By Curt_Anderson August 11, 2022 3:29 pm Category: Law (5.0 from 1 vote) Write A New ß Article

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Republicans are accusing the DOJ and the FBI of being like the Gestapo. In their thinking the FBI has been used as an instrument of political harassment. Some are calling it Banana Republic stuff. Merrick Garland has been called a Nazi.

Justice Department Moves to Unseal Warrant in Mar-a-Lago Search
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said is asking to unseal the warrant because of "substantial public interest." The former president has until 3 p.m. on Friday to oppose the motion.

If the warrant and items listed that the FBI retained, incriminate Trump politically and/or legally, he will want them kept under wraps. However, if Trump believes he has nothing to hide or to be ashamed of he will opt for transparency and not oppose the public release of information in the warrant.

By 3 p.m. Friday, will Trump oppose or not oppose the motion to unseal the warrant?

Comments Start Below

by Curt_Anderson on August 11, 2022 3:33 pm I'll go first...I predict that Trump will oppose the unsealing of the warrant. He will do so with a lame ass excuse that only gullible cultists will find credible. by HatetheSwamp on August 11, 2022 3:49 pm My guess that he'll oppose it, too. One Wednesday's edition of THE FIVE, token Dem Harold Ford, Jr., asserted that Trump should release the warrant. Jeanine Piro, a former DA and Judge snapped, "You can put ANYTHING in a warrant!" She'd know. The warrant is a document created by the prosecution to serve the cause of a conviction. I can't see how it could benefit a potentially accused person to make a warrant public under any circumstances. So, unless idiots wrote it, I can't see Trump going for it. by Curt_Anderson on August 11, 2022 4:32 pm Pirro is correct: it's true that anything can be listed in a warrant, because anything can be evidence of a crime. Merrick Garland knows what's on the list. He is calling Trump's and his supporter' bluff when they ask for transparency in what is on the list of warranted items. We already know that Trump took some classified documents to Mar-a-Lago with him because his attorneys returned some of it in dribs and drabs as DOJ became more and repeatedly insistent. cnn.com by islander on August 11, 2022 4:54 pm Hate wrote:"Jeanine Piro, a former DA and Judge snapped, "You can put ANYTHING in a warrant!" "Judge Jeanine" is full of it. You can't put ANYTHING in a search warrant. "A search warrant is a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate authorizing a law enforcement officer to conduct a search on a certain person, a specified place, or an automobile for criminal evidence. A search warrant usually is the prerequisite of a search, which is designed to protect individuals’ reasonable expectation of privacy against unreasonable governmental physical trespass or other intrusion. The origin of this right is from the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to protect people from unlawful government searches and seizures. The Amendment reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Search warrant requirements Probable cause: The officer should give reasonable information to support the possibility that the evidence of illegality will be found. Such information may come from the officer’ personal observations or that of an informant. If the warrant lacks accurate information as to what will be searched, the search is unlawful. See Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551 (2004). Particularity: The warrant should describe the place to be searched with particularity. See United States v. Grubbs, 547 U.S. 90 (2006). Signed by a “neutral and detached” magistrate or judge. See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443 (1971)." law.cornell.edu by oldedude on August 11, 2022 6:32 pm I agree with her. Having been part of oh, 30 of them, the difference between the affidavit and the Warrant can be very different. I know what they're "supposed" to do, but at that level of the bureau, I'm not convinced anything was legit until proven otherwise. These are the same people that should be fired and criminally charged (according to the last AG). That's been our point all along. by oldedude on August 11, 2022 6:49 pm "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”" In court, you have to show that you have exhausted all other means to get the information in order to support "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..." According to the National Presidential Archives, Trump was giving them everything they wanted. The FBI issued a subpoena regarding the camera footage on site, and those were given. I don't understand a raid, when a subpoena should have been tried first. Skipping that point may get this kicked out. I'm not blaming anyone except for the agents responsible for the case. Either they were told to do it this way, or they