government records and obstruction of justice.

Why did the FBI redact the Mar-a-Lago raid affidavit?  The affidavit was supposed to provide the reasoning for the Mar-a-Lago raid.  As expected the affidavit was heavily redacted. [...] Ironically, the DOJ redacted its reasoning for redacting nearly the entire search warrant affidavit.  The only justification not redacted is "agent safety."  The DOJ claims the decision was made to protect the witnesses.  So what was the purpose of this redaction?  Barack Obama once said that the only people who don't want to disclose the truth are the people with something to hide.  If the FBI has ironclad reasons for the raid, they would have released the entire document with only the names of the agents redacted.  The purpose of this redaction is to allow the cloud of doubt and suspicion to prevail to furnish a narrative.

Trump Affidavit Points to Absolutely Insane 'Justification' for the FBI Raid.  As RedState reported, the affidavit for the search warrant that led to an unprecedented FBI raid on Donald Trump's home has been released in heavily redacted form.  As if to play out the meme that had been going around for days suggesting the affidavit would be a giant blob of black ink, that turned out to be mostly true.  The document is full of redacted sections, to the point of absurdity, representing a giant [defiance of] transparency by a federal bureaucracy that simply doesn't care.  [Tweet]  So what's in the affidavit?  While the redactions cover most of that up, there is enough revealed that exposes just how blatantly political the FBI's move was.  For example, the pursuit partially originated not from any hard evidence of criminal activity, but from a CBS News article.  [Tweet]

What's Up With Non-Judges Issuing Search Warrants?  As I said in the immediate aftermath of the FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid, this outrage raises all sorts of legal and constitutional issues.  Sooner rather than later, real experts would weigh in.  That process has begun, and today the redoubtable Philip Hamburger — expert in Administrative Law and the regime that sponsors its abuses — has weighed in on the constitutionally dubious phenomenon of non-judges in our federal system — "magistrates", or "commissioners" as they were formerly known — issuing warrants.

Can Magistrate Judges Constitutionally Issue Search Warrants Against Trump (Or Anyone Else)?  The Mar-a-Lago search warrant is interesting not only because of the high office of the individual whose papers were seized but also because of the low office of the person who signed it.  The warrant illustrates the long-standing constitutional anomaly of letting magistrate judges sign search warrants.  Leave aside how you feel about the former president.  Leave aside what you think of January 6, 2021.  Leave aside whether there was a good reason to issue the warrant.  A more basic question is whether the Hon. Bruce Reinhart could constitutionally issue it. [...] The Constitution's vesting of the judicial power in the courts is important for search warrants.  It ensures that at least for federal search warrants, the "probable cause" required by the Fourth Amendment will be ascertained by a judge, not anyone else.  Indeed, search warrants from magistrate judges violate not only the vesting of judicial power in the courts but also the Fourth Amendment.  In guaranteeing that search warrants must rest on probable cause, that amendment assumes that probable cause will be found by a judge.

Trump blasts 'heavily redacted' affidavit that conveniently leaves a key claim out: 'Obama must be proud!'  Former President Trump is incensed over the DOJ's release of the heavily redacted affidavit used to justify raiding his home, while the agency claimed it had probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction would be found in documents at his residence.  [Video clip]  "Affidavit heavily redacted!!! Nothing mentioned on 'Nuclear,' a total public relations subterfuge by the FBI & DOJ, or our close working relationship regarding document turnover — WE GAVE THEM MUCH.  Judge Bruce Reinhart should NEVER have allowed the Break-In of my home.  He recused himself two months ago from one of my cases based on his animosity and hatred of your favorite President, me.  What changed?  Why hasn't he recused himself on this case?  Obama must be very proud of him right now!" Trump charged on Truth Social.

Former Rolling Stone Editor Has the Perfect Analogy for the FBI's Raid of Mar-a-Lago.  What piqued [Matt] Taibbi's curiosity is not the latest developments which don't provide much of a punch regarding potential felonious activity regarding the alleged mishandling of classified documents which provided the basis of the federal raid.  It was the lack of coverage afterward.  The CNN crowd relished the raid as the final nail in the coffin — this was when the walls caved in on Trump.  Like most Americans who aren't mentally ill, the Department of Justice leak alleging that Trump had nuclear secrets on-site exposed the legal fallout that was to come because nothing has corroborated that explosive yet facially untrue claim.  There's been a deafening silence regarding anything that resembles a smoking gun.  The affidavit that provided probable cause for the ransacking will be redacted to death, so we're just going to be left hanging here again.  Is this another Trump story that will fizzle out?  Taibbi listed the endless stream of purported scandals that would destroy the Trump presidency.  They did nothing except chip away at the media's already abysmal credibility with the public.  What is notable about the FBI raid is that it was a massive show of force from the federal government, historical, and the stealthy but noticeable backtracking specifically on anything incriminating.

Out of Outrage.  [Scroll down] The FBI raid on Trump that seems to have so many upset, while vile and corrupt on its own, is no less vile and corrupt than anything previously listed.  It's just more on top of the mountain that already exists and ultimately it's a good thing, because it shows that there is no loyalty, no fidelity to truth, justice or the American way.  All these evil communists care about is devouring their enemies.

Something's missing in the Mar-a-Lago coverage.  I am someone who has held a TS/SCI (Top Secret — Special Comparted Information) security clearance.  Moreover, I have had a facility clearance for my home so that I could handle classified information there.  Having had that experience, I get more than a little annoyed at the speculative misinformation that all parties in the Mar-a-Lago affair are spreading around.  Granted, my security experience was before my retirement a decade ago, but I doubt much has changed since then.  I make three points.  The first is that the Justice Department is blowing smoke.  They are either completely incompetent or deliberately abusing their authority by lying to the court.  The second point is that the investigative media (including Fox News) have not done their homework and have not found out how the security system actually works.  The third point illustrates the first.  In no legal sense is Donald Trump guilty of anything.  This is because, as a former president, he has both a TS/SCI personal clearance and the same level of facility clearances for his various locations.

Democrats Evade Accountability to Avoid Political Fallout.  On Aug. 8, 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant on former President Trump's private residence at Mar-a-Lago.  Subsequently, the Wall Street Journal reported, "secret U.S. files were seized."  Search warrants were always executed with the property owners or their lawyers present.  Yet FBI agents removed Trump's lawyer and all other people from the residence at gunpoint, so no one witnessed what the FBI agents did during the nine-hour search.  Did they truly find national security risks?  Might the agents have planted files?  Did they install secret listening devices?  In the past, such questions would be unthinkable.  Americans trusted in the FBI's integrity and objectivity.  They believed the FBI and DOJ upheld the rule of law.  Americans never imagined these agencies would abrogate equal justice under the law and become political arms of the Democrat party.  Officials such as James Comey, Robert Mueller, Christopher Wray, and Merrick Garland have so corrupted the judicial process that Americans no longer trust there is equal justice under law.

Here's the Woman Who Launched the FBI Ransacking of Mar-a-Lago.  With every development regarding this federal ransacking, two things remain unchanged.  It looks increasingly clear that the Trump legal team was cooperating with federal officials regarding the documents in question, so the obstruction of justice allegation gets weaker by the day.  Second, where is the crime that precipitated this search of Trump's home because recent updates only make it seem like the Justice Department cobbled together statutes that aren't criminal to justify this ransacking?  The latest development in this legal fiasco is Acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall's role in the document retrieval, where she seems to be one of the leading figures who triggered the FBI raid.

Is this the Public Image the FBI Wants?  In a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, 53 percent of Americans agreed with the Roger Stone statement that there is "a group of politicized thugs at the top of the FBI who are using the FBI... as Joe Biden's personal Gestapo."  Over half of Americans think the bureau is turning into the Gestapo, and Director Christopher Wray still doesn't see the need for reform.  That includes 25 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Republicans who view the FBI unfavorably.  The fact that we have two justice systems, one for Democrats and another, harsher one for Republicans, is no longer debatable.

300-plus classified documents found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago: Report.  Federal government officials have recovered hundreds of classified documents from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida since he left office, according to a new report.  The initial trove of documents the National Archives and Records Administration collected in January included over 150 documents with classified markings, and seizures in June and in August brought the total up to more than 300, sources told the New York Times.  In January, following weeks of communication with Trump's team, the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of presidential documents before discovering classified material and referring the matter to the Justice Department, which opened an investigation.  DOJ officials visited Trump's lavish Palm Beach resort in June and collected another batch of documents possessing sensitive national security information holed up in the basement of Mar-a-Lago.

The Editor says...
Bias alert:  "Trump's lavish Palm Beach resort."  Isn't every Palm Beach resort somewhat lavish?  "[I]nformation holed up in the basement."  This implies the documents were being hidden, or that the documents hid themselves.  Any sensitive documents kept under lock and key would necessarily be hidden from view.  And anyone fortunate enough to have a basement knows that's where long-term storage is most feasible.

Unveiled memos raise questions about Biden's role in Trump probe.  A newly revealed letter shows that President Biden authorized the National Archives and Records Administration to reject any executive privilege claims that former President Donald Trump might use to stop the Justice Department from accessing classified documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate.  A letter posted late Monday on the website of conservative journalist John Solomon — one of the few people authorized by Mr. Trump to review National Archives records — revealed that Mr. Biden ordered the National Archives to share all materials it had requested from Mr. Trump to be shared with the Justice Department and the FBI.  The letter, written by National Archivist Debra Wall to Trump attorney Evan Corcoran, says the president cleared the way for her to rule on Mr. Trump's executive privilege claims.  That opened the door for the National Archives to allow the FBI and the Justice Department to review the missing documents, which culminated in this month's raid on Mr. Trump's residence.

WSJ Op-ed: 'No Legal Basis' for Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant.  The FBI raid on former President Donald Trump's private residence at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, had "no legal basis," according to a Wall Street Journal op-ed by former White House and Department of Justice lawyers David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey.  In their op-ed, Rivkin and Casey argue that the Presidential Records Act of 1978 allowed Trump to have the records allegedly in his possession, and that the general statutes cited in the search warrant — such as the Espionage Act — do not override it.

Biden White House facilitated DOJ's criminal probe against Trump, scuttled privilege claims: memos.  Long before it professed no prior knowledge of the raid on Donald Trump's estate, the Biden White House worked directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to instigate the criminal probe into alleged mishandling of documents, allowing the FBI to review evidence retrieved from Mar-a-Lago this spring and eliminating the 45th president's claims to executive privilege, according to contemporaneous government documents reviewed by Just the News.  The memos show then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ and National Archives as early as April, shortly after 15 boxes of classified and other materials were voluntarily returned to the federal historical agency from Trump's Florida home.  By May, Su conveyed to the Archives that President Joe Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor's claims to executive privilege, a decision that opened the door for DOJ to get a grand jury to issue a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over any remaining materials he possessed from his presidency.

Not Just The FBI: Institutions Across The Board Have Forfeited America's Trust.  Three days after the FBI descended on former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, Attorney General Merrick Garland gave a press conference lasting less than four minutes about the raid.  As he was speaking, he excoriated anyone who questions the motives and integrity of the FBI. His intent was clear:  You are not allowed to criticize the FBI and its obvious double standards.  Any criticism of the institution will be viewed as a "threat to democracy."  In true Orwellian fashion, the corporate media began parroting the same talking points.  The ruling elite is blinded by their groupthink mentality.  The raid on a former president was the culmination of two decades of corruption within the big government apparatus where abuses of power have become increasingly brazen.  The loss of trust in the agencies is not the result of conspiracy theories, social media, or millions of Americans simply becoming anti-government.  It is a direct consequence of their actions.  The American people believed our institutions were operating in good faith and they took a laissez-faire approach for far too long, even as the evidence of an abusive bureaucracy was mounting.

Report: Documents Show Biden White House Involvement in Trump Criminal Probe.  President Joe Biden's White House was intimately involved in the Department of Justice's (DOJ) criminal probe into former President Donald Trump, according to government documents reviewed by Just The News.  Several correspondences between Trump's attorneys and members of the Biden administration revealed that the federal government appeared poised to waive Trump's claims of executive privilege over documents that Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago until earlier this year.

Report, Congressional Gang of Eight Wants to See FBI Affidavit and Trump's Evidence Against Them Contained in Confiscated Documents.  It simply makes sense.  The legislative oversight group known as the "Gang of Eight" want to see the documents confiscated by the DOJ National Security Division from the FBI raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.  The reason and motives are simple.  If Donald Trump has evidence of the corruption in the Trump-Russia collusion fabrication and targeting effort, there would be evidence of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) participating in joint-effort with the DOJ and FBI.  When the FBI launched their 2016 targeting operation against candidate Donald Trump, it was the SSCI who coordinated with them.

The Fascist Bureau of Investigation.  Out of the blue, former President Donald Trump gets a call from his son Eric informing him that the FBI has swooped down on his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, with agents rummaging through everything from his empty safe to his wife Melania's clothes closet.  What?  What?  Shades of Felix Dzerzhinsky.  Who was he?  He is described as follows on Wikipedia: "From 1917 until his death in 1926, [Felix] Dzerzhinsky led the first two Soviet state-security organizations, the Cheka and the OGPU, establishing a secret police for the post-revolutionary Soviet regime."  Dzerzhinsky was famous, among other things, for describing the Soviet state security regimes this way:  ["]There were no restrictions when the time came for the iron fist of the dictatorship of the proletariat to smite its foe.["]  A more perfect description of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, the private home of a former president of the United States, could not be had.

Judge: Government Hasn't Proven Trump Search Warrant Affidavit Should Remain Sealed.  U.S. government officials haven't presented sufficient evidence to keep a key document related to the search warrant executed at former President Donald Trump's home shielded from the public, a federal judge ruled on Aug. 22.  Officials have claimed that an affidavit that convinced U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart to approve the warrant needs extensive redactions to protect FBI agents and witnesses, as well as the ongoing investigation into Trump.  The redactions would leave "very little — nothing of substance," Jay Bratt, chief of the Department of Justice's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, told Reinhart during a recent hearing.  The government has met its burden of showing that its interests outweigh public access to unsealing the entire affidavit, Reinhart said in the new ruling.  But the government hasn't yet sufficiently shown that portions of the document shouldn't be made public.

Trump v. United States: Former president files lawsuit to block DOJ reviewing raid evidence.  Former President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit demanding the appointment of a special master to review any evidence independently that the FBI seized from him as he pushes back against the unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago.  Trump filed the motion on Monday [8/22/2022] seeking an order from a judge to appoint a special master and stop the Justice Department from further review of the information they had seized from his Florida resort home until the special master is appointed.  Trump also asked the judge to require the DOJ to provide a more detailed receipt for the property it had seized from him and to order federal investigators to return all items to him that had been taken but were outside the search warrant's scope.

Memos Show Joe Biden Tried to Entrap Donald Trump Over 'Classified' Documents.  A new report is shedding light on exactly how the DOJ investigation into Donald Trump over supposed "classified documents" at Mar-a-Lago got started. [...] Apparently, it started with the National Archives, which is run by a partisan hack who decided to treat Trump differently from all other presidents before him.  When Barack Obama took millions of pages of documents, including many that were undoubtedly classified, upon leaving office, the National Archives gave him a sweetheart deal allowing him to digitize everything at a later date (none of that has happened all these years later and surprise, no raid).  [Indeed], there are presidents whose libraries still haven't returned requested documents decades after their deaths.  For Trump, though, the National Archives didn't even give him a year before running to the DOJ to push for a criminal investigation.  With the "crime" pinpointed, the National Archives and the DOJ still needed a legal hook, and apparently, they got it by directly coordinating with the Biden administration.

Biden White House facilitated DOJ's criminal probe against Trump, scuttled privilege claims: memos.  Long before it professed no prior knowledge of the raid on Donald Trump's estate, the Biden White House worked directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to instigate the criminal probe into alleged mishandling of documents, allowing the FBI to review evidence retrieved from Mar-a-Lago this spring and eliminating the 45th president's claims to executive privilege, according to contemporaneous government documents reviewed by Just the News.  The memos show then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ and National Archives as early as April, shortly after 15 boxes of classified and other materials were voluntarily returned to the federal historical agency from Trump's Florida home.  By May, Su conveyed to the Archives that President Joe Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor's claims to executive privilege, a decision that opened the door for DOJ to get a grand jury to issue a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over any remaining materials he possessed from his presidency.

Trump Files Lawsuit over Mar-a-Lago Search, Requests Third Party to Review Documents.  Former president Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday [8/22/2022] requesting the appointment of a special master to review the items seized by the FBI during the raid of his Mar-a-Lago residence.  The suit, marking the first legal action Trump has taken over the raid, calls for the review of the seized materials to be stopped until the watchdog is appointed, and for the FBI to return all items not in the scope of the search warrant.  FBI agents seized photos, handwritten notes, and the former president's passports — materials that were not in the search warrant — according to the filing issued by Trump's attorneys in federal court in Florida.  The special master is appointed in cases "involving the seizure of privileged and/or potentially privileged materials, [and] is needed to preserve the sanctity of executive communications and other privileged materials," the suit states.

Hmmm. Are these two documents part of the reason Mar-a-Lago was raided?  Did the FBI raid Mar-a-Lago to retrieve letters to Trump from Korean leader Kim Jong-un?  Were they looking for the letter written to Trump by Barack Obama and left inside the Resolute desk at the end of Obama's time in the White House?  According to reporting, both of those items are at the top of the list of documents the National Archive wants from Donald Trump.  Do those documents sound like they would warrant the first-ever raid on a former president's private residence?

