Mar-a-Lago raided
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Yeah, it's the Daily Beast, but...
Are Trump’s Passports the FBI’s Smoking Gun?
When the FBI searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this month, they didn’t find a smoking gun, but they did find some smoldering passports.
On August 8, agents removed from Trump’s home 33 boxes of sensitive government documents, including more than 100 records classified at the highest levels. In a 36-page brief responding to Trump’s motion to appoint a special master to review the material seized by the FBI, the Justice Department explained that three of the classified documents were recovered from Trump’s private office, known as “the 45 Office.”
According to DOJ’s recent brief, classified documents in that office were “commingled” in a desk drawer with three passports. While the government did not disclose the name on the passports, Trump himself has complained that during the search, the FBI “stole” his three passports. It seems a safe bet that the passports DOJ recovered were Trump’s.
The significance of the passports is enormous. As DOJ explained in an understated footnote, “The location of the passports is relevant evidence in an investigation of unauthorized retention and mishandling of national defense information.”
In other words, the presence of the passports in the same drawer as the classified records tends to tie the unauthorized possession of these documents to Trump himself. A photo included with the filing shows the items that were recovered from his office. Among the classification markings on the documents are “Top Secret,” meaning that the disclosure of the material could cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.
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More detailed inventory of what the FBI has taken from Mar-A-Lago:
https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/trump-v-US-inventory-09-02-2022.pdf
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@Mik said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
Looks like they just took everything they found. What business do they have taking news and magazine clippings? I'm inclined to accept Jolly's take that it was a fishing trip.
In the description they specifically say when the news-clipping were dated - maybe it has something to do with establishing how long the documents had been there.
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@Mik said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
Looks like they just took everything they found. What business do they have taking news and magazine clippings? I'm inclined to accept Jolly's take that it was a fishing trip.
I just read something about that today, that when executing a search warrant it is common to also take articles packaged together or were in the immediate vicinity of the targeted articles, because these other articles give evidentiary context to where and how the targeted articles were stored and handled.
The WSJ article, if you can access it, breaks down the number of articles that are government documents vs. not government documents, classification levels vs. not classified, etc. Just from eyeballing the graphics produced by the WSJ, it looks like ~85% of the articles are government documents. So that speak against the "fishing expedition" accusation.
EDIT: the WSJ quoting former Trump-appointed US Attorney General William Barr: “Once you’re investigating, and you go in and execute a search warrant, you’re entitled to take not only the government records but things from the same containers where you found the documents that will show the context in which they were held.”
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And the leaks continue.
I've seen this show...
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
By my count I see about 100 documents labeled anything from "Confidential" to "Top Secret."
The "Top Secret" number about 10 or so.
Again, by my count that's out of 13,096 documents, photos, folders, etc.
Again, you focus only on classified documents, while the proper scope really is about all the government records that Trump has no business keeping after he left office, that the US government has repeatedly asked for them to the returned. As mentioned earlier, "government records" make up ~85% of articles that the FBI has taken from Mar-A-Lago.
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@Axtremus you're free to draw whatever inference you see in my tabulation. All the hoopla is about secret documents ("NUCLEAR CODES," they cried). While you may be correct about the other documents, that's not where the focus of the media has been, not the
contents of Clinton's sock drawerother things.I'll let you add up the others, because I need to cook dinner and pour some (not so) cheap Scotch.
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“Well, I think the whole idea of a special master is a bit of a red herring,” he flatly stated. He went on to say that Trump’s attorneys haven’t identified any private lawyer communications that should be insulated from government review, adding that everything else appears to be “seizable” by the feds.
“What people are missing, all the other documents taken, even if they claim to be executive privilege, either belong to the government because they are government records, even if they are classified, even if they are subject to executive privilege, they still belong to the government and go to the [National Archives],” Barr said.
“And any other documents that were seized, like news clippings and other things in the boxes containing the classified information, those were seizable under the warrant because they show the conditions under which the classified information was being held,” he added. “So I think it’s a red herring. I think it would, you know, at this stage, since they have...
Barr, once again, didn’t mince words.
“I think for them to have taken things to the current point they probably have pretty good evidence. But that’s speculation and until we see that it’s hard to say,” he said.
“Let me just say, I think the driver on this from the beginning was, you know, loads of classified information sitting in Mar-a-Lago. People say this was unprecedented, well it’s also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, OK?”
Barr added: “And how long is the government going to try to get that back? They jawbone for a year, they were deceived on the voluntary actions taken, they then went and got a subpoena, they were deceived on that, they feel, and the facts are starting to show, that they were being jerked around and so how long, you know, how long do they wait?!”
In the end, though Barr said he hopes “it doesn’t happen,” the former top attorney in the nation suggested that the DOJ may well indict the former president for hoarding classified documents.
“If they clearly have the president moving stuff around and hiding stuff in his desk and telling people to—they may be inclined to bring the case,” he concluded. “And there are differences of opinion on whether that makes sense. But we really have to know the facts to see, to make a judgment about that.”
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@xenon said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
Given the context - what should the FBI have done to get the documents after repeated rebuffs and (turns out) lying?
Ask again? Complain to the media? Forget it and let Trump have them?
Subpoena.
