Mar-a-Lago raided
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Biden had no advance notice on Mar-a-Lago search, White House says
The White House was not briefed or given advance notice about the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, the Florida home of former President Donald Trump, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday.
“The president was not briefed, was not aware of it, no. No one at the White House was given a heads-up,” Jean-Pierre said.
Biden learned about the Monday search through public reports, the press secretary said. “We learned about this just like the American people did,” she said.
Jean-Pierre reiterated the Justice Department’s independence from the president in the investigation, and declined to comment on it further. She also highlighted the president’s previous comments on his commitment to the “rule of law.”
Biden administration officials were involved in Mar-a-Lago raid despite claiming otherwise: report
The Biden administration involved itself in the raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home despite reports that its officials were "stunned" to find out about the news on social media, according to the group America First Legal, which obtained internal government documents related to the raid through a Freedom of Information Act request.
"The evidence further suggests that Biden officials in the Executive Office of the President and the Department of Justice unlawfully abused their power and then lied about it to the American people," said Reed D. Rubinstein, America First Legal senior counselor and director of oversight and investigations, in a post on social media Tuesday. "This government, it seems, acknowledges no limits on its power to harass, intimidate, and silence its political opponents."
Rubinstein's comments come after a Freedom of Information Act request by America First Legal found the FBI initially obtained access to Trump records through a "special access request" from the Biden White House.
The new information confirms Fox News reporting from August, when NARA acting head Debra Wall wrote a letter to Trump's attorney alluding to the administration's involvement.
Records show that John Laster, "the Archives’ official responsible for administering all access requests for Presidential records," was involved in the request despite the Archives’ previously claiming it had "not been involved in the DOJ investigation."
"On October 25, 2022, Acting Archivist Wall wrote to then-Ranking Members James Comer and Jim Jordan, claiming ‘NARA received the 15 boxes from President Trump on January 18, 2022, and then discovered that they contained classified national security information. Shortly after the discovery, NARA consulted with its Office of Inspector General (OIG), which operates independently of NARA. As DOJ has disclosed publicly in court filings, NARA’s OIG subsequently referred the matter to DOJ on February 9, 2022,’"
America First Legal wrote.
"If the OIG acted independently in making a referral to the FBI, then Mr. Laster would not have involved himself in the FBI’s review of the 15 boxes in his capacity as the Director of the White House Liaison Division ‘responsible for all access requests for Presidential records.’"
According to America First Legal, the special access statute "authorizes special access requests to an incumbent president only when the records in question are needed for ‘the conduct of current business’ of the White House."
"Providing documents to the DOJ for purposes of a criminal investigation is not the ‘current business’ of the White House," the organization said.
The August letter from Wall to Trump attorney Evan Corcoran also seemingly hinted at President Biden's involvement.
"NARA informed the Department of Justice about that discovery, which prompted the Department to ask the President to request that NARA provide the FBI with access to the boxes at issue so that the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community could examine them," Wall wrote. "The Counsel to the President has informed me that, in light of the particular circumstances presented here, President Biden defers to my determination, in consultation with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, regarding whether or not I should uphold the former President’s purported ‘protective assertion of executive privilege."
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From @George-K”s post above:
… the FBI initially obtained access to Trump records through a "special access request" from the Biden White House.
That’s it?
Does it mean anything? -
Another tidbit. Tradition (policy?) at FBI is not to conduct politically-sensitive raids/investigations less than 90 days before a national election.
Time between Mar-a-Lago raid and election day 2022?
91 days.
I'm sure it was a coincidence.
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Another tidbit. Tradition (policy?) at FBI is not to conduct politically-sensitive raids/investigations less than 90 days before a national election.
Time between Mar-a-Lago raid and election day 2022?
91 days.
I'm sure it was a coincidence.
@George-K said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
Another tidbit. Tradition (policy?) at FBI is not to conduct politically-sensitive raids/investigations less than 90 days before a national election.
Time between Mar-a-Lago raid and election day 2022?
91 days.
I'm sure it was a coincidence.
The absolute shit this corrupt administration gets away with is astounding, due to a lapdog media. It's like Baghdad Bob went to work for Pravda and generates the daily talking points.
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New charges filed against Trump
Federal prosecutors announced new charges against Donald Trump in his alleged hoarding and hiding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home, alleging the former president and a newly-charged aide tried to keep security camera footage from being reviewed by investigators.
Trump was also hit with with a fresh charge, in addition to the 31 counts he already faces, of illegally retaining national defense information. The indictment also charges that Trump and two aides, Waltine “Walt” Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, requested that another Trump employee "delete security camera footage at the Mar-a-Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.”
De Oliveira is the second Trump aide to be charged in the documents case. Nauta was charged alongside Trump in June with helping the former president mislead investigators as they sought to retrieve all of the classified documents that remained at the former president’s home and private club after he left the White House.
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We used to say “it’s always the coverup”.
But when you’re sufficiently incompetent it’s both the crime and the attempted coverup.
@Jon said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
But when you’re sufficiently incompetent it’s both the crime and the attempted coverup.
Yup.
If he had been smarter he would have used hammers, or Bleachbit, or even a cloth.
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@Jon said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
But when you’re sufficiently incompetent it’s both the crime and the attempted coverup.
Yup.
If he had been smarter he would have used hammers, or Bleachbit, or even a cloth.
@George-K said in Mar-a-Lago raided:
If he had been smarter
That phrase pretty much sums up the last 7 years.
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Former President Donald Trump has voluntarily dismissed the $500 million federal lawsuit he brought against his former attorney Michael Cohen, according to court records.
The notice, filed Thursday, states that the lawsuit will be thrown out "without prejudice," a distinction that provides Trump the option to refile it later.
Days after his first criminal indictment came down in April, Trump sued Cohen — the key witness in his New York hush-money case and ongoing fraud trial — for a half billion dollars in the Southern District of Florida. He had been scheduled for a deposition by Cohen's lawyer, which he had pushed back twice, on Monday.
The deposition was first scheduled for Sept. 6, but Trump postponed it. After a judge rescheduled it for Oct. 3, Trump pushed back the date again on the grounds that he had to attend court for his civil fraud case in New York.
U.S. District Court Judge Edwin Torres then rescheduled the deposition for a second time for Oct. 9, which is now void.
Cohen's attorney E. Danya Perry said in a statement to The Messenger that Trump dropped the case to avoid facing her questioning. -
Interview & profile of a Trump employee who unknowingly got mixed up in the Trump classified documents case.
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I assume that's boilerplate. I'm not clear how it changes an FBI officer's decisions, to have been told they are "authorized to use deadly force when necessary". I mean any LEO is authorized to use deadly force when necessary. Otherwise, they wouldn't give them guns.
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As I said. The right wing media is running with this nothing burger. I got an email about it from some list I never intentionally subscribed to.