Judge Formally Rejects DOJ Request to Seal Entire Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant Affidavit.  A federal magistrate judge formally rejected the Justice Department's bid to keep the affidavit leading to the FBI raid of Trump's personal residence at Mar-a-Lago completely sealed, noting the "unprecedented" nature of the search and the "intense public and historical interest."  U.S.  Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who signed off on the initial search warrant for the raid, issued a 13-page ruling on Monday morning finding the DOJ had not provided a strong enough argument for "keeping the entire Affidavit under seal."  "The Government argues that even requiring it to redact portions of the Affidavit that could not reveal agent identities or investigative sources and methods imposes an undue burden on its resources and sets a precedent that could be disruptive and burdensome in future cases," Reinhart wrote.  "I do not need to reach the question of whether, in some other case, these concerns could justify denying public access; they very well might."

Mar-a-Lago mess: How Merrick Garland can regain the public's trust.  In a three-minute press conference following the FBI raid on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, Attorney General Merrick Garland cut a defiant figure, condemning critics of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI: "I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked."  He then left the stage without taking questions or answering that criticism.  It was a signature moment for Garland, who often responds to controversies with belated, rote remarks.  His brief comments had all of the substance of a Hallmark card that read, "Trust us, we're the government."  Yet trust has to be earned, not simply demanded.  This coming week, Garland has another opportunity to show leadership and reassure the public by ordering substantive disclosures in the proposed redacted affidavit justifying the raid.  If not, this will be the fifth missed opportunity to demonstrate that the DOJ deserves the public's trust.

Shame the FBI or Abuses Will Escalate.  I have been unable to locate any condemnation by the FBI of the leaks to the New York Times of the "highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government," in connection with the Mar-a-Lago raid.  That's strange because only a day earlier the Justice Department told a federal judge that releasing the names of these witnesses would, "jeopardize the integrity of this national security investigation."  The silence is deafening.  On Monday, the Department of Justice filed an opposition to the release of the affidavit the FBI used to justify its "panty raid" on Mar-a-Lago.  "Disclosure at this juncture of the affidavit supporting probable cause would, by contrast, cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation," the government argued.  "As the Court is aware from its review of the affidavit, it contains, among other critically important and detailed investigative facts:  highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government."

Hmmm: FBI search of Mar-a-Lago run by same counter-intel group as Crossfire Hurricane.  Is this a conflict of interest, or business as usual at the FBI ... or both?  RealClearInvestigations reported yesterday that the same unit running the FBI's probe of Donald Trump and the search of Mar-a-Lago also conducted the botched Russia-collusion probe that used the discredited Steele dossier to go after Trump in 2017-18.  Paul Sperry writes that one key figure in the earlier investigation has a lead role in this one as well: [...] Assuming Sperry's sources are accurate, how unusual would it be for the FBI to run this investigation through its counterintelligence unit? Not at all, or at the very least the FBI would have a pretty good argument for that decision.  The search of Mar-a-Lago was predicated — even if it was just a predicate — on the mishandling of classified material, likely involving intelligence matters.  That type of investigation would almost certainly be tasked to teams with experience in matters of classification, documents handling, etc.  It's no coincidence that the statutes involved in that probe are called the Espionage Act, after all.  That would definitely fall in this unit's purview.  The inclusion of Brian Auten in this effort would be somewhat less explicable, however.  Auten's credibility issues aren't limited to the Russia-collusion operation that blew up in the FBI's face, either.

Did Joe Biden Reclassify the Russia Collusion Docs That Trump Declassified?  By now you know the story of the raid on Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., but since then, there's been a pitched debate in the chattering class on TV and the media about Trump's ability to declassify information.  And since he did declassify items, why is it an alleged crime now to possess those documents?  I may have the beginnings of an answer.  It's indisputable that the president may classify and declassify documents.  The office of the president has had this authority since World War II.  President Obama codified the executive authority to do it in an Executive Order.  Even the Washington Post had to admit that.  Trump declassified documents pertaining to the Russia collusion hoax and the Hillary Clinton email scandal in 2020 and 2021.  Trump and his ally and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) representative, Kash Patel, wanted these in the public domain.

Spygate Docs and Trump's RICO Lawsuit: Exploring the Real Reasons Behind the FBI Raid.  Following the FBI's raid of the residence of former President Donald Trump, there's been much speculation about the Department of Justice's (DOJ) motivation.  Was it done to prevent Trump from running again in 2024, or was the raid related to documents and evidence surrounding the January 6th Commission?  While these factors may have had some bearing on the FBI's raid, some entirely different, and potentially larger, factors may be at play.  It is likely that the FBI's raid on Trump was driven by intelligence community fears over information that was contained within those documents relating to the RussiaGate hoax.  The DOJ's coordinated FBI raid of Trump was likely related to the potential unsealing and public presentation of this information — particularly in relation to Trump's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) suit against Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and former FBI officials like former Director James Comey, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former agent Peter Strzok, and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page — and his amended RICO suit, which added more defendants.

Think the FBI Deserves the Benefit of the Doubt?  Last week, the FBI executed an unprecedented raid of the former president's Florida residence ostensibly conducted to enforce the Presidential Records Act.  Federal officials confiscated more than a dozen boxes from the 128-room mansion pursuant to the rarely prosecuted law, claiming Trump harbored classified information related to the nation's nuclear secrets.  Leaked claims to the Washington Post that Trump possessed sensitive nuclear records, which came hours after Attorney General Merrick Garland professed the agency's professionalism, however, showcase the sensationalism crafted by officials desperate to justify the raid, which included more than 30 agents.  At a press conference last week, Garland admitted to personally signing off on the raid he called "narrowly scope[d]."  An examination of the warrant, however, reveals that it authorized FBI agents to seize any and every document Trump came into contact with as president. Furthermore, none of the three criminal statutes the DOJ cited in the warrant required the material to be classified, according to Cleveland.  The FBI also attempted to dispel claims that federal officials stripped the president of his passports, telling CBS News that the agency was not in possession of the documents after Trump blasted that they had been confiscated.  An email made public by Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich, however, exposed the FBI's lie.

Trump Releases Private FBI Email That Exposes Everything About Their Latest Scam.  At outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, The New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today, it has been proved over and over again, that if you don't fall in step with the hate-Trump, liberal agenda that those media outlets are ramming down the throats of Americans, then you will be fired.  As if being the arch-enemy of the duly elected President of the United States isn't bad enough, the mainstream media has sunk to all-time lows during Biden's reign.  The MSM has now become the arch-enemy of the American people and America itself.  For example, they desperately tried to portray Trump as a traitor and criminal after the FBI raided his home!

Has Biden Crossed the Rubicon?  When body-armored paramilitary agents with automatic weapons showed up to raid the house of Donald Trump, former president and rival of sitting U.S. President Joe Biden, many conservatives likened it to the beginning of a banana-republic rule in our country.  Conservative columnist George Will is more measured in calling it one more colossal blunder on the part of the Biden administration.  Blunder or political move, the weaponization of the legal system for political motives has caused civil wars and destroyed at least one law-based republic in history. [...] For the first time in the nation's history, one political party is trying to use the law to prevent a potential presidential candidate from another party from running again.  This is a very slippery slope.  Biden is certainly no Caesar and Trump is no Pompey, but we are definitely headed in the wrong direction.

DOJ Asks Judge to Keep Affidavit for Search Warrant Used Against President Trump Sealed from Public Review.  If the search warrant affidavit was revealed to the public, the DOJ Lawfare tribe targeting Trump — within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD), could not keep the benefit of selective leaks to their media stenographers.  It would be more difficult to frame the narrative.  On Thursday August 11th, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the justice department was committed to transparency in order to retain their integrity with the American public.  On Monday August 15th, Attorney General Garland asked the court to keep the records sealed.

DOJ Doesn't Want Americans to Know the Real Reason Why the FBI Raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago Home.  The Department of Justice is fighting efforts to reveal the reasons they ordered the raid of former President Donald Trump's home at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.  They expect us to trust them that the raid and retrieval of documents are all legit.  The affidavit contains the underlying documentation and rationale for raiding the former president's home while investigating his treatment of documents and retention of allegedly classified documents.  The affidavit is usually revealed when a suspect — Donald Trump, in this case — is indicted for a crime.  This breathtaking raid was a historical first.

Hmmm: FBI returns Trump passports that never appeared on search inventory.  A curious development indeed, especially after yesterday's pas de deux over whether the FBI took Donald Trump's passports — and why.  Trump claimed that FBI agents "stole my three Passports," while the Department of Justice remained silent about it until late in the day.  Now there are two questions to ask after this NBC News report:  why did FBI agents take them in the first place, and why did the inventory from the seizure not list them?

DOJ admits Trump passports were taken after CBS anchor O'Donnell reports not.  The Justice Department admitted late Monday [8/15/2022] that former President Donald Trump's passports were taken by FBI agents who searched his Florida home last week — hours after "CBS Evening News" anchor Norah O'Donnell tweeted that she had been told otherwise.  Late Monday, Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich tweeted a screenshot of an email from a member of the Justice Department's National Security Division that acknowledged the bureau removed the 45th president's travel documents from Mar-a-Lago.  "We have learned that the filter agents seized three passports belonging to President Trump, two expired and one being his active diplomatic passport," the email said.

Rand Paul Moves to Pull Rug Out from Under DOJ, Leave Them with Nothing Usable from Mar-a-Lago Raid.  Only a few days after the FBI's raid on Mar-a-Lago, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky publicly demanded the repeal of the Espionage Act.  The Department of Justice is presumably weighing whether or not to indict former President Donald Trump for allegedly violating the act by taking classified documents with him upon leaving office (although, whether the documents in question were actually "classified" is up for dispute).  According to the official search warrant, the FBI raided the Trump resort on Aug. 8 to look for said documents as well as any evidence that the documents had been knowingly altered, destroyed or hidden.

Donald Trump demands the release of 'completely unredacted' affidavit that sanctioned FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago after spokesman shared email appearing to show agents DID seize three of his passports.  Donald Trump furiously called for the immediate release of the 'completely unredacted' affidavit that sanctioned the FBI raid on his Florida mansion late Monday night.  The former president said it was 'in the interest of transparency' the document be made public following the 'horrible and shocking break-in' at Mar-a-Lago last week.  He also slammed the 'very large number of gun toting FBI agents' who entered his home and demanded the judge who authorized the search warrant recuse himself in his Truth Social post.

Update: DOJ Says Passports Belonging to Trump Seized by FBI in Mar-a-Lago Raid Have Been Returned.  The Justice Department on Monday evening said the three passports belonging to Trump seized by the FBI in last week's raid of Mar-a-Lago have been returned.  "A Department of Justice official tells me passports belonging to former Pres.  Trump are NOT in the possession of the FBI and have been returned." NBC reported. [...] President Trump on Monday said the FBI seized his three passports in its raid of his Mar-a-Lago residence.

Trump Team Drops Email Proving FBI Wrongly Seized Passports After Media, DOJ Attempted to Mislead Public with Spin.  Donald Trump's legal team demolished the Department of Justice's (DOJ) media spin that denied having the former president's passports in their possession following the FBI's raid on Mar-a-Lago last week.  On Monday, former President Trump claimed on his social media site TruthSocial that the FBI "stole" his passports during the raid that shook the political world last week. [...] "According to a DOJ official, the FBI is NOT in possession of former President Trump's passports.  Trump had accused the FBI of stealing his three passports during the search of his Mar-a-Lago home," O'Donnell announced on Monday.  [Tweet]  Shortly after Norah's post, Taylor Budowich, the former president's communications director, shared an email from Jay Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in the Justice Department's national security division, confirming that three passports were seized in the raid and that they would be returned to the former president soon.

Trump Team Publishes Alleged DOJ Email Refuting Claim That FBI Didn't Take Passports.  A spokesperson for former President Donald Trump published an alleged email from a top DOJ email stating that the president's passports were accidentally taken during the raid on his home last week.  "In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else," Trump wrote on social media.  CBS News anchor Norah O'Donnell later tweeted that "[a]ccording to a DOJ official, the FBI is NOT in possession of former President Trump's passports." A spokesperson for Trump later responded directly to her tweet by posting a screenshot of an alleged email from Justice Department counterintelligence chief Jay Bratt that stated that the passports were being returned.

Boomerang? DOJ admission it over-collected evidence in Trump raid creates new legal drama.  Three passports, Privileged documents.  A file on a presidential pardon.  As evidence surfaces about what FBI agents seized during the raid of former President Donald Trump's estate in Mar-O-Lago, new questions about the real focus of the investigation and new avenues for legal challenges are bubbling to the surface.  The Justice Department informed Trump's team Monday that agents gathered the former president's passports and are obligated to return them, and that officials are also reviewing seized materials that may be covered by various privileges, multiple sources told Just the News.  DOJ has designated a process for separating materials that could be covered by executive privilege or attorney client privilege and hopes to return such memos to Trump within a couple of weeks, the sources said.

Donald Trump Warns 'Terrible Things Are Going to Happen' Unless Political Temperature Cools; Blames FBI Raid.  President Donald Trump on Monday warned the temperature of the political climate in United States had reached dangerous levels after the FBI raided his home at Mar-a-Lago, offering the Justice Department his assistance in cooling the simmering anger in the country.  The president commented on social media Sunday evening [2/14/2022] that he had observed "great simmering anger" while spending time with a group of people.

Alleged Passport Seizure at Mar-a-Lago Could Undermine Trump's Civil Rights.  President Donald Trump's claim that his "passports" were seized in the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago last week could have major legal implications for any investigation into him: it could mean his Fourth Amendment rights were violated in the search.  As Breitbart News reported earlier Monday, former President Trump announced on Truth Social:  "In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else.  This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country.  Third World!"

DOJ opposes release of Trump warrant affidavit.  The Department of Justice is opposing the release of the underlying affidavit justifying its unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago, just days after it agreed to unseal the warrant approving the FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Florida resort.  "There remain compelling reasons, including to protect the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation that implicates national security, that support keeping the affidavit sealed," DOJ lawyers declared on Monday, also indicating, however, that they would be open to releasing redacted portions of other related documents.  Trump is being investigated for a possible Espionage Act violation and possible obstruction of justice, according to the warrant unsealed Friday, which cited 18 U.S. Code 793 (part of the Espionage Act) related to "gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information."  Despite its name, many of the law's provisions don't relate specifically to espionage.

Legal Expert Says Trump Raid Was 'Unlawful'.  Mike Davis says the FBI's raid of former President Donald Trump's Florida home was unlawful and unnecessary.  Davis is the former chief counsel for nominations to the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former law clerk for Chief Justice Neil Gorsuch.  He's now the president and founder of the Article 3 Project, an organization whose mission is to defend constitutional judges and the rule of law.  [Video clip]

Trump Claims FBI Took His Passports In Mar-A-Lago Raid.  Former President Donald Trump on Monday claimed the Federal Bureau of Investigations took all three of his passports during the agency's raid of his Mar-a-Lago property, days after the Justice Department released a list of documents seized in the search.  In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the agency "stole" his three passports, including one that was expired, as a part of the search.  He repeated allegations the raid amounted to political persecution, calling it an "assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country."

Trump Accused of Lying Over FBI-Seized Passports, Then He Dropped the Receipts.  As RedState reported on Monday, Donald Trump accused the FBI of taking his passports during the unprecedented raid of his Florida residence.  According to the former president, three passports were taken during the search, which apparently went far beyond just recovering supposedly classified documents that threatened "national security."  Predictably, after Trump made the claim, the press quickly jumped into the fray to call him a liar.  Norah O'Donnell of CBS News claimed via a source that the FBI was "not in possession of former President Trump's passports."  [Tweet]  "Not in possession of" is very specific wording that could have simply meant the FBI had passed them on to another agency.  Why not just say "we didn't take the passports" if they didn't take the passports?  Well, as it turns out, Trump's team was ready and waiting with the receipts that showed the press narrative was a falsehood.  [Tweet]

Damage Control:  Karine Jean-Pierre Denies FBI Raid Was Politicized.  White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denied allegations that the Department of Justice's raid on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property was politicized. [...] The White House Press Secretary was out doing damage control on ABC's This Week over the FBI raid of the Trump family home.

The FBI Is Now the Federal Bureau of Intimidation.  [Scroll down]  The purpose of all of this activity, along with the raid at Mar-a-Lago, was to intimidate not just Trump, but also his supporters.  Anyone other than Donald Trump would have given up long ago.  Who could possibly withstand the power of the state marshaled against you for six long years — through multiple FBI investigations, through two impeachments, through relentless persecution of your children and your friends and family?  Finally, what about the double standard that allows Democrats and their government allies to go unpunished for a multitude of sins?  Notwithstanding Attorney General Merrick Garland's feigned indignation on behalf of the bureau, what about the FBI agents who lied repeatedly during the Trump-Russia investigation, sometimes under oath.  Even more stunning has been the FBI's monumental failure to investigate presidential son Hunter Biden, even though it received his laptop with extensive incriminating evidence of criminal activity in 2019.

Records Suggest A Backbench Bureaucrat's Partisan Grievance Spurred The FBI's Nakedly Political Raid On Trump.  Last week's raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago home represented the culmination of a criminal investigation pushed by a partisan bureaucrat who called January 6, 2021, the "absolute worst" day of his life.  And while since last Monday, the country has focused on the FBI's raid of Trump's personal residence, seeing that as the crossing of the Rubicon, the die was cast this spring when the DOJ went to the grand jury about Trump's presidential records.  Reporting by the New York Times and Washington Post — some from months ago — when pieced together and considered in tandem with past practices related to presidential and other governmental records, reveals this reality.  The relevant reporting started no later than February of this year, when the Washington Post broke the news that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) confirmed in a statement, issued by the then-archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero, that in January of 2022 NARA had retrieved from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of presidential records, which according to sources included items such as mementos, gifts, and letters.  NARA added that Trump representatives were "continuing to search" for additional records.

Trump Calls FBI Raid 'Another Form of Election Cheating'.  Former President Donald Trump said the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida was politically motivated, and that the Democrats had been known for using the Department of Justice to sling mud at Republicans.  "The RAID was Politics, the Midterm Elections, and 2024.  It's another form of Election CHEATING — That's all the Radical Left Democrats know what to do.  They use the FBI & DOJ to try and dirty up their opponents, but the people of our Country are wise to them like never before.  Be careful what you wish for!" Trump wrote in a statement on his Truth Social platform on Aug. 13.  FBI agents seized about 20 boxes of items during a raid of Trump's resort on Aug. 8, along with documents marked as confidential, classified, and top secret, according to a warrant and a property receipt unsealed by Judge Bruce Reinhart on Aug. 12.  However, Trump has said that the documents were "all declassified."  The warrant said the FBI was investigating the former president for possible violation of three different laws, including one that prohibits gathering, transmitting, or losing information related to national defense under the Espionage Act.

FBI's modus operandi exposed:  Bureau accused of weaponizing briefings to hit GOP targets.  The FBI has been accused of weaponizing intelligence briefings and selectively leaking information to take aim at a number of high-profile targets.  Republicans have pointed to the emergence of what seems to be a troubling trend — the bureau directly (or via leaks to Democrats or carefully chosen media outlets) shaping the narrative around investigations in whatever way it sees fit.  Those claims returned to the spotlight when Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) raised concerns last month that an FBI briefing on Russia in summer 2020 was used to undercut their investigation of the Biden family at the same time the bureau was wrongly labeling evidence about Hunter Biden as disinformation.  A number of investigations have been affected by questionable briefings, including those into former President Donald Trump's ties to Russia, and the inquiry into Hunter Biden's finances.

Why Merrick Garland Is Losing the People.  Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday held a belated press conference to explain that he had personally approved the FBI's raid of Donald Trump's Florida residence to seize documents deemed U.S. government property.  A clearly agitated and nervous Garland sought to exude confidence in the raid.  He went on to heatedly defend the professionalism and integrity of the Justice Department and FBI.  But almost immediately after his sermon, the Justice Department and its affiliates were back to their usual selective leaking ("sources say" ... "according to people familiar with the investigation") to liberal newspapers.  In no time, the Washington Post claimed the raid was aimed at finding Trump Administration documents relating to "nuclear secrets."  The now-familiar desired effect was achieved.

Trump now claims FBI agents seized three of his passports during the Mar-a-Lago raid.  Donald Trump on Monday [8/15/2022] claimed his passports were 'stolen' in the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago last week, which would mean he could not leave the country.  He called it an 'assault on a political opponent.'  'Wow.  In the raid by the FBI or Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else.  This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never before seen in our country.  Third World,' he wrote on his Truth Social social media account.

FBI Raid Warrant Demanded Seizure Of Literally Any Record Trump Ever Saw During 4-Year Presidential Term.  The FBI search warrant authorizing a government raid of former President Donald Trump's Florida residence sought an exhaustive list of any White House records the president ever came in contact with, according to the document obtained by The Federalist.  Outlining the "property to be seized" by the more than 30 agents who rummaged through the former president's Mar-a-Lago mansion, the warrant demanded confiscation of any document Trump ever saw, read, or created for the entirety of his four years as commander-in-chief.  "All physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation" of federal statutes governing records possession, the warrant reads, were to be seized.  Records extended to "Any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021."  In other words, had Trump written something down on a napkin, federal officials were authorized to raid the former president's home and capture it.

FBI seizes privileged Trump records during raid; DOJ opposes request for independent review: sources.  The FBI seized boxes containing records covered by attorney-client privilege and potentially executive privilege during its raid of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News, adding that the Justice Department opposed Trump lawyers' request for the appointment of an independent, special master to review the records.  Sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News Saturday that the former president's team was informed that boxes labeled A-14, A-26, A-43, A-13, A-33, and a set of documents — all seen on the final page of the FBI's property receipt — contained information covered by attorney-client privilege.

Trump calls for seized documents to be returned to Mar-a-Lago.  Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for the Justice Department to return the reams of documents FBI agents seized at his Mar-a-Lago resort last week, pointing to a report that said the information was covered by attorney-client or executive privilege.  "Oh great!  It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now famous raid of Mar-a-Lago, took boxes of privileged 'attorney-client' material, and also 'executive' privileged material, which they knowingly should not have taken," Trump said on his Truth Social site.  "By copy of this TRUTH, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken.  Thank you!," the former president said in the posting.

Trump Raid:  DOJ Allegedly Seized Privileged Attorney-Client Materials.  The Department of Justice (DOJ) allegedly took materials that contained privileged attorney-client communications in its raid last Monday on former President Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago, Florida.  The claim, reported by Fox News, raises new questions about the DOJ's tactics, as well as doubts about whether the DOJ would be able to use any of the seized materials in a hypothetical prosecution of the former president.  The DOJ is apparently opposing the appointment of a "special master," a judicial official who would conduct an independent review and decide which materials could be handed over to the government and which materials would have to be returned to Trump and his attorneys.

Republican NY Congressional Candidate Carl Paladino on Mar-a-Lago Raid:  Susan Rice Likely Behind 'Gestapo Tactics'.  Deep State types such as Susan Rice are likely behind the FBI's raid of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, Carl Paladino, a Republican upstate New York businessman who is running for Congress in New York's 23rd Congressional District, told Breitbart News Saturday.  He contended that it would have to be someone other than President Biden, who "isn't there" but, rather, is vacationing "all the time."  "RINOs" do not want change in Washington, DC, Paladino said as he described the current Republican Caucus in the House as a "disaster," pointing to the Trump era as an example of how to get things done.

Understanding the legal process behind the raid and where it's headed.  Media coverage of the Mar-a-Lago raid has not been entirely illuminating, melding together as it does without distinction the four components of the search warrant process. [...] We should soon be hearing DOJ lawyers shout "smoking pistol!" about certain evidence allegedly seized in the raid, which evidence Trump attorneys may well allege was planted during the raid.  The DOJ will probably indict Trump for something and attempt to have a jury trial in DC shortly before the 2024 election. [...] In the Trump case, we can expect that a prosecution witness will testify that documentary evidence "Exhibit A" was seized during the raid.  We can also expect that there will be a defense witness who testifies that "Exhibit A" was planted during the raid.  In this scenario, the trial's venue will be all-important.  If Trump were tried in the DC swamp, he would have little chance with the jury.  Although he might well prevail on appeal, the DOJ will try to get the trial set close enough to the 2024 election that the Supreme Court will be unable to act until after the election.

The Attempt to Prosecute Donald Trump Is Unleashing More Than Our Political System Can Handle.  With the recent FBI raid on Donald Trump's Florida home, the Democrats and the Biden administration have raised the political stakes to a level from which this country as we have known it may never return.  All one can say to those that are demanding a criminal prosecution of the former president is:  Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.  Although the raid ostensibly was to see if Trump took classified documents from the White House when he left in a chaotic move in January 2021, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy believes the Biden administration was again attempting to find that proverbial "smoking gun" tying Trump to the January 6 Capitol riot.  Whether or not Attorney General Merrick Garland is able to grab the brass ring and prosecute Trump after yet one more fishing expedition is another story, although I doubt that any president has seen as many resources used to investigate him as has Donald Trump, but the Department of Justice has not filed charges yet.  Understand that anyone reading this article has committed a federal crime at some point, perhaps more than once.

The Espionage Act Gets An Instant Makeover.  I woke this morning to find the Twitter version of a block party, over the news that Donald Trump is being investigated under the Espionage Act. [...] If I were Trump, I absolutely would fundraise off being investigated under the Espionage Act.  By pursuing him under this provision, the Justice Department just did Trump the mother of all favors, adding his name to a list of some of the most famous political martyrs in our history. [...] Maybe [Robert] Reich can't see how this will play politically, or doesn't care, but anyone thrilled at the prospect of trying to prosecute a former president under the Espionage Act has blacked out the recent history of this law.

Trump Records Negotiator:  Former President in 'Bureaucratic Battle' Over Classified Documents.  Former White House official Kash Patel on Sunday revealed former President Donald Trump has been involved in a battle with the federal government to declassify documents before last week's FBI raid.  Patel, who was a top official in the Department of Defense, said Trump declassified numerous documents.  "President Trump made me his representative a month ago, and we've been in a bureaucratic battle," he told Fox News on Sunday morning.  "We found whole sets of documents we got out to the American public ... about 60 percent."  Patel, who hosts "Kash's Corner" for Epoch TV, added that Trump "made it his mission to declassify and be transparent."  "In October 2020, he issued a sweeping declassification order for every single Russiagate document and every single [former Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton document," Patel said, adding that "whole sets of documents" were declassified under his watch.

Prosecutorial Indiscretion.  What more can be said?  The FBI raid on Trump's Florida home was shocking and his supporters are incensed.  But almost everyone, including Trump's opponents, is uneasy.  This is an unprecedented and dangerous weaponization of federal law enforcement powers against a political opponent of the party in power.  Some have defended the FBI's actions as being court-authorized and really no different from what law enforcement does every day against criminal suspects.  But these defenses do not address the colossally bad judgment behind the raid and the prior pattern of double standards and targeted persecution.  While Trump is not above the law, he is not below it either.  Did no one stand up and say, "Maybe this is too much, and we should think it through?"

Margot Cleveland Explains Why Trump Warrant Casts a Broad Net, Isn't About 'Classified or Not'.  There's been a lot of talk about classified documents regarding the FBI raid on President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.  Trump himself talked about declassifying documents and there is a report about a "standing order" to declassify documents he had over documents that he was reviewing.  But there's an important thing to note that the criminal statutes alleged in the warrant go right around that — that it isn't about whether the documents are classified or not.  [Tweet]  It's a way of trying to get Trump on something while jacking up the left by screaming "classified" or "nuclear."  But those aren't the critical questions in the underlying statutes.  Indeed, there's been no evidence so far that it has anything to do with nuclear stuff.  As we reported, that isn't anywhere in the warrant, at least what we has been revealed so far.

Yes, They're Going to Arrest Donald Trump.  If you haven't yet come to terms with the fact that vile, power-abusing, Left-wing goblins are going to arrest former President Donald Trump, you've got your head in the sand.  These people are unprincipled cage-fighters animated by their seething lust to destroy Orange Man Bad.  Our upper echelon law enforcement has been transformed into an iron fist, and we've taken unprecedented blow after unprecedented blow for years now — presidential candidate Trump wiretapped, the Russia Hoax, two impeachments on the flimsiest of grounds, FBI raids of conservative journalists and political enemies (especially those in Trump's orbit, including his attorneys Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani), and most recently, the reprehensible raid of the Trump family's beloved home.  Why on earth would you think these people will stop there?  And because it's unimaginable to conservatives to politicize and weaponize the DOJ and FBI to this extent, we've been caught flat-footed every time the establishment demolishes yet another norm of American civility.

Sources Say Hillary Clinton Operatives Have Been Secretly Working With DOJ Officials For Several Months To Take Down Trump.  The FBI seized boxes containing records covered by attorney-client privilege and potentially executive privilege during its raid of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News, adding that the Justice Department opposed Trump lawyers' request for the appointment of an independent, special master to review the records.  Sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News Saturday that the former president's team was informed that boxes labeled A-14, A-26, A-43, A-13, A-33, and a set of documents — all seen on the final page of the FBI's property receipt — contained information covered by attorney-client privilege.  The FBI seized classified records from Trump's Palm Beach home during its unprecedented Monday morning raid, including some marked as top secret.  But the former president is disputing the classification, saying the records have been declassified.

AG Merrick Garland's raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago is a farce of law.  After orchestrating one of the biggest events in the history of the Department of Justice, [Merrick] Garland proved himself too small for the moment.  Whether he volunteered or was pushed into authorizing the unprecedented FBI raid on the home of former President Donald Trump, he was woefully unprepared for the entirely predictable fallout.  It should not have been a surprise to him that about half the country believes the raid was motivated by politics.  Or that Trump's support, which had been slipping, instantly started rising among Republicans and some independents.  Even if Garland hadn't considered politics, he might have thought of the declining credibility of his organization, especially after its shameful spying on Trump in the 2016 election.

Will the United States Exist After November?  The Nazi serving as US Attorney General says he is going to get the warrant unsealed that he used as the justification for the aggressive invasion of President Trump's home by a weaponized and politicized FBI, essentially frame up artists for the corrupt Democrat party.  The question the Nazi attorney general doesn't answer, and the question the presstitutes studiously avoid asking, is why was the warrant containing the probable cause for the unprecedented invasion of an American president's home sealed in the first place?  Little doubt the official explanation will be a lie, one that the presstitutes will repeat endlessly in their attempt to turn the lie into truth via repetition, just as they did with "Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction," "Assad's use of chemical weapons," ad infinitum.  My take on the situation is that there is no probable cause.

Former National Intelligence Director:  Trump Has 'Ultimate Declassification Authority'.  A former director of national intelligence said Aug. 12 that it is "virtually impossible" to prosecute people for mishandling classified documents, and asserted that former President Donald Trump has the "ultimately declassification authority" in terms of such documents.  "The president does have ultimate declassification authority.  He can literally declassify — and President Trump had that authority, and could declassify anything you want while he was president," John Ratcliffe, a Republican congressman before Trump appointed him to be director of national intelligence, said on Fox News.  According to documents unsealed earlier Friday, Trump's Mar-a-Lago home was raided by FBI agents on Aug. 8 because of potential violations of several laws, including the Espionage Act, which some legal experts say relates to possessing classified defense information.

At least the raid diverted attention away from Joe Biden's senility and incompetence for a week.
The Trump Warrant 'Scam' Is Utterly Ridiculous.  Legal Twitter has weighed in on the warrant that triggered Monday's raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago manse.  The warrant was leaked to the media late Friday afternoon.  The documents, which appear to be the warrant and the list of items taken from Trump's home when FBI agents knew he wouldn't be home, seem to confirm the worst fears of attorneys who thought the raid was a fishing expedition to find something on Trump.  Indeed, the warrant is so overly broad, even to lefty attorneys, that it looks desperate.  The warrant demands that agents remove binders of photographs, documents with classification markings on them, and, the coups de grâce, "any physical documents with classification markings, along with any containers/boxes (including any other contents) in which such documents are located, as well as any other containers/boxes that are collectively stored or found together with the aforementioned documents and containers/boxes."

Does Donald Trump Have Jeffrey Epstein's List of Clients?  Does Donald Trump have Jeffrey Epstein's list of clients?  The Deep State, Bureaucracy, Swamp, Administrative State, Military-Industrial Complex, Democrats, Media, Establishment Republicans, and crew are acting like Trump is Satan incarnate.  At this point their loathing seems overwrought, to understate it.  Every norm is being thrown out for a man who governed in a perfunctory way.  At first, the hysteria seemed just like partisan hyperventilating.  Now, the actions are shrill hysteria.  Only one thing causes this kind of collective freakout in Washington, D.C.: fear.  What about Donald Trump makes these people so afraid?  Thus, I return to my first question:  Does Donald Trump have Jeffrey Epstein's list of clients?  Trump must have the goods on these people, because they've done everything to the man short of assassinate him.

The Mar-A-Lago Raid Could Mark The End Of The Republic.  It's not an exaggeration to say that historians may mark this week as the fall of the American republic.  On Monday evening, news broke of the FBI's raid on the residence of former president Donald Trump in Florida. [...] Only ironclad evidence of a very serious crime could ever justify this kind of raid on a former president's home.  If that standard means that former presidents, 46 of them — more relevantly the six of them currently living — occasionally get away with low-level swamp behavior that might jail a Rod Blagojevich, well, that's a price that's much lower than the alternative.  And what is the reported reason for turning over Mar-a-Lago?  Ongoing litigation over potentially classified documents under the Presidential Records Act.  Two hundred and forty-six years without trying to jail political opposition comes to an end because of alleged minor mishandling of documents, which Trump easily could have declassified (and who, including a court, will be able to prove that he did not?) with a wave of his hand as he was leaving the Oval Office in January 2021.

The Feds Involved In The Trump Raid Allegedly Have Been Under Investigation By Durham For Abuse Of Power.  Kash Patel, a former Federal Prosecutor and Department of Defense official under former President Donald Trump, has revealed a key flaw in the Biden Department of Justice's claims following the FBI raid on Trump's estate at Mar-a-Lago.  Patel explained that reports of classified materials found at the Palm Beach property are misleading because the documents were already declassified. [...] Trump isn't blinking.  He's not acting like someone who thinks he has a lot to fear from this.  He announced he was all for releasing the warrant, and he now he's commented on how the raid was completely unnecessary.  He had been in talks with the National Archives for a while and had already turned over several boxes of documents in June.  So that's why the raid isn't making logical sense.

The Destroyer of the Republic.  It strains credulity, but given Old Joe Biden's deteriorating mental state, it doesn't really strain credulity all that much:  the Biden White House insists that it only found out about the twilight-of-the-republic raid on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home when the establishment media did, and not a moment before.  So if the alleged president didn't order this banana-republic raid, who did?  On Thursday, Biden's hyper-partisan Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has done so much to turn the Justice Department and the FBI into weapons of partisan politics, admitted that it was he who "personally approved" the raid, and as he surveys what he hath wrought, the heightened distrust of the authorities among ordinary Americans, and the growing fear of an out-of-control Leftist authoritarian federal government, he isn't one bit sorry, either.  Apparently destroying the republic and imposing upon the American people a Leftist autocracy that is above the law was what he wanted to do all along.

The Big Problem With the Trump Warrant.  The warrant used by the FBI to raid Donald Trump's home was released on Friday.  In yet another laughable, hypocritical shift by the mainstream media, they demanded the former president release the warrant for two days, asserting that not doing so would signal his guilt.  Trump did just that, giving it to Breitbart to publish, at which point wailing and gnashing of teeth commenced because it wasn't redacted.  You know, because it's Trump's job to do that for the government who could have just released it themselves.  In other words, everything is stupid because everything centers on getting the bad orange man.  There are no rules that won't be bent or broken to accomplish that end, and the FBI itself is no different in following that philosophy.  That leads me to the big problem with the government's explanation for the warrant:  It's way too broad.

Cleaning house at the FBI and Justice Department.  The Department of Justice could have used low-profile subpoenas to force Trump to turn over any documents, including the most sensitive ones.  It didn't.  Instead, it sent carloads of federal agents to search the former president's house. [...] The blowback has been a Category 5 storm.  The damage has grown because the FBI and Department of Justice remained silent for three days, refusing to explain their actions.  Now, the FBI or DoJ are busy leaking their justification, alleging (anonymously) that Trump took highly-classified nuclear secrets when he left office.  That would be a grave matter, if true, but it raises several obvious questions.  One is whether he really did wrongly remove such materials.  The second is whether less-invasive means could have been used to retrieve them.  The third is whether the real purpose of the raid was to collect materials for other investigations, such as January 6 and Trump's efforts to delay Joe Biden's certification as president.  Seized materials can be used in other investigations, but it is illegal to get warrants for one purpose when your real purpose is something else.  The fourth is public skepticism about the government's explanations.

Shocked retired FBI agent:  Mar-A-Lago raid was not normal.  A retired FBI supervisory special agent told One America News that Monday's raid on President Donald J. Trump's Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago home was outside the normal paradigms as he knew them for 28 years at the bureau.  Jeff Danik, whose last posting was in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's field office five miles from Mar-a-Lago, said he was stunned by the news of the FBI raid.  "Shock.  First thought:  I was another great example of the overreach that has been going on, uh, related to issues regarding Donald Trump and his presidency," Danik said.  "There's nothing about the approach to Donald Trump and his presidency, his administration, or any of these potential crimes, that's normal," he said.

The 2024 Election Is Being Rigged Right Now In Plain Sight.  Much like the 2020 election, which wasn't stolen so much as rigged months in advance to give Joe Biden an advantage that all but guaranteed his victory, the 2024 election is being rigged to ensure that Trump either cannot run or, if he does run, cannot win.  First, consider the FBI raid.  No serious person believes that a documents dispute was the real purpose of the raid.  The idea that the FBI would search the home of a former president and potential 2024 GOP candidate over an ongoing (and not uncommon) disagreement over presidential records with the National Archives is absurd on its face.  In his brief and self-congratulatory press conference Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said he personally authorized the search on Trump's home, that the Justice Department "does not take such a decision lightly," and that it always seeks to use a "less intrusive means as an alternative to a search, and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken."  But if that were true, it more or less rules out the theory that the FBI was looking for classified documents.

The raid on Trump's home is a tipping point:  The FBI and DOJ are enemies of the people.  There was a time past when Americans knew the FBI was corrupt.  J. Edgar Hoover headed the agency from 1924 until his death in 1972.  ["]Hoover habitually used the FBI's enormous surveillance and information-gathering powers to collect damaging information on politicians throughout the country, and he kept the most scurrilous data under his own personal control. [...] ["]  Hoover was the same kind of man that Jeffrey Epstein was:  Have enough dirt on others and one's own job will be secure.  There have been ten more heads of the FBI until Robert Mueller took the job.  Mueller and his successors — Comey, McCabe, and now Wray — have each been corrupt, willing tools of the anti-American left.  They have each used their positions of power to, like Hoover, go after political opponents by any means necessary, no matter how unconstitutional or illegal.  Anyone who has watched any of these last four "testify" before any congressional committee knows that they each consider themselves to be above the law.  Their crimes against the country are too many to list here, but the raid on President Trump's Florida home is the worst crime the bureau has ever committed.  Does it mean the end of America as a nation of laws and due process?  It just might.

After Trump Raid, American Justice System Below Third-World Standards:  Kash Patel.  With the FBI's recent raid on one of the homes of former President Donald Trump, the federal justice system in America has sunk below the level of third-world countries, according to Kash Patel, a former national security official in the Trump administration.  The FBI executed a search warrant at Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida on Aug. 8 looking for White House documents Trump may have taken with him when leaving office, a lawyer for Trump told The Epoch Times.  Trump said he's been cooperating with law enforcement for months and there was no need for a raid.  The unprecedented raid has been denounced by most Republicans and even some Democrats on the basis of it appearing politically motivated as well as overly aggressive for a matter usually resolved in a low-key fashion, if addressed at all.  Some pointed out that the Obama administration failed to hand over White House documents to the National Archives on a dramatically larger scale without any repercussions.

Vladimir Putin, Meet Joe Biden.  Any remaining doubt that America is over was laid to rest Aug. 8, 2022 — 6 feet under.  With the not just "unannounced," but unprovoked, unprecedented, unprincipled and unpardonable violation of the home and property of a former head of state and potential future presidential candidate, this nation is no longer the United States.  It is die Deutsche Demokratische Republik, and the Justice Department and FBI are the Stasi, KGB and Chinese Ministry of State Security rolled into one.  And any question whether the Biden-Harris-Schumer-Pelosi occupation regime in Washington is illegitimate was equally dispatched by its latest outrage.

What if the Democrats want Trump to run for president again?  [Scroll down]  Here is a question pollsters have not dared put to the U.S. voter:  did you vote for Biden believing that your community would go up in flames if Donald Trump were re-elected in 2020?  Such a question would be justified by all those store-owners across the homeland who covered their windows with plywood boards in the days before the 2020 elections, fearing leftist rioting had Trump been re-elected.  If voters elected Biden in 2020 over Trump, wouldn't they be likely to vote for the Democrat over Mr. Trump in 2024?  For Democrats, Donald J. Trump is a known figure, and for all their demonizing him — indeed, because they demonize him with abandon — he is hardly an intimidating personality.  A Republican candidate like Florida governor Ron DeSantis, nearly half the age of Mr. Trump, might be a political personality more difficult to deal with.

Are Democrats setting a trap for Trump?  Despite their best efforts, the relatively dim prospects for the Democrats in 2022 have led them to throw a Hail Mary: raiding the home of Donald Trump in the hopes that he will angrily announce his 2024 candidacy before the midterms.  If the documents they confiscated allow them to fabricate "crimes," even better!  The desired result is to rile liberals and moderates enough to have a massive anti-Republican turnout in November.  Remember the 2020 vote totals:  81 million Democrat votes compared to the Republican ticket's 74 million.  Donald Trump may well take the bait.  He has wanted to run again since the day after the 2020 election.  Aggrieved for good reason, it's taken every one of his advisers their mightiest efforts to delay him until now.

Mar-a-Lago reminds us of all the previous ethical failures of the Department of Justice.  In the wake of the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, we're being told that the actions taken were an anomaly, and that most FBI agents are honorable agents.  I'd like to believe that, but if that were true, why haven't we seen mass resignations and public complaints?  Flouting all convention and long-standing ethics in the law enforcement community, the Department of Justice is embroiled in yet another scandal.  The bias is flagrant, and nobody holds a candle to the bureaucrats under Obama.  Eric Holder avoided accountability for withholding documents from Congress for years on the gun-running operation, Fast and Furious.  They were above the law.  Not only that though, Eric Holder has repeatedly lied under oath with impunity, and was never prosecuted.

Four Possible Reasons The FBI Raided A Former President.  What was the FBI thinking when it raided former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home on Monday?  The possibilities are plenty, but none paint a pretty picture.  No matter the underlying purpose of the raid, one must wonder why none of the higher-ups in the FBI or the Department of Justice put the brakes on a search of the home of a former president of the United States — an event universally described as a modern crossing of the Rubicon.  How could the DOJ and FBI not anticipate the visceral reaction a broad swath of America would have to the Biden administration's DOJ initiating a raid against a former commander-in-chief and the Democrat's main political opponent?  And how could government agents think securing a warrant would provide them cover?  Simply put, FBI headquarters couldn't anticipate any shock or horror over the search because none of the many FBI agents who were willing to speak up had any qualms about the move.

Some guesses as to what the FBI Mar-a-Lago raid was really about.  [Scenario #1]  The Mar-a-Lago raid was an admission that the J6 inquisition failed to unearth evidence that could be used to attach legal blame to President Trump for what transpired.  Yes indeed, they tried awfully hard, and quite a few innocent people got snared in that net, but once again, The Donald walked away unharmed.  So the DNC had to undertake a new fishing expedition.  How this one will turn out remains to be seen.  I doubt it will go anywhere.  [Scenario #2]  It's not a coincidence that the Mar-a-Lago home invasion occurred just after a CPAC straw poll showed that President Trump is the GOP's overwhelming favorite for 2024, with Florida governor Ron DeSantis a distant second.  The numbers were 69% for Trump and 24% for DeSantis.  So the point of the raid was to pour cold water on Trump's status as the GOP frontrunner in 2024.  I'm going to take a wild guess and say this won't slow DJT's momentum.

No, Trump didn't committ actionable treason or espionage.  Everyone who believes Trump committed a criminal act is wrong.  These claims completely misunderstand the nature of Trump's (indeed of every president's) plenary power and how it plays out with respect to documents and classified information. [...] The Democrat line is clear:  Trump had classified national security documents in his possession, which is a criminal act, so he needs to be prosecuted and, preferably, executed.  In fact, it is impossible for a president to mismanage classified or national security documents.  Indeed, even if Biden reclassified the information, Trump still did not commit a crime.  Everything the Democrats believe is dead wrong.

Another Huge Red Flag in the Trump Raid Story.  When he spoke to the media on Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland took offense to those who questioned the professionalism and integrity of the Department of Justice and the FBI.  "Let me address recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors," he said. [...] Well, Mr. Attorney General, if they're so professional and full of integrity, can you explain why the Wall Street Journal apparently knows the contents of all the classified documents and supposedly "top secret" documents removed from Trump's home and has apparently reviewed some of them?

How to end the FBI.  Now the calls for dumping the bureau are rising following the raid on Mar-a-Lago.  This is the biggest fishing expedition since Moby Dick.  I welcome the help to rid us of the bureau.  But I made one mistake.  Don't reassign any of the agents and support staff to anything.  Start fresh.  Some parts of the FBI are necessary.  The center in Clarksburg, West Virginia, that does background checks is a service that a federal government can provide the 50 states.  Take it out of the FBI and out of the Department of Justice and give it to Homeland Security.  Do the same with the U.S. Marshal Service which should add employees as its mission is about to expand.  Ship it to Homeland Security.  Also add employees to the Secret Service, which already is in Homeland Security.  Then and only then, abolish the FBI.  Freeze hiring in any federal agency for two years so that everyone in the FBI has no place to go except a state agency or (gasp) the private sector.

The American Gestapo a.k.a.  FBI.  What kind of Justice Department official would sign off on a FBI raid on a former US president's home when the president is fully cooperating with the spurious "investigation" of him?  What kind of judge would issue the warrant and then hide it from view by sealing it?  What kind of FBI agent would invade a president's home instead of resigning over the assignment?  Clearly, none of these people are good people.  They are not people we can have any confidence in. [...] The corrupt FBI has had a corrupt judge seal the "probable cause" justification for the search warrant, which probably means that there is no probable cause.  Why else seal the justification for an unprecedented event that makes the United States government look precisely like a third world gangster state?  Marc Ruskin, a 27-year veteran of the FBI and a former federal prosecutor told the Epoch Times that he was stunned and dismayed by the FBI's "disregard for traditional norms and apparent lack of concern with the appearance of impropriety."  That the FBI permitted itself to be used so blatantly politically "is indicative of an abandonment of even a veneer of independence and objectivity."

Turns out Obama took 30 million documents from his White House and NEVER got raided.  Late last night President Trump revealed on Truth Social that Obama took some 30 million documents from his White House and he never got raided for it. [...] This just leads me to believe that this raid, while under the pre-text of retrieving documents for the national archives, wasn't really about that at all.  I've said this smells like January 6th and I'm not the only one: [...]

Trump Responds After Newly Unsealed Search Warrant Reveals He's Is Under Criminal Investigation For Espionage.  The search warrant used to execute the raid on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home earlier this week revealed the ex-president is currently under federal investigation for obstruction of justice and violations of the Espionage Act, USA Supreme has confirmed.  The shocking revelation was made Friday afternoon after Trump's legal team failed to oppose a motion previously made by the Dept. of Justice to unseal a copy of the search warrant used to raid his Palm Beach, Florida estate on Monday.  According to Politico, who obtained and reviewed a copy of the newly released search warrant, Trump is under federal investigation for the "removal or destruction of records, obstruction of an investigation, and violating the Espionage Act."

The FBI Doesn't Seem To Care Enough To Explain Their Trump Raid.  There are still so many open questions about the FBI's raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago home this week, but one thing for sure is it reinforced the feeling many Americans have that the system is rigged.  The Biden Justice Department, in other words, just reinforced the sentiment that brought Trump to power in the first place.  All of this, like so many of America's recent problems, could have been avoided.  How about an explanation?  Did Attorney General Merrick Garland even consider the damage he would do by raiding a popular ex-president's home with no explanation whatsoever?  It's as if those running America are trying to drive a huge swath of voters away from any trust in the system.  Raiding an ex-president's home is a truly historic act.  It's unprecedented.  Anyone planning such an act had to know the firestorm that would follow.  To choose to do so without at least justifying the need in some detail is to purposely enrage a huge number of already disaffected voters.  Where does this all end?  The constant escalation is putting America on course for disaster.

Trump Warrant Suggests Espionage Act; Same Law Hillary Clinton Dodged.  The search warrant for the raid on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home on Monday suggests he is being investigated under the Espionage Act of 1917 — the same law that Hillary Clinton was suspected of violating in 2016.  Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted Thursday that he personally approved the warrant application, which seeks broad discretion to search Trump's home based on three statutes:  18 U.S.C. section 793, on the mishandling of defense information; 18 U.S.C. section 1519, relating to the destruction of federal documents; and 18 U.S.C. section 2071, which punishes hiding, moving, or destroying federal documents.  Section 793 is from the Espionage Act of 1917, passed during the First World War.

Bluff Called, President Trump Responds to Ridiculous DOJ and FBI Claims of Nuclear Documents at Mar-a-Lago.  The raid on President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate coincides with developments in the civil lawsuit he filed against Hillary Clinton, Perkins Coie, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok and the entire cabal of DOJ, FBI and Clinton campaign operatives via the fake Trump-Russia collusion hoax known as 'spygate'.  It doesn't take a deep political analyst to look at the 108-page lawsuit, consider the evidence that would be needed to prove the lawsuit at trial, then overlay the timing of the court case and FBI raid to see both the content of the files at Mar-a-Lago and the motives of the DOJ and FBI to intercept them.  The severity of the raid highlights the desperation and political intent behind it.

The Latest on the Mar-A-Lago Raid.  [Scroll down]  In the end, I suspect this will turn out to be a teapot tempest.  Likely there was nothing of much significance in the boxes, and, in any event, there is zero reason to think that any secrets contained in the boxes would be compromised.  We have here a collision between two unreasonable parties, Donald Trump and the Trump-hating federal bureaucracy.  It may never be entirely clear, as to this tiny group of files in the Mar-a-Lago basement, which side was more unreasonable.

Warrant and Property Receipt from Mar-a-Lago Raid.  Human Events has obtained a copy of the search warrant filed to search former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.  That warrant was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, and details information about the property and the search.  The warrant details the address and locations to be searched, including that "The locations to be searched include the '45 Office,' all storage rooms, and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by FPOTUS and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate."  The warrant did not include a call to search parts of the property that are in use by members of the Mar-a-Lago club, or rentals.

Republicans say DOJ still needs to reveal the justification for their Mar-a-Lago search.  House Republicans demanded the Department of Justice now release not just the warrant used to raid Mar-a-Lago but the highly detailed accompanying affidavit.  Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday he would ask a judge to unseal the warrant, barring former President Trump's objection.  Trump released a statement Friday calling for the warrant to be released immediately.  But the government has not yet taken steps to release the affidavit used in support of the warrant, which would reveal in further detail the broad investigation into Trump.  It would describe the probable cause prosecutors had to believe there was evidence of a crime hiding out in Trump's Florida golf course property.

Warrant Shows DOJ, FBI Waited Several Days After Judge Approved to Conduct Mar-a-Lago Raid.  The warrant that authorized the search of former President Donald Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago shows it was issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Aug. 5, 2022, at 12:12 p.m. — nearly three full days before the Justice Department and FBI conducted a raid to execute it.  The raid did not occur until the morning of Aug. 8, 2022, when federal agents from the FBI arrived at Mar-a-Lago to execute the search warrant.  The document, obtained and reviewed by Breitbart News, shows that the DOJ and FBI waited several days after Reinhart approved the warrant to conduct the raid, something that severely undercuts the talking points issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland in a public statement on Thursday when he broke his silence to discuss the matter in televised remarks.

What were once raids are now searches.  Coordination among the authorities and the mainstream media operatives is so blatant one might conclude is so blatant as to be laughable.  We miss Rush Limbaugh's recurring demonstration of the phenomenon.  The FBI raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence is only the latest in a long line of examples.  Word came down that what was once a "raid" is now a "search."  The conformity of the talking heads is mind-boggling.  The element of high-mindedness they add to their conformity is comical.  Those falling into line can't help but add a large, large dose of self-love to their humiliating compliance.  [Video clip]

Trump Reveals More Details on Mar-a-Lago Raid.  Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday afternoon revealed more details on the circumstances surrounding the FBI's Aug. 8 raid of his Mar-a-Lago home.  "In early June, the DOJ and FBI asked my legal representatives to put an extra lock on the door leading to the place where boxes were stored in Mar-a-Lago — We agreed," Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Aug. 10, in an apparent reference to boxes that may have been used to store presidential records in Mar-a-Lago.  "They were shown the secured area, and the boxes themselves."  "Then on Monday, without notification or warning, an army of agents broke into Mar-a-Lago, went to the same storage area, and ripped open the lock that they had asked to be installed.  A surprise attack, POLITICS, and all the while our Country is going to HELL!" Trump said.

The FBI and its media allies scramble to justify the Mar-a-Lago FBI raid.  After considerable public pressure, missing-in-action U.S. attorney general Merrick Garland finally addressed the media yesterday, saying he "personally approved the decision" for the FBI to execute a search warrant at President Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago.  Garland declined to provide details about the investigation, such as what the documents retrieved by the FBI were. [...] Following claims of honor, morality, and legal egalitarianism, Garland's FBI then leaked information to the Washington Post, a notorious Democrat mouthpiece, proving in itself that the agency had been politicized and compromised, and not for the first time.  The WaPo reported that the FBI was looking for classified documents related to nuclear weapons during their raid.  The sources were obviously anonymous.  It's unclear what type of documents the FBI claimed to be seeking or if they pertained to nuclear weapons belonging to the U.S. or other countries.

Virtually No One on the Right Believes WaPo Report That Claims FBI Agents Were Searching For Nuke Docs at Mar-a-Lago.  A Washington Post report claiming that FBI agents were searching for classified documents related to nuclear weapons during their raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, was met with extreme skepticism and derision on social media Thursday night.  The report comes as the Biden Department of Justice weathers massive political fallout due to the raid, which looked to many Americans like a weaponized DOJ going after Joe Biden's primary political opponent.  "The FBI and DOJ look corrupt and stupid after the presser so they immediately leak some unfalsifiable nonsense to The Washington Post, and people just lap it up," said a RedState reporter on Twitter.  "It's like they've learned nothing over the last seven years."  Sources presumably from within the Department of Justice leaked to the Post that the agents were looking for classified information regarding nukes, among other materials.

Did Donald Trump Bait the FBI?  A reasonable question.  Monday's FBI raid at Trump's Mar A Lago was very strange.  Unlike previous FBI hits on people linked to Trump, such as Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon, the establishment media was kept in the dark.  They did not get a heads up.  How did we learn about the raid?  Trump announced it via his social media page around 1830 hours EDT on Monday.  Very strange.  Think about this.  Not a single soul in the Trump universe who knew about the raid at Mar A Lago breathed a word about this unholy assault.  Not one.  And, surprisingly, the FBI kept its mouth shut.  There is something more to this. [...] The current FBI is evil, corrupt and criminal.  Men like James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok have discarded sacred principles in favor of partisan politics and in the process discredited the FBI as a bona fide law enforcement agency.  It is time to disband the FBI and assign the Federal agents to other departments.  The FBI can no longer be trusted.

FBI, R.I.P?  The FBI is dissolving before our eyes into a rogue security service akin to those in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.  Take the FBI's deliberately asymmetrical application of the law.  This week the bureau surprise-raided the home of former President Donald Trump — an historical first.  A massive phalanx of FBI agents swooped into the Trump residence while he was not home, to confiscate his personal property, safe, and records.  All of this was over an archival dispute of presidential papers common to many former presidents.  Agents swarmed the entire house, including the wardrobe closet of the former first lady.  Note we are less than 90 days out from a midterm election, and this was not just a raid, but a political act. [...] The FBI has devolved into a personal retrieval service for the incorrigible Biden family.  It suppressed, for political purposes, information surrounding Hunter Biden's missing laptop on the eve of the 2020 election.

FBI seized classified records from Mar-a-Lago during search of Trump residence.  FBI agents seized classified records from former President Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago during the agency's unprecedented raid on Monday, including some marked as top secret, according to a warrant and property receipt unsealed Friday.  The documents had earlier been reviewed and reported by Fox News Digital.  Former President Trump is disputing the classification, saying the records have been declassified.  According to the warrant, reviewed by Fox News early Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart signed the warrant on Aug. 5, giving the FBI authority to conduct its search "on or before August 19, 2022," and "in the daytime 6:00 am. to 10:00 p.m."  The warrant and property receipt were formally unsealed Friday afternoon by Reinhart.

FBI seized 11 sets of classified documents in Trump Mar-a-Lago raid: report.  The FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents — including some marked top secret and only meant to be available in special government facilities — from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate following its raid earlier this week, according to an inventory obtained by The Post of what was taken from the Palm Beach resort.  The list, known as a "property receipt," and a search warrant for the 45th president's residence was ordered unsealed Friday by US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart after the Justice Department confirmed that Trump did not object.  Details of the warrant and receipt were first reported by the Wall Street Journal and Fox News.  The items removed from Mar-a-Lago include 27 boxes, 11 of which contained classified documents.

Coping Resistance Libs Escalate Their Accusations Against Donald Trump.  I have to say, I'm kind of enjoying this whole Trump-FBI raid news cycle.  It's so patently absurd, but like a badly written TV show, you just feel like you've got to see through until the end.  On Thursday, AG Merrick Garland finally spoke out while not really saying anything at all.  He did agree to unseal the warrant used for the raid of Trump's home, but he gave no details about what the FBI was after and what evidence they supposedly had to undergird their actions.  It felt like an attempt to downplay the ordeal.  Had the FBI failed to find what it was looking for?  Then the leaks started.  Just hours after Garland had sneered at Americans for questioning the FBI's integrity, someone inside the department (or the DOJ) ran to The Washington Post to claim the government searched Trump's home because they were looking for "nuclear documents."  [Tweet]

Part 4: What Was in The Trump Documents creating Such Fear in DOJ and FBI.  [Scroll down]  We can extract a lot of information on the first sets of evidence from the lawsuit filed by President Trump in March of this year, mostly against the outside actors.  The lawsuit was filed against specific persons and most of those persons were interviewed by the FBI as part of the originating investigation.  Within the subjects of the lawsuit we find names and groups including:  Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America Campaign Committee, DNC, DNC Services Corp, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Dolan, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robby Mook, Phillipe Reines as well as Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar Inc., Rodney Joffe, James Comey Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith and Andrew McCabe.  In addition to being named in the lawsuit, many of those names were interviewed by the FBI as part of the origination of the Trump-Russia investigation, and/or part of the ongoing investigation of the Trump-Russia fabrication.

Trump Raid Warrant, Receipts Make No Mention Of 'Nuclear Weapons'.  New documents related to the FBI's raid of former President Donald Trump's Florida home do not explicitly mention nuclear weapons secrets, which The Washington Post reported agents were seeking in the Monday search.  The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Friday unsealed unredacted copies of the FBI search warrant and receipts of items taken from Mar-a-Lago Monday during an FBI raid on former President Donald Trump's residence.  Nowhere on the warrant or on the receipts of items taken are "nuclear weapons" explicitly mentioned.  The documents, which are relatively undescriptive and mostly avoid specifics, do refer to "top secret" information and say Trump is being investigated in part for potential violations of 18 U.S.C. section 793.  This section of the U.S. code deals with "obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation."

American Stasi.  Monday's shocking images of police sirens blaring outside Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump's magnificent Palm Beach, Florida, estate, will not soon be forgotten.  Much has already been said and written about the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago that precipitated those sirens: "outrageous," "unprecedented," a "crossing of the Rubicon" moment.  Regrettably, all of that is true.  The siccing of the national law enforcement apparatus to execute a pre-dawn raid on a top partisan rival — especially when that rival is the head of state's predecessor and perhaps-likely future opponent — is a contemptible act of raw political bloodlust.  It is an act far more befitting a crumbling hellhole like Venezuela, or a third-world country in sub-Saharan Africa, than it is the land that was to be, per Benjamin Franklin's alleged quip, "a republic, if you can keep it."  America, it seems, won the Cold War only to see its own federal law enforcement/national security apparatus morph into a version of the old East German Stasi — and barely three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to boot.

Steve Bannon Unloads on Merrick Garland and FBI 'Gestapo'.  Steve Bannon went off on an epic rant on Thursday following weasel Attorney General Merrick Garland's dishonest and disgusting statement on the raid on President Trump's home on Monday.  Garland earlier admitted the DOJ was responsible for the raid on Mar-a-Lago to retrieve napkins and menus from Trump.  It took 30 FBI agents 3 DOJ agents and NINE HOURS to scour the home for evidence in their ongoing fishing expedition.  Steve Bannon unloaded on Garland after his 5-minute elusive statement.

Merrick Garland Suggests DOJ Sought 'Less Intrusive' Means Before Trump Raid.  Attorney General Merrick Garland suggested Thursday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) sought "less intrusive" means of obtaining presidential documents before using a search warrant, and an FBI raid, on former President Donald Trump's home.  Garland's remarks were the first public comments made by the DOJ since Monday's raid, which shocked many observers.  He confirmed that he had personally approved the search warrant — though he left open the question of the methods of the raid.

Merrick Garland Plays Chicken, Trump Responds by Slamming on the Accelerator.  My colleague Nick Arama reported on Attorney General Merrick Garland taking responsibility for authorizing the raid on former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.  As Arama wisely surmised, it was pretty much a nothing burger, with Garland refusing to disclose the details of the warrant or the justification behind the raid. [...] The American people are weary of this never-ending, merry-go-round of witch hunts.  They also know that the government has swept up good people in this January 6 campaign who are rotting in gulags and being denied their due process rights.  Garland and the FBI want it both ways.  Wave goodbye to that ship, boys.  Garland attempted to play chicken by moving to have the warrant declassified, probably expecting Trump to flinch.  Trump slammed on the accelerator by demanding that all of it be declassified.  It will either be a swerve, or a crash.  Maybe both.

The Editor says...
The FBI claims Trump had classified documents at his Florida residence, and they say they raided Trump's house to keep the documents from "falling into the wrong hands."  Does anyone really believe that a locked safe deep inside Trump's highly isolated and guarded house are in any danger of being photographed or stolen?  If there was any information of consequence in Trump's safe, it "[fell] into the wrong hands" on Monday afternoon.

Observations on the Mar-a-Lago Raid. 
  [#1]  To get a search warrant, you have to identify a crime that has been committed, and explain how evidence you are looking for is relevant to that crime.  At this point, we don't know what purported crime was the basis for the Mar-a-Lago search warrant.
  [#2]  Earlier today, Attorney General Merrick Garland delivered a brief statement to the press, and declined to take questions.  He looked remarkably nervous and said hardly anything.  Only two points emerged:  1) he ordered the raid himself, and 2) the Department of Justice will unseal the documents that were filed in connection with the search warrant.
  [#3]  No one doubted that the raid was ordered, at a minimum, by the Attorney General.  I think it is virtually certain that Garland had authorization from his boss, Joe Biden.
  [#12]  The Democrats crossed the Rubicon when they raided Donald Trump's home.  Never before in American history has anything like this happened.  I think the consensus of the commentariat is correct: the Democrats had better have something really good up their sleeve, or the blowback will be intense.  Hence Merrick Garland's sad performance today.

Merrick Garland's Presser Suggests the Resistance Libs Got Played.  Days after the unprecedented raid of Donald Trump's Florida home, AG Merrick Garland finally decided to address the public on Thursday regarding the matter.  Some naively hoped that he'd provide a legitimate justification for the raid, but as expected, that didn't materialize, mostly because there was no justification.  Instead, Garland danced about while revealing a few noteworthy things.  One, we learned that he was the one that ordered the raid, which is not surprising given he's a partisan who obviously holds a grudge against the former president.  Two, the DOJ is asking the judge in the case to unseal the warrant, which may or may not tell us anything depending on whether the affidavit is included.  Lastly, the attorney general angrily rebuked those who would dare question the integrity of the FBI, an assertion that drew richly deserved laughter on the right.

FBI agents were searching for classified documents about nuclear weapons when they raided Mar-a-Lago, according to report.  FBI agents who raided Donald Trump's Florida resort on Monday were hunting for classified documents relating to nuclear weapons, sources said on Thursday evening [8/11/2022].  Details emerged soon after Attorney General Merrick Garland appeared before cameras to defend the search and reveal that he had approved the operation at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.  Fall-out from the unprecedented search of a former president's residence has dominated the political world ever since Monday and the Justice Department is under increasing pressure to explain its decision.  Garland said he could not reveal further details of what prompted the hunt, but sources told the Washington Post it was to do with nuclear weapons.  But they did not say whether it was to do with the U.S. nuclear program or that of another nation.

The Editor says...
The Washington Post is one of the primary mouthpieces of the Deep State.  The "nuclear weapons" angle smells like a red herring.  That's exactly what the corrupt FBI would claim if the documents were really about Hillary Clinton, various impeachment cheerleaders in the Congress, and the FBI itself.

Part 1, Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump — The Story Behind the Documents.  The past 24 hours have provided a great deal of clarity on several issues.  CTH will be outlining the entire story behind the raid on President Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, including what documents the DOJ and FBI are determined to control.  However, before getting into the specifics, it is important to remember the full context of the threat that only Donald J Trump represents.  When you understand what documents President Trump was/is holding, the desperation of the DC response will make sense.  First, we need to remind everyone where the documents originated.  What was President Trump asking the Office of Director of National Intelligence, Dept of Justice and FBI to release for the past four years?  What is contained within those documents?  This is Part 1 that explains the actions in the background of those documents.

Part 2 — Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump — The Evidence Within the Documents.  Now we move into Part Two, the targeting of President Trump and the specific trail of documented evidence that exists behind the targeting.  It is critical to understand that foundationally our corrupt political system is built upon a network of surveillance.  It is through monitoring information and people, together with intercepting risk, that operations can continue to maintain a corrupt administrative state; what some might call the Deep State.  Within the system information is key, and the actions taken by DOJ and FBI officials are an outcome of this information.  As Edward Snowden explained, the surveillance state is critical to power retention.  President Trump carried documents that outlined how this process took place as it pertained to his entry into politics, thus the raid to retrieve them.

Part 3, Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump — A Culmination of Four Years of Threats and Betrayals.  Here in part three, we outline how and why President Trump was blocked from releasing the evidence. [...] In essence the DOJ and FBI, along with white house counsel and a collaborating senate and media, kept President Trump from declassifying and releasing documents by threatening him with impeachment and/or prosecution if he defied their authority.  The threats created a useful Sword of Damocles, and blocked Trump from acting to make documents public.  In the months that followed President Trump frequently made public statements and tweets about the frustration of documents not being declassified and released despite his instructions to do so.  Many Trump supporters also began expressing frustration.  The external debate and consternation surrounded how the Administrative State has seemingly boxed-in President Trump through the use of the Mueller/Weissman counterintelligence probe, authorized by Rod Rosenstein, where President Trump was the target of the investigation.

"They Have Nothing, They Have Absolutely Nothing" — Trump Attorney Christina Bobb on the FBI's Raid on Mar-a-Lago on Monday.  President Trump's Attorney Christina Bobb was on a live stream feed with Jim and Joe Hoft from The Gateway Pundit.  Ms. Bobb was at Mar-a-Lago on Monday when the FBI raided the place and discussed her experience and observations.  The Stasi-FBI and Joe Biden's Department of Justice raided President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home on Monday in a 9-and-a-half hour siege on his historic compound.  The FBI agents from Florida and Washington DC spent several hours ransacking Mar-a-Lago in their fishing expedition.  The dirty FBI agents went through Melania Trump's closet.  They searched EVERY ROOM — Likely bugging the place before they left.  The FBI spent HOURS in President Trump's private office.

Mulvaney: FBI Informant 'Really Close' to Trump; 6-8 People Knew About Mar-a-Lago Safe.  Former White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Thursday on CNN's "New Day" that someone very close to former President Donald Trump must have been the FBI informant.  Keilar asked, "This is someone with knowledge inside who told the feds that there was additional material at Mar-a-Lago, directed them where it should be, clearly was concerned enough to tell them this information they should have besides the 15 boxes of material they got in the winter.  Does that change your mind?  Is that now sufficient when you have someone actually aligned with him drawing the attention of the feds to these documents?"  Mulvaney said, "It certainly is worthwhile and worth noting, no question.  It would be valid on getting a search warrant or part of getting a search warrant.  The other thing the FBI had to establish, however, was that those documents were in imminent risk of being destroyed or removed from the location.  Unless they had evidence that Trump was directing people to destroy documents, and if he was doing that now, why wasn't he doing that six months ago?"

FBI Dir.  Christopher Wray Finally Responds to Raid of Trump Residence.  FBI [Director] Christopher Wray has finally responded to his bureau's raid of Donald Trump's Florida residence, and he wants you to know who the real victims are.  Apparently, despite all the questions surrounding the action, including the fact that it supposedly occurred due to a mundane dispute over the Presidential Records Act, the real bad guys here are those criticizing the FBI. What a completely shocking and unexpected response from the consummate company man.  [Tweet]  I'm trying to think of something I care less about than the FBI citing unnamed "death threats" as a way to deflect from their own maleficence, and I'm coming up blank.  This is what corrupt government officials always do.  They lash out in ways that draw blowback, and then they try to disqualify that blowback by saying "I'm getting death threats."

DOJ asks court to unseal Trump search warrant.  The Justice Department on Thursday moved to unseal a warrant authorizing a search of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate this week following escalating demands for answers about the unprecedented investigation.  "The public's clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances weighs heavily in favor of unsealing," Justice Department lawyers wrote in a court filing submitted Thursday afternoon [8/11/2022].  The move is a departure from the department's typical practice of staying silent about ongoing investigations, underscoring the significance of the first overt sign of an escalating criminal probe with a former president at the center.  The filing coincided with a public statement from Attorney General Merrick Garland, his first since FBI agents executed the search warrant on Monday.  Garland said he personally signed off on the decision to apply for and execute that search warrant, and that the decision was not made "lightly."

FBI May Have Planted 'Listening Devices' During Raid:  Trump Jr.'s Fiancée.  A person close to the Trump family suggested the FBI may have planted "listening devices" during a raid targeting former President Donald Trump's Florida residence earlier this week.  Lawyers for the former president previously said that FBI agents would not allow Trump's team to observe or supervise their search of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.  One lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, told Fox News on Thursday that agents are believed to have searched Trump's bedroom, office, and a storage room.  Because the FBI allegedly "didn't allow anybody to supervise what they were doing, and they specifically requested to turn off the security cameras," Kimbery Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancée and an advisor to the former president's 2020 campaign, told Newsmax.  "Why?  Because they didn't want to be caught with what they were doing.  How do you know there weren't listening devices planted or evidence planted there? [...]"

Attorney General Garland says he personally approved Trump search, will release warrant.  Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday he personally approved the search of Donald Trump's home this week and has filed a motion to unseal the warrant authorizing the raid of Mar-a-Lago in Florida.  Garland made a brief statement Thursday, the first since the FBI's raid Monday.  Garland said he personally approved the search of Trump's home and that the agency had probable cause.  Trump posted on his platform, Truth Social, minutes after the press conference.  "I continue to ask, what happened to the 33 Million pages of documents taken to Chicago by President Obama?  The Fake News Media refuses to talk about that.  They want it CANCELED!" he wrote.  Garland defended the integrity of the FBI and DOJ amid allegations that agents could have planted evidence.

Merrick Garland torched for admitting he approved the Mar-a-Lago raid.  Conservatives online ripped into U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland for his address to the nation on the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago on Thursday [8/11/2022].  During the speech, which was less than five minutes and contained no opportunity for press questions, Garland offered few details on why the raid occurred on former President Donald Trump's Florida estate, though he mentioned that the search warrant and its contents would be unsealed at the behest of Trump.

Judge Orders Department of Justice to Respond to Requests to Unseal FBI's Trump Warrant.  The Justice Department has to respond to motions to unseal a warrant that triggered the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, according to a magistrate judge who reportedly approved the search.  Judicial Watch and the Albany Times Union newspaper filed a motion to unseal the document earlier this week, which was granted by a judge in the case.  "On or before 5:00 p.m.  Eastern time on August 15, 2022, the Government shall file a Response to the Motion to Unseal," wrote U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Wednesday afternoon, referring to the Department of Justice.  "The response may be filed ex parte and under seal as necessary to avoid disclosing matters already under seal.  In that event, the Government shall file a redacted Response in the public record.  If it chooses, the Government may file a consolidated Response to all Motions to Seal," he wrote.  Neither the FBI nor Justice Department has issued public comments about the raid, which was first confirmed by Trump on Monday evening [8/8/2022].

During Trump Raid Feds Refused to Provide Warrant, Demanded Security Cameras Be Turned Off, Trump Security Team Refused.  More details surfacing about the illicit, sketchy and highly political FBI raid on President Trump's home are coming out.  The federal agents sent by the DC political system refused to provide the search warrant and demanded all of the security cameras covering the compound be turned off as they conducted their raid.  Thankfully, and due to the suspicious nature of the FBI operatives involved, the Trump security team did not turn off the cameras.  The Dept of Justice and FBI have yet to give a public statement supporting the predicate of their raid, as a result the transparent political motives have awakened an entire world to the reality of a corrupt USA deep state.  Based on prior statements outlined by Trump's legal team, I suspect a different DOJ/FBI motive than is currently being discussed.

America's Totalitarian Tendencies.  America has been on the road to totalitarianism for some time now.  Totalitarianism has two schools.  Old school totalitarian governments wield power openly.  They use the apparatus of the state against their own citizens, arrest and hold political prisoners without due process, and violate people's right to privacy in their own homes. [...] America had its old school totalitarian moment on Monday August 8, when the FBI raided the home of former President Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida.  It's likely no coincidence that this totalitarian act happened exactly forty-eight years to the day after President Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency over the Watergate scandal.  As with terrorists, dates are important for totalitarians too.  We are now at the point when the FBI is trending in a totalitarian direction.

Welcome To The Banana Republic of Biden!  Two weeks ago, I warned my readers (on Substack of course) that Democrats were preparing to arrest President Trump on bogus charges to stop him from winning the 2024 election.  As I wrote in that article on July 27th:  "Democrats were hoping to dent Trump's popularity with the January 6th Unselect Committee televised hearings but nobody's watching it (outside Washington) and nobody cares.  Since that gambit has failed, Democrats seem to think that arresting President Trump on bogus charges and trying him in a kangaroo court is their only remaining option." [...] The FBI suddenly raided President Trump's house in Florida and carried away "boxes of documents and materials" last night because something had to be done.  Trump's candidates are running the table on the empty suits fielded by the corrupt uni-party:  the score is currently 173 [to] 14. [...] The FBI and the DOJ just crossed the Rubicon.  The Biden regime is going to arrest its political opponents on fabricated charges to avoid defeat in future elections.  The Democrats are seizing power — and they don't care if you notice now.

The FBI Could Have Just Knocked.  Democrats run around the country and cable news screaming about whatever it is any Republican is doing or saying is a "threat to democracy!"  Meanwhile, the true threat to democracy is a political party that denounces everything and every institution as a "threat to democracy" only when they don't control it.  That's exactly what Democrats do.  Fox News?  Threat to democracy.  The Supreme Court?  Threat to democracy.  Parents at school board meetings not wanting their kids indoctrinated and groomed?  Obvious threat to democracy and terrorism.  Declaring the 2020 election to be suspicious?  You might as well set the Constitution on fire.  The 2016 election?  The 2018 election in Georgia?  [Indeed], the 2000 or 2004 elections?  Not a problem, but 2020 is a threat!  To call Democrats raging hypocrites is to do a disservice to parents with a lit Marlboro hanging out of their mouths lecturing their kids about how they aren't allowed to smoke, a Kennedy telling people not to drink or AOC encouraging people to learn critical thinking skills.  Still, in all honesty, the FBI could have just knocked.

American Stasi?  Eric Trump, in an interview with the Daily Mail, revealed astounding details regarding the FBI raid conducted at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home on Monday. [...] Among the most startling revelation[s] was that FBI agents initially refused to hand over the search warrant for their raid on Mar-a-Lago to Donald Trump's lawyer Christina Bobb.  They only showed it to her from about 10 feet away.  Bobb was left in perplexity as to why a lawyer for the person's home being raided by the FBI was not able to see or obtain a copy of the search warrant and thoroughly read it.  Bobb also said that the supporting documentation for the warrant describing the probable cause was sealed.  The low-level federal magistrate judge, Bruce Reinhart, who signed off on the warrant, was in the news for switching from federal prosecutor to defense attorney for individuals connected to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.  Reinhart also donated $1,000 to Obama's presidential campaign and $1,000 to Obama's Victory Fund.  Bobb also said she was ordered to stand on the outskirts of the Mar-a-Lago property i.e. in the driveway throughout the raid while the temperature was a sweltering 91 degrees with high humidity.  It was an unprecedented refusal to permit a client's attorney to be present as they conducted their search.

DOJ source calls raid a 'spectacular backfire,' claims AG Garland didn't approve it.  It seems the DOJ has decided to leak an explanation of their decision to use a search warrant in this case.  Newsweek just published an exclusive report based on anonymous DOJ sources which claims the FBI had a confidential source at Mar-a-Lago, one who informed them that Trump was hiding documents and even specified where they could be found. [...] Before we go any further, remember that the FBI apparently brought along a safe-cracker who opened Trump's safe.  Presumably that suggests they were told by their confidential source that there were documents hidden in the safe.  But by all accounts there was nothing in the safe and the FBI didn't take anything from it.  Does that mean the confidential source got it wrong?  The story also says the raid was intentionally timed to occur when Trump would not be there.  Apparently the FBI thought this would lower the profile of the raid.  But the DOJ source admits this didn't work as planned.  His explanation here is basically we're not politically corrupt just dumb.

Trump raid was an inside job:  Biden's FBI had a mole at Mar-a-Lago, report.  New details have emerged about the FBI's shocking raid on former President Donald J. Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence, an unprecedented targeting of a political opponent by the Biden regime that many have rightly condemned as something that is typically seen in a banana republic.  According to a bombshell report, the feds had a mole operating on the inside who was providing details on the location of allegedly classified documents kept on the premises in the raid which the media has gone to painstaking lengths to portray was about the Presidential Records Act and not an act of political retribution from the White House which would have been a dramatic escalation in Washington's war on Trump.  The exclusive report from left-leaning Newsweek cites the usual anonymous officials who said that the feds were being fed tips from an unidentified confidential informant "who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents."

The 2024 GOP Primaries Are Over.  The FBI's Raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago Ended Them.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence looking for — get this — classified materials he might have taken with him after his presidency.  Oh, so this search was conducted because the National Archives pressured the FBI to get these supposed documents.  The safe on the premises was opened, but nothing was found.  Are they kidding with this line?  Forget their Russian collusion antics that have ruined the credibility of this agency, their public relations arm has also caught the equivalent of long COVID regarding its talking points.  It's abjectly unbelievable.  In 2017, they couldn't say if a left-wing shooter, who openly admitted his hatred of Republicans, had a hit list and staked out the field, which led to the attack on the GOP congressional baseball team, was an act of domestic terrorism.  They also said it wasn't politically motivated at the time; they amended the report months later.  The bureau also had the nerve to declare that the synagogue hostage crisis in Colleyville, Texas, wasn't influenced by anti-Semitism last winter.  The FBI is the Democratic Party's political hit squad whose origins can be traced back to when Eric Holder became attorney general.  It accelerated rapidly under the Obama administration, and the same traitorous snakes remain.  That was made clear in the Mar-a-Lago incursion, which ended the 2024 GOP primaries.

Whistleblowers revealed widespread FBI misconduct ahead of Trump raid.  Prior to the FBI's raid Monday on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, a string of whistleblower reports alleged that senior officials at the FBI exhibited a pattern of bias in their handling of politically sensitive investigations and also reclassified cases without justification to substantiate the White House's public narratives on crime and extremism.  Beginning in late May, Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley called attention to then-Washington Field Office Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault over political bias concerns.  Thibault expressed support for several "highly partisan" opinion articles on LinkedIn and made a series of politically charged social media posts, according to Grassley, who referred Thibault to the Office of Special Counsel to address the federal agent's potential violations of the Hatch Act, which bars government officials from partisan political activity.

Facebook Posts Reveal Epstein-Linked Magistrate Bruce Reinhart's Woke, Anti-Trump Attitudes.  Bruce Reinhart, the magistrate judge who signed off on the FBI's raid on Donald Trump's Florida home at Mar-a-Lago, has a history of endorsing woke and anti-Trump viewpoints on his Facebook page, according to reports.  Images that appear to be of Reinhart's Facebook page seen by Breitbart News show Reinhart praising leftist Robert Reich for his criticism of Donald Trump, accusing the former President of lacking "moral stature," and sharing a woke video about "white privilege."

Alarm Bells:  Judge Who OK'd Trump Raid Recused Himself in Trump-Clinton Lawsuit.  We previously reported how Judge Bruce Reinhart — the man who signed off on the search warrant to raid Mar-a-Lago — had previously worked for Jeffrey Epstein's employees.  He helped them secure immunity deals from the government after he left the U.S. Attorney's office where they had been prosecuting Epstein.  But it gets more concerning than that.  Turns out the judge had recused himself from the Trump-Clinton lawsuit on June 22, citing a statute as to impartiality. [...] The judge doesn't further specify his reason for recusal in the order.  That naturally raises questions then about his signing of the search warrant for the raid on Trump's home.  What was his personal bias or knowledge?  Or did he work for the Clinton team in any way?  If he was recusing himself from the Trump-Clinton matter, is there a continuing issue that would be problematic in signing off on the Trump warrant?

Details of What FBI Seized at Mar-a-Lago Make FBI Raid Look Downright Scandalous.  We are starting to get more details on what occurred during the FBI's nearly 10-hour raid of Donald Trump's home in Florida, though, it's not the government that's providing them.  On Tuesday evening, Trump's lawyer revealed that authorities didn't even want to present a warrant, and when they finally did, the warrant had the probable cause sealed.  As to what was seized, the list is illuminating, and not in a good way for the FBI's conduct.  According to a report from The Washington Post, citing information leaked to them by the government (which says a lot on its own), the boxes taken were full of what would mostly be considered personal effects and mundane presidential records.

Mar-a-Lago Raid Backfires Spectacularly on Democrats.  We are all waiting to see the next steps establishment Washington takes following the raid at Mar-a-Lago.  As details emerge, the reason for the intrusive spectacle becomes less clear.  It has undoubtedly divided Americans along partisan lines.  However, the obvious political persecution of the former president is drawing some new lines.  People notice when you put that kind of banana republic nonsense on top of a horrible economy.

Wait — Those 'Classified' Docs FBI Sought in Trump Raid Were Already Declassified.  On Monday, the FBI executed a search warrant of Trump's Mar-a-Lago home that was approved by a magistrate judge who is not only linked to Jeffrey Epstein but was also an Obama donor.  According to CNN, the raid was "part of an investigation into the handling of presidential documents, including classified documents, that may have been brought there."  If that is the case, then this further proves that the raid was an abuse of power, because we've known for months now that the documents in question were already declassified by then-President Trump.  "Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves," Kash Patel, a former top Trump administration official, told Breitbart News in a phone interview in May.  According to Patel, the classification markings just had not been updated.

What The FBI Did to Melania's Clothes Is Disgusting and Shows Massive Overreach.  When the FBI raided Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago, it didn't just senselessly root through the former President's files, crack open his safe, and snatch up boxes of documents to confiscate for whatever anti-Trump investigation they have going on.  Though all that seems to have happened during the banana republic-like raid, the FBI did something else, something even more horrific: it rooted through Melania Trump's clothes, rifling through her outfits and underwear in what can be interpreted as nothing other than a gross attempt at humiliating the former president and his family.

The FBI Raids Mar-a-Lago, and I Have Questions.  On August 8, 2022, the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump's Florida residence.  Such an act against any president, past or present, has never been done before. [...] What was Donald Trump's supposed crime that justified such an extreme measure? [...] The feds were looking for classified documents from when Trump occupied the Oval Office, which should have been turned over to the National Archives.  Those would be the same documents that have already been declassified and that the Trump people are currently reviewing with the National Archive people to figure out if they should be returned or not.  The Clinton administration provides a good point of comparison.  Bill Clinton's former national security adviser, Sandy Berger, smuggled documents out of the National Archives in his pants and then destroyed them.  It is believed that the documents would have embarrassed President Clinton during the 9/11 investigation.  Was Berger's home searched?  Nope.  Did he go to jail?  Nope, he was sentenced to...community service.  Does anybody think Merrick Garland has community service in mind for Donald Trump?

Trump raid [is] not about classified documents — it's about Jan. 6.  The court-authorized search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate is another unmistakable signal that the Justice Department is trying to build a criminal case against him arising out of the Capitol riot.  Ostensibly, the search relates to a long simmering dispute between the former president and the government over Trump's potentially illegal retention and mishandling of classified information.  But don't be deceived.  National Archives officials alerted the Justice Department months ago regarding missing records and possible classified information violations.  That owes to the chaotic atmosphere in which the Trump family decamped to Florida from the White House following the Capitol riot — with impeachment proceedings and even talk of removing Trump from office under the 25th Amendment then underway.

FBI searched Melania's wardrobe, spent hours in Trump's private office during Mar-a-Lago raid.  FBI agents scoured Melania Trump's wardrobe and spent several hours combing through Donald Trump's private office, breaking open his safe and rifling through drawers when they raided the former First Family's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida Monday morning.  The [New York] Post has learned that the search warrant used by the FBI to enter the palatial Palm Beach property focused solely on presidential records and evidence of classified information being stored there.  A source close to the former president expressed concern that FBI agents or DOJ lawyers conducting the search could have "planted stuff" because they would not allow Trump's attorneys inside the 128-room building to observe the operation, which lasted more than nine hours.

Welcome To Biden's Police State, Part III.  Try, if you can, to imagine the reaction if the Justice Department had, in President Donald Trump's second year in office, orchestrated a raid of Hillary Clinton's Chappaqua, N.Y., home, rummaging through rooms and cracking the Clintons' safe looking for government documents she hadn't turned over when she left the State Department.  You can bet, at the very least, that newspapers wouldn't be carrying run-of-the-mill headlines such as "F.B.I. Searches Trump's Mar-a-Lago Residence" or "FBI executes search warrant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago in document investigation."  The Washington Post thought the important story to tell was how "Top Republicans echo Trump's evidence-free claims to discredit FBI search."  No, the press would be in a full meltdown.  Democrats would be calling for Trump's impeachment.  Celebrities would be making videos in which they cry about the future of the country.

At Least Three DOJ Attorneys for Merrick Garland Joined FBI During 9 Hour Raid of Trump Mar-a-Lago Compound.  The Stasi-FBI and Joe Biden's Department of Justice raided President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home on Monday in a 9-and-a-half hour siege on his historic compound.  During the raid the FBI forced Trump attorneys to sit OUTSIDE in the heat while they rummaged through every room in President Trump's historic home.  The FBI stood with loaded guns outside President Trump's home as they raided Mar-a-Lago for 9 hours.  The FBI agents from Florida and Washington DC spent several hours ransacking Mar-a-Lago in their fishing expedition.

FBI's Trump Home Raid Improperly Intrusive, Circumstances Indicate:  Lawyers.  There's reason to suspect that the FBI search of the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump was improperly intrusive, according to several lawyers.  The raid prompted a rebuke from Trump and Republicans more broadly and further escalated political tensions in the nation.  About two dozen FBI agents entered Trump's Palm Beach resort of Mar-a-Lago around 9 a.m. on Aug. 8 and left about 10 hours later with "a handful of boxes of documents," one of Trump's attorneys on scene, Christina Bobb, told The Epoch Times.  "I didn't actually get to oversee the search, they wouldn't let anybody see what they were doing," she said.  It isn't clear what legal basis the FBI had for the raid.  The agents had a search warrant signed by a judge, however, the affidavit explaining the basis — its probable cause — was filed under seal and Trump's lawyers weren't allowed to examine it, Bobb said.  In general, the agents were looking for "what they deemed to be presidential records," she said.  "I don't think there was anything of substance."

Mar-a-Lago Raid:  DOJ and Dems Risk Civil War to Save Their Jobs.  What's behind the FBI's raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago home besides a burst of Neo-Stalinism reminiscent of Comrade Beria's "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime," mixed with an effort to prove once-and-for-all that the USA is becoming a banana republic run by characters out of "Seven Days in May."  What made 30 (or was it more) FBI agents give a former president the Gestapo treatment in the early hours of the morning, allegedly rummaging in multiple rooms of his house, not looking so much for anything in particular — anything would do — while breaking into his safe in the process?  Call it The Big Panic.  Call it something more insidious — the instigation of one-party rule.  The Democrats, the Deep State, the Justice Department (DOJ), the FBI, and all the intelligence agencies, globalists, propagandists of mainstream media, all the adherents of that one-party rule and enemies of republican government, will do anything — anything — to stop Trump from winning the 2024 election.

The FBI worked with big tech to hush Hunter Biden story:  Josh Hawley claims.  The censorship and suppression of Hunter Biden's laptop history and the safety of voting by mail during the outbreak by social media companies were at the center of a lawsuit brought by two Republican states against President Biden, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other senior administration officials.  [Video clip]  The two GOP-led states claim that social media companies were pressured by the defendants.  The complaint argues that the freedom of speech, which is a constitutional right, was violated by the federal government in what was considered as an "assault by officials from the federal government against citizens' rights."  The defendants reportedly "coerced, threatened, and pressured social media platforms to censor disfavored speakers and viewpoints by using threats of adverse government action," the filing says.

Trump says his attorneys weren't allowed 'anywhere near' FBI raid.  Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted the FBI for allegedly refusing to let his attorneys watch the raid at his Mar-a-Lago estate and make sure that agents were not "planting" evidence.  Trump, 76, said Wednesday in a message on his social media platform Truth Social that the FBI and other federal government officials wouldn't let anyone from his staff, including his attorneys, "anywhere near the areas" that were being examined during Monday's raid at his palatial home.  "Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, 'planting,'" the former president wrote.  "Why did they STRONGLY insist on having nobody watching them, everybody out?"  Trump's message concluded:  "Obama and Clinton were never 'raided,' despite big disputes!"  An FBI spokesperson declined to respond Wednesday to Trump's post.

So FBI, why no raid of Hunter Biden's house?!  Democrats and allied media have been high-fiving and backslapping on MSNBC and CNN ever since the Mar-a-Lago raid Monday.  Magazine covers featuring Trump in a photoshopped orange jumpsuit behind bars are already in the works.  "No one is above the law," they chortle.  Unless you're a Democrat.  The fact that neither President Biden, nor his handpicked Attorney General Merrick Garland, has deigned to explain the raid shows that they don't care about the optics.  They haven't attempted to reassure the American public that it is not a political hit job to take out the likely Republican presidential candidate for 2024.  They don't care that half the country, polls show, believes the FBI has become the Democrats' personal Gestapo.  They don't care about the political firestorm they have ignited, because they think they control the corrupted institutions that have all the power.

Eric Trump Recalls Odd Thing FBI Did During Raid.  Former President Trump's son Eric Trump reveals key details on the FBI's raid of Mar-a-Lago.  Trump told the Daily Mail that the FBI refused to to hand over the search warrant for their raid on the Florida residence.  He also recalled about 30 FBI agents kicking his attorney off the property.  "So they showed it to her from about 10 feet away.  They would not give her a copy of the search warrant," Trump said.  "There's 30 agents there... They told our lawyer ... you have to leave the property right now.  Turn off all security cameras," Trump said.  He said that the former president's attorney Christina Bobb was forced to stand at the end of the Mar-a-Lago's driveway during the raid.

More Info on FBI Raid:  They Even Searched Through Melania's Clothes.  We've brought you some of what happened in regard to the FBI raid at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home from Trump's statement, the family reaction, and what his attorneys have said.  Now there are more details about the nature of what was searched as well.  According to the NY Post's Miranda Devine, they arrived Monday morning around 9 a.m. and searched until 6:30 p.m., so they were there for nine and a half hours.  [Tweet]  They had a professional safecracker open up the safe.  They demanded access to every room, including Trump's bedroom and they even searched Melania Trump's wardrobe.  Trump's attorneys noted that they were not allowed to watch the search and they expressed concerns that something could have been planted because of that.

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele on Trump FBI Raid: 'What Would the U.S. Say' if I Did That?  El Salvador President Nayib Bukele criticized the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) raid on former U.S. President Donald Trump's personal residence at Mar-A-Lago on Monday in a statement posted by Bukele's official Twitter account, the Spanish news agency Agencia EFE reported.  "What would the US Government say, if OUR police raided the house of one of the main possible contenders of OUR 2024 presidential election?" Bukele wrote on August 8.

Trump Attorneys Spill the Beans on Issues With FBI Raid, Warrant.  The attorneys for President Donald Trump are now spilling the beans on some of the issues with the FBI raid of his home and the search warrant.  Trump attorney Alina Habba appeared on Fox News with Jesse Watters.  She said that they had been cooperating with the National Archives over the records and that this was completely "unconstitutional."  "Our country should be terrified — I am terrified," Habba exclaimed.  She said the FBI went in when he wasn't even there, and then told his attorneys to leave, that they couldn't watch or be there.  "That doesn't sound good to me," she declared.

Five takeaways from the FBI raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.  The FBI raid on former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Monday stunned a political world that thought it had become inured to the chaos and controversy surrounding the 45th president.  This time around, multiple reports indicate that the search was related to classified material Trump may have removed from the White House at the end of his presidency.  Parts of the case are shrouded in doubt, not least because the legal documentation justifying the search is non-public by its nature. [...] Right now, just about everyone is flying blind on two related and crucial questions — what exactly the FBI was looking for at Mar-a-Lago, and whether the bureau's agents found it.

Biden's Secret Police Raid Donald Trump's Home.  Last week I explained why America's Oligarchy is speaking and acting like Nazis.  Our elites believe that the people stabbed them in the back by voting for Donald Trump.  So they declared him a traitor and his supporters second-class citizens.  Then they weaponized our government the way some tinpot dictatorship would, to root out domestic opposition, which is now de facto illegal.  And now it has come to this, to the FBI raiding the home of President Donald Trump, to look for materials it can use to prosecute him and prevent his re-election.  I'd say that this is the kind of thing that happens in places like Venezuela or Liberia, but I don't like to mix metaphors.

Justice Department should have subpoenaed documents, not raided Trump's home.  The decision by the Justice Department to conduct a full-scale morning raid on former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home does not seem justified, based on what we know as of now.  If it is true that the basis of the raid was the former president's alleged removal of classified material from the White House, that would constitute a double standard of justice.  There were no raids, for example, on the homes of Hillary Clinton or former Clinton administration national security adviser Sandy Berger for comparable allegations of mishandling official records in the recent past.  Previous violations of the Presidential Records Act typically have been punished by administrative fines, not criminal prosecution.  Perhaps there are legitimate reasons for applying a different standard to Trump's conduct, but those are not readily obvious at this stage.

The Far Left Will Regret Siccing the FBI on Trump.  Whatever excuse the Justice Department and FBI have for raiding the home of former President Donald Trump, there can be no doubt about the ultimate implication.  The Far Left, which sprung to life in opposition to the Trump administration, is determined to use the power of government to remove those who challenge its power.  Were the FBI agents looking for mishandled classified documents taken from the White House?  That would be a laugh.  As president, Trump could have declassified anything he wanted and needn't have told anyone since he was the chief executive of the executive branch and commander in chief of the military and, by extension, the national security establishment that can classify information.  It is literally impossible for a president to mishandle classified information since the ability to classify it and manage its handling is vested in him.  The Justice Department and FBI should know that unless they were sick the day they taught law at law school.

FBI Raid On Trump Confirms The Security State Picks Who Americans Are Allowed To Vote For.  The FBI made an unannounced raid on the private home of a former U.S. president Monday night, authorized by a U.S. attorney general whom that president had denied a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.  The raid happened as the former president publicly mulled another election bid, and amid growing FBI interference in state elections.  The raid has provided needed clarity to Republicans who have participated in, presided over, and failed to bring accountability for perhaps the biggest security state hoax in American history, known as Spygate.  In that operation, Obama administration officials colluded to frame and hijack the incoming opposition presidency using fabricated evidence, lies to secret security courts, media propaganda operations, and breaking numerous laws as well as the public trust.

The Mar-a-Lago Raid is a Preview of a Rigged 2024 Election.  On Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray cut short his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee to fly the FBI's private jet to his family's vacation home.  At the hearing, Wray had admitted that disciplinary action against FBI personnel involved in Russiagate abuses had been "slowed down" and refused to call Russiagate a "hoax".  On Monday, President Trump revealed that Mar-a-Lago had been raided by "a large group of FBI agents".  Any warrant for such a raid would have been signed off on by Attorney General Merrick Garland and his associates in the Biden administration which expects to face the former president in the next election.  Wray, who quietly listened to complaints about the politicization of the FBI from Senator Grassley and Cruz, among others, would have known what was coming.

Biden won't answer questions about FBI's Trump raid as spox declines comment 18 times.  President Biden stayed silent Tuesday about the FBI's unprecedented Monday raid on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate — as White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment 18 times at her regular briefing.  Biden took no questions at his public events as his aides insisted he had no advance knowledge of the bureau's activities and referred other questions to the Justice Department.  "President Biden, what did Attorney General [Merrick] Garland tell you about the Trump raid?" a reporter for The [New York] Post shouted at the conclusion of Biden's second event of the day, where he signed documents in the White House East Room approving the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO.  The [New York] Post then followed up:  "Do you approve of the FBI's Trump raid, President Biden?"  Biden didn't give a verbal response, though he smiled broadly during a photo with the ambassadors from Finland and Sweden after hearing the first inquiry.

History of Judge Who Signed Off on Trump Raid Raises All Kinds of Red Flags.  While most of the allegations of corruption surrounding the FBI's raid of Donald Trump's estate in Florida have been pointed at the bureau itself, details about the judge who signed off on the warrant are raising eyebrows.  The warrant was rubber-stamped by Magistrate Judge named Bruce Reinhart.  As Ron Coleman points out, that's highly suspect given the profile of the situation.  [Tweet]  Why did a low-level, unconfirmed, unappointed magistrate judge sign off on the most consequential FBI warrant in decades?  If any warrant application demanded the eyes of a real judge, it would be one targeting the former President of the United States.  Yet, this judge was happy to give the FBI what they wanted while the FBI was happy to accept.

Judge who green-lit raid at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home donated thousands to Obama.  The federal judge who reportedly signed off on the raid at former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence donated thousands of dollars to former President Barack Obama's presidential campaign and victory fund in 2008.  Bruce Reinhart, a Florida federal magistrate judge, donated $1,000 to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and added $1,000 more to the Obama Victory Fund that same cycle, according to federal filings.  Reinhart later contributed $500 to Jeb Bush's failed 2016 presidential campaign, federal filings show.  Reinhart did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital inquiry on his donations.

About The Magistrate Judge Who Issued The Mar-a-Lago Warrant.  I saw references to Bruce Reinhart last night, and the fact that he had previously defended Jeffrey Epstein (who didn't kill himself).  Commenter ML has also drawn attention to the matter.  Technically, that's not legally relevant — everyone is entitled to legal representation.  The ethics of a defense lawyer should be judged by the quality of his representation, rather than the identity of his client.  However ... "Emerging details" paint a disturbing picture.  I had originally assumed that Reinhart is a District Court judge.  But he's not.  That's a problem in a case like this.  Here are two tweets that I got via Red State that paint a fuller picture:  [Tweet]  My take is simply this.  I would have expected DoJ to take their application to a "real judge" just to give a greater appearance of legitimacy to the whole proceeding — to give the impression of going the extra mile to be fair.  They didn't bother, and that's "troubling."

Judge Who Reportedly Signed Off On Mar-a-Lago Raid Has Anti-Trump Social Media Posts And They Are Not Looking Good.  The Florida magistrate judge who reportedly signed off on the FBI's raid of former President Donald Trump's home allegedly disparaged the former president and shared "woke" content on what appears to be his personal Facebook page.  Josiah Lippincott, a Hillsdale College Van Adel Graduate School of Statesmanship Ph.D. candidate and writer, first reported that Bruce Reinhart — the suspected judge who approved the raid of Mar-a-Lago — apparently denigrated then-president-elect Trump in 2017 via Facebook.  In a Facebook post screenshotted by Lippincott and reviewed by Defiant America Reinhart wrote, "I generally ignore the President-elect's tweets, but not this one.  John Lewis arguably has done more to 'make America great' than any living citizen."

Judge who signed off the FBI raid on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago mansion represented Jeffrey Epstein's Lolita Express pilots.  The Florida judge who signed off the FBI raid on Donald Trump's mansion represented Jeffrey Epstein's workers, it has been revealed.  Bruce Reinhart acted for several employees of the billionaire pedophile before he sanctioned the 'unannounced' search on Mar-a-Lago yesterday.  He left the local US Attorney's office over a decade ago to set up a private practice and help staff members including his Lolita Express pilots and his scheduler.  He was accused in a lawsuit of breaking the Justice Department's policies by using information from his previous job to benefit in the private sector, which he denied.  Meanwhile Reinhart was also revealed to have donated to Barack Obama's campaign in 2008 and Jeb Bush's when he ran against Trump in 2015.

Was Judge Who Signed-Off on Sketchy FBI Search Warrant Raid of Trump Home, a Client Name in Ghislane Maxwells Little Black Book?  There's an interesting angle given the revelation that Judge Bruce Reinhart signed-off on the sketchy FBI search warrant for the residence of President Trump in Florida.  Judge Bruce Reinhart was the former U.S. attorney in West Palm Beach who spent 12 years as a federal prosecutor, before leaving his position in order to defend a network of employees who operated the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking operation. [...] Considering the FBI predicate for the raid on Trump's home, as currently identified, is exceptionally weak; and considering the profile of the raid would have landed upon an ordinarily reluctant judicial desk; what if the FBI had leverage over Bruce Reinhart as an outcome of the case against Epstein's enabler, Ghislane Maxwell.  The prosecutor in the New York case against Maxwell was former FBI Director James Comey's daughter.  The client files of Epstein and Maxwell would be currently in the hands of the FBI.

End of the Republic.  When the FBI raided Donald Trump's home on Monday, a key aspect of what made the United States of America great and free has been lost, and likely cannot be recovered.  John Adams and Thomas Jefferson detested one another for years before their eventual reconciliation, but neither one used the agencies of the U.S. government to hound, persecute or discredit the other.  Other bitter political opponents throughout the history of the republic have never before used the government's own mechanisms of justice to do injustice to their foes.  Joe Biden, Merrick Garland and their henchmen have brought America to a new phase of its history, and it is not likely to be one that is marked by respect for the rule of law or defense of the rights of individual citizens.  Instead, we are entering an ugly age of authoritarianism, in which the brute force of the state is used to bend the people to the will of the tyrant.

Judge who approved FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago once linked to Jeffrey Epstein.  The Florida federal magistrate judge who signed off on a search warrant authorizing the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort donated to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign — months after he left the local US Attorney's office to rep employees of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein who had received immunity in the long-running sex-trafficking investigation of the financier.  Sources tell The [New York] Post that Judge Bruce Reinhart approved the warrant that enabled federal agents to converge on the palatial South Florida estate on Monday in what Trump called an "unannounced raid on my home."  Reinhart was elevated to magistrate judge in March 2018 after 10 years in private practice.  That November, the Miami Herald reported that he had represented several of Epstein's employees — including, by Reinhart's own admission to the outlet, Epstein's pilots; his scheduler, Sarah Kellen; and Nadia Marcinkova, who Epstein once reportedly described as his "Yugoslavian sex slave."

Republicans Demand Garland, Wray Testify at Judiciary Committee on Trump Raid.  Republicans are demanding that FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday [8/12/2022] to explain the Department of Justice's actions in raiding former President Donald Trump.  FBI agents executed a search warrant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago, Florida, residence on Monday, ostensibly in connection with an investigation into the handling of presidential documents.  It was the first such raid in the history of the country.  As Democrats and liberal cable pundits celebrated, Republicans were united in their condemnation of what appeared to be an effort to abuse law enforcement to target a member of the opposition and a likely candidate in the next presidential election.

Marc Elias boasts about the real motive behind the FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid.  [Scroll down]  Certainly, the January 6 Committee exists solely to make the case that Trump cannot possibly be the Republicans' 2024 candidate.  Even that, though, isn't going so well, because Americans are bored and unimpressed with the proceedings.  His rallies are still huge, and in head-to-head polls with Biden, Trump wins.  Oops!  Is it any surprise that Merrick Garland's hyper-partisan DOJ obtained judicial authorization for a raid on Mar-a-Lago?  Without seeing the warrant, it's not entirely clear to me on what grounds the raid proceeded, but, listening to how 30 agents descended and took everything that wasn't nailed down, along with stories careening between "National Archives" and "national security," I currently believe that this was a fishing expedition, and one that violated the Fourth Amendment's proscription against "general warrants" (i.e., unlimited rights to search someone's person or property).

Was the FBI's Raid on Mar-a-Lago the Biggest In-Kind Contribution to Trump's 2024 Bid?  After all that, the safe at Mar-a-Lago was empty.  It was pried open by FBI agents who swarmed the premises under the pretense that they were looking for documents marked for preservation by the National Archives.  Does anyone believe that?  The FBI's raid on the former president's home was not over boxes of documents.  If you think that, please, get some crack cocaine, White Claws, and wallow in total ignorance in an observation tank while high as a kite.  This line about the documents is politburo stuff, except we're not the Soviet Union.  The FBI was there to find Russian collusion material they know doesn't exist.  Top officials at the J. Edgar Hoover Building have known since day one that the Steele dossier, the catalyst for this myth, was a Democrat-funded opposition research project.  It might as well have come in a file that read, "Hillary Clinton paid for this."  Now, the FBI's credibility, the last sliver of it, has been incinerated with this raid that juiced MAGA nation like no other.

This assertion is probably true, only because Joe Biden isn't really in charge.
White House Claims Biden Was Not Briefed on FBI Raid at Mar-a-Lago.  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that President Biden was not made aware that the FBI planned to search former president Donald Trump's personal residence at Mar-a-Lago before the action was carried out on Monday.  "What I can tell you definitively and for sure, he was not aware of this," Jean-Pierre said of Biden.  "Nobody at the White House was.  Nobody was given a heads up and we did not know about what happened yesterday."  Asked if the president is concerned about the potential for politically fueled violence in the wake of the raid, she said:  "We would ask Americans to remain peaceful at this time."

Search Warrant Or Not, Americans Have No Reason To Believe The FBI Raid On Trump's Florida Home Was Justified.  After news broke Monday evening that the FBI had raided former President Donald Trump's Palm Beach Florida home at Mar-a-Lago, the right immediately expressed outrage and warned that by targeting a former president and political opponent, the Biden Administration had crossed the Rubicon.  The left, for its contribution, highlighted the federal statute that provides that a person who "unlawfully conceals" government records shall "be disqualified from holding any office under the United States," suggesting that the raid's apparent focus on supposed missing classified documents may render Trump ineligible to run in 2024.  Beyond the constitutional problem with that theory — the U.S. constitution establishes the minimal qualifications to serve as president and Congress cannot expand on those — that theory of the raid merely confirms conservatives' outrage over the DOJ's continued interference in American's electoral preferences.

Trump raid:  What's the Biden/Garland endgame?  There has to be one, right?  The FBI doesn't just go to a federal judge for a search warrant for the home of a former president on its own — and presumably a federal judge doesn't just casually sign off on such a request, either.  NBC's Ken Dilanian urges caution in jumping to conclusions at this point, but states the obvious when saying that this had to have gotten approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland prior to the raid on Mar-a-Lago:  [Tweet]  Dilanian's correct that it's no small matter to get a federal judge to sign off on a warrant, let alone one targeting a former president who might run for office next cycle.  That would, or at least it should, set off all sorts of red flags for a judge.  This point got made repeatedly on social media for a good reason — it's true.  Since we haven't yet seen the warrant, we can't assess what case the FBI and the Department of Justice put together to authorize this warrant.

Donald Trump Must Be The 2024 Republican Nominee.  Supposedly, President Trump improperly took with him various documents that were classified or subject to the Federal Records Act.  This would make him guilty of violating 18 U.S.C. § 2071.  This would then make him ineligible to run in 2024.  But that's a pipe dream.  18 U.S.C. § 2071 does not apply to the Presidency.  The paper I just cited was written to answer Republican vapors about disqualifying Hillary Clinton in the email scandal.  But we're not done.  President Trump, as the ultimate classification authority, has the unquestionable authority to declassify anything he wants to declassify.  If he says it's no longer a secret, nobody can question it.  And, as the President, he doesn't have to file any papers with anyone to do it.  The supposedly confidential papers stolen from Trump's safe are not subject to the Federal Records Act because they are copies of papers that exist in other places.  And by definition, if the President removes them from the White House to another place, they are no longer classified.

Mar-a-Lago should become a byword for government overreach.  Leaving aside valid questions about whether the materials in question were classified or declassified, the raid on Mar-a-Lago is certainly not justified, as Donald Trump and his legal advisors seem to have been cooperating with the National Archives to ensure that Presidential Records remained under federal government control, starkly in contrast with how the Clinton family has handled such records over decades.  So, political insiders who enrich the donor class and use family members to collect spoils from foreign governments are protected in modern America, but outsiders who actually win elections and then try to keep promises and clean up corruption are pounded into oblivion, as influence-shapers cheer?  This raid is a step too far, and it has already backfired spectacularly.

The Green War on Dutch Farmers Should Concern Everybody.  Over the past few months, thousands of Dutch farmers have blocked highways and staged protests.  Hundreds have been arrested, and one was even shot at by a police officer.  Dutch farmers have been protesting in the streets on and off since 2019.  Why are the farmers so outraged?  They're fighting for nothing less than the survival of modern agriculture as such.  In the name of "sustainability" and fighting "pollution," Green activists are trying to do to agriculture what they have been doing to the power grid and the oil and gas industry.  In the name of highly questionable environmental goals, Green activists want to destroy the ability of farms to produce high-quality, abundant, clean, and inexpensive food.

Strange time to order a raid.  According to some pundits, President Biden concluded a great week, from a jobs report to lower gas prices and some new legislation.  They were also proclaiming that the red wave may be smaller than expected.  So what do you do in the early days of Joe's "comeback"?  You raid President Trump's home?  You order a raid just hours after signing a law that will add 87,000 IRS agents to look for tax cheats?  How many Uber drivers or small business owners had FBI nightmares last night?  The FBI had better find what they are looking for.  Otherwise, this may be the biggest blunder since Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's sadly empty vault.  It may totally backfire on the Trump haters.

Desperately disqualifying Donald.  All the Democrats' horses and all the Democrats' men have spent the last seven years doing their worst to make Donald Trump unelectable.  First, a special counsel was appointed to rid them of President Trump.  Two separate impeachments without convictions followed.  The fondest hope of the infamous Great Reset was to separate him from national leadership.  When Trump followers protested the very questionable election of 2020, his opponents called it an insurrection and accused Trump of being the ringleader.  On August 8, 2022, a day that will live in MAGA infamy, 30 FBI agents raided President Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago, seizing documents.  Guess how many times this has been done before to a former president?  Never!

Schumer Warned In 2017 The FBI Would Have 'Six Ways' Of Getting Back At Trump.  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer predicted in 2017 that the intelligence community would have "six ways" to get back at former President Donald Trump after Trump pushed back against allegations of Russian interference in the election.  Trump had tweeted that an intelligence briefing over Russia's alleged interference into the 2016 election had been delayed because the agency needed more time "to build a case," according to The Hill.  The tweet came after authorities said Russia tried to interfere in the election.  "You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you, so even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this," Schumer said to Rachel Maddow while speaking on MSNBC.

Deep State Burns Its Bridges to Get Trump — and Now It's Fighting for Its Life.  What are we to make of 30 or so FBI agents raiding President Trump's Florida home to collect maybe 35 boxes of records for what is perhaps the Deep State's 7th or 8th impeachment attempt?  First, why no raids on the Democrats who took the jet to Epstein's pedophile island with its readily available sex with underage girls?  Why no raids on Hunter Biden and the apparent crimes documented on the laptop?  Why no raids on Hilary Clinton after she destroyed evidence?  The good news, and I think it is great news, is that at least a third of the country no longer believes they can expect justice from the federal department that bears that name.

'Surprised' Pelosi grins from ear to ear as she repeatedly denies she had knowledge of FBI raid.  News of an FBI raid on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate shocked the nation, but Democrats appear to be happier than a pig in mud, especially House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who was all smiles while discussing the matter on MSNBC.  On Tuesday morning [8/9/2022], Pelosi took to "Morning Joe" to zing the former president and reiterate that she had no prior knowledge about the raid.  She actually emphasized this point several times, while grinning like she'd just won the lottery.  While she was initially going on the program to discuss her controversial trip to Taiwan, which critics say is responsible for ratcheting up tensions with China, co-host Mika Brzezinski couldn't resist letting the speaker gloat about the Trump raid.

GOP Leader to Merrick Garland:  "Preserve Your Documents" After FBI Raid of Mar-a-Lago.  GOP Leadership in the House has responded forcefully to the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, with GOP leader Kevin McCarthy directly calling out Attorney General Merrick Garland, and the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee tearing into the FBI for the raid.  McCarthy's statement was straight to the point.  [Tweet]  McCarthy's tweet came hours after former President Donald Trump emailed supporters announcing the FBI was raiding his home in Mar-a-Lago.  Trump was not at the resort at the time of the raid.

Dershowitz: Trump Raid 'Improper' — 'This Is Misconduct'.  Monday, on the heels of news that former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, FL was raided by the FBI, Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz criticized the raid as "misconduct."  According to Dershowitz, a raid is the method of last resort, and the onus will be on the Biden administration to show justification, or anything obtained in the raid would be suppressed.

Trump Family Reacts, Provides More Info on Raid at Mar-a-Lago.  It was certainly shocking news to hear on Monday that the FBI was raiding Mar-a-Lago.  There was more news about what might be behind it, relating to classified material that Trump might have but if that's the case, it makes it even more ridiculous as there would be other ways to proceed.  It seemed like a fishing expedition to see what they could grab.  But perhaps nowhere could it be more shocking or more upsetting than to the Trump family who have been pursued, for so long by the Democrats, with every political effort they have thrown at them.

Probably true, only because Biden isn't really in charge.
Team Biden Claims 'No Advance Knowledge' of FBI Raid on Donald Trump's House at Mar-A-Lago.  President Joe Biden's staff claimed Monday they did not know about the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump's house at Mar-A-Lago.  "No advance knowledge.  Some learned from old media some from social media," a senior White House official told CBS reporter Ed O'Keefe when asked about the raid.  Fox News journalist Pat Ward also cited a comment from a White House official denying they did not receive notice of the raid and referred reporters to the Justice Department.

Alan Dershowitz Rips FBI Raid on Trump, Raises Legal Questions About How It Was Conducted.  The reaction to the FBI raid  — reportedly with a large group of agents — on Donald Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago is setting off a firestorm of reactions.  Dan Bongino blasted it as some "third world [stuff]."  He also said it was a "clarion call" for everyone to get off their seats and vote the Democrats out.  Dana Loesch believed it was the Democrats trying to settle "political scores."  Lara and Eric Trump ripped the action and provided more information about what had happened in the raid, including that the FBI didn't find anything in a safe in the home when they cracked it open.

Bongino Blasts the FBI Raid on Trump.  [Scroll down]  He wasn't holding back.  He said Hillary Clinton had paid foreign agents and promoted a false Russia collusion fiction that occupied the country for four years.  "What's she doing right now," Bongino said.  "Getting a manicure in freaking Chappaqua!"  He then pointed out how Hunter Biden had sex and done crack on video, yet he's hanging out at his mansion in Malibu.  The management of the FBI has now shredded any sliver of credibility they had left, Bongino declared.  "No one will take them seriously from this point on," he said.  He added that you cannot tell him we "still live in a constitutional republic and not the freaking third world" when there's no action against Hillary Clinton, people lying under oath repeatedly, and Hunter Biden but now you have this kind of action.

Not Raided by FBI: Bidens, Clintons, Russia Hoaxers, Black Lives Matter.  The shocking raid Monday of former President Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, stood in stark contrast to the many Trump opponents that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has not raided despite public evidence of alleged misconduct.

Liberal Media Goes Bananas Over FBI Raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago Residence.  For liberal America, it's time to pop open the champagne bottles.  Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Donald Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago this evening.  Spencer wrote up the "siege" that's taken place in Florida.  FBI agents arrived unannounced and broke into the safe on the property.  It was reportedly empty.  The former president was not in the state; he's in Trump Tower now.  That's another location that could be targeted within the coming days since it's clear that the FBI has gone off the rails to prevent a duly elected president from running for office again.  Trump's 2024 plans are no secret, and it's clear that this raid is the clearest example of the Department of Justice's desperation in trying to derail a man from running for president again.

Eric Trump Says Safe Cracked Open By FBI Was Empty.  Donald Trump's son Eric joined Sean Hannity Monday evening to discuss the FBI's raid on Mar-a-Lago.  More than 3 dozen federal agents descended on Trump's Florida residence on Monday [8/8/2022].  An agent with a machine gun was photographed outside of Trump's compound.  President Trump was not in Florida at the time of the raid.  According to the Associated Press, FBI agents were looking for classified documents that Trump may have taken from the White House while he was president.

Eric Trump claims FBI agents 'ransacked his dad's office' and that safe was empty.  Eric Trump accused the current administration of wanting to 'attack Biden's greatest threat' as FBI agents ransacked his father Donald Trump's office during a raid at the former president's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida Monday morning.  Donald Trump said on Monday that the Florida home was 'under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents' — reportedly raided as part of an investigation into whether he took classified documents with him when he left the White House.  Hours later, Eric Trump appeared on Hannity where he revealed he was the one who alerted his father to the raid and said his father's office was ransacked but that agents found 'nothing in the safe.'

Marco Rubio on Trump Raid:  This Happens in 'Marxist Dictatorships'.  Using government to persecute political opponents happens in "Marxist dictatorships," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said on Monday following news of the FBI raiding former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago.  "Using government power to persecute political opponents is something we have seen many times from 3rd world Marxist dictatorships But never before in America," Rubio said Monday evening following the news.

Donald Trump Jr.  Reacts To FBI Raid On Mar-A-Lago.  Donald Trump Jr., the eldest child of former President Donald Trump, reacted to the FBI raid at the former president's Florida home, Mar-A-Lago, saying that the Democrats are "openly targeting their political enemies."  "[President Joe] Biden's out of control DOJ is ripping this country apart with how they're openly targeting their political enemies," Trump stated on social media.  He added that a raid on political opponents "is what you see happen in 3rd World Banana Republics!!!"

Ron DeSantis Slams Mar-a-Lago Raid.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) sounded off on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) reported execution of a search warrant of former President Donald Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.  "The raid of MAL is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime's political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves," DeSantis tweeted.  "Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries?  Banana Republic."

After the FBI's Trump Raid, Don't Take the Bait.  [Scroll down]  None of this is a coincidence, and none of it is justified.  Even if Trump was in possession of some documents that needed to be archived, that is the kind of thing that has historically been dealt with in court, not with an FBI raid, and the former president was fully cooperating to this point.  Meanwhile, Hunter Biden has been implicated in multiple federal crimes and his house hasn't been raided.  Hillary Clinton was proven to have illegally retained classified information on a private server, and her house was never raided.  This isn't about Trump not being above the law, as some on the right have naively proclaimed.  It's about a completely different set of rules being applied depending on what political ideology someone adheres to.  In simpler terms, it's about blatant corruption.

Raid on President Trump's Florida home a wake-up call.  The raid on President Trump's Florida home will go down in history as the day America realized that Marxism has infiltrated our federal government.  Biden used his Justice Department as a weapon against a political opponent.  Think about that for a moment.  A sitting American president used the DOJ like the secret police to intimidate a political opponent.  We're talking Third World tactics in American politics.  According to the Associated Press, about three dozen FBI agents raided Trump's Florida home at Mar-a-Lago.  The official story is that the agents were searching for classified records believed to be in Trump's possession from his time in the White House.  In the search, it's reported that the FBI cracked a safe in the home that turned out to be empty.  The question for many is, why now for the raid?  Is the Biden administration trying to deflect from some other major event?  Or was this raid an excuse to plant evidence that would disqualify Trump from running for president in 2024?

Unprecedented:  FBI agents raid Trump's Mar-A-Lago home.  Former President Trump said Monday evening his Mar-A-Lago home in Florida is "under siege" by a "large group" of FBI agents.  "Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before," he wrote in a statement.  "After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate," Trump said.

The Mar-a-Lago raid is pure political intimidation.  Donald Trump announced Monday night that the FBI had raided his home in Mar-a-Lago, marking the greatest escalation to date of the political persecution of the former president.  One would assume the bar should be exceedingly high for the Department of Justice to execute a search warrant on a man who was previously the leader of the free world.  That is not the case here.  Nor, sadly, is it surprising, given the seemingly endless fishing expedition that Biden and the Democrats have subjected Trump to over the past year and a half.

Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Home Raided by FBI; DOJ Declines to Comment.  According to CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Trump was not at Mar-a-Lago when the FBI showed up.  [Tweet]  And, Politico's Ryan Lizza reported that the Department of Justice declined to comment.  [Tweet]