were pressured. So we'll see how this flashes out. by Curt_Anderson on August 11, 2022 9:00 pm Trump tonight says, "Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid … I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents". We'll see if that actually happens at 3pm eastern time tomorrow. Of course, Trump has a copy of the warrant. I know of nothing that is stopping him from releasing his copy of the warrant. by islander on August 12, 2022 4:47 am ”In court, you have to show that you have exhausted all other means to get the information in order to support "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."” Non sequitur. You are not talking about a legally authorized search warrant, and a legally authorized search warrant is what we’re discussing here, and this is not a court case. ”According to the National Presidential Archives, Trump was giving them everything they wanted. The FBI issued a subpoena regarding the camera footage on site, and those were given. I don't understand a raid, when a subpoena should have been tried first.” Trump was not giving them everything (the documents) they wanted. He was issued a subpoena months ago and all the records he was required to turn over were not turned over. by HatetheSwamp on August 12, 2022 4:51 am Curt, Trump seems to be calling for the release of all the documents... ...including the affidavits,... ...which Milk Toast Merrick won't agree to. by islander on August 12, 2022 6:14 am This is an ongoing investigation in which, at this time, no charges have been brought against Trump. I wouldn’t release the affidavits yet either. One reason, for example, is that they could contain details about witnesses who alerted the government about materials Mr. Trump did not turn over as part of previous negotiations with the department. These are not the kinds of things things that should be made public "during the investigation". Naturally, if there is an indictment and charges are made they will be released. Garland is doing the correct thing here. by HatetheSwamp on August 12, 2022 6:30 am I think Trump is just yanking the DOJ's chain. To me, based on the way Trump is acting now, he thinks he's playing the stronger hand. by oldedude on August 12, 2022 6:48 am "Non sequitur. You are not talking about a legally authorized search warrant, and a legally authorized search warrant is what we’re discussing here, and this is not a court case." As I've said many times before (please don't cherry-pick), if the warrant isn't valid, the ENTIRE evidence from the warrant IS NOT USABLE IN COURT. Please look at my plethora of posts on this subject. BAD WARRANT= NO CASE A valid warrant has to have specific items they are looking for in the affidavit, which is why the affidavit is so important. It lays out the charges (you have to have predicate acts of a crime for the affidavit) to list why you are violating the fourth and sixth amendment (which is the legal reason for the warrant) the rights of the suspect. It is illegal to "go fishing" with a search warrant, which is what I suspect this is. I am not convinced the warrant is a valid warrant. I thought I've made that clear numerous times. At this point, I don't trust anything coming from this echelon of the FBI. by oldedude on August 12, 2022 7:00 am "Trump was not giving them everything (the documents) they wanted. He was issued a subpoena months ago and all the records he was required to turn over were not turned over." Just as a comparison value, we are still waiting for subpoenaed documents from Holder for Fast and Furious, et.al, and from cliton if that's any indication of how long it takes to get a subpoena back at times. I think we ought to raid Eric's house for those documents. And then cliton's using your logic. by islander on August 12, 2022 7:43 am ”As I've said many times before (please don't cherry-pick), if the warrant isn't valid, the ENTIRE evidence from the warrant IS NOT USABLE IN COURT. Please look at my plethora of posts on this subject. BAD WARRANT= NO CASE” GOOD WARRANT= PERFECTLY GOOD CASE ”I am not convinced the warrant is a valid warrant. I thought I've made that clear numerous times. At this point, I don't trust anything coming from this echelon of the FBI.” YOU might not be convinced that the warrant which you’ve never seen is not a valid warrant and you don’t trust the current FBI...So what ! When you have some solid evidence to back up your opinions then maybe we can discuss this. by Donna on August 12, 2022 8:45 am od: I agree with you about the subpoena Holder refused to comply with. I'm disgusted every time someone in government thumbs their nose at a subpoena. Compliance should be automatic, like it is for us mere mortals, and there should be a stiff penalty for non-compliance. by oldedude on August 12, 2022 9:27 am Donna, thanks for looking at both sides. I'm like you. I was subpoenaed for a case we were running. They didn't call me but I missed it. I had to see the judge in her chambers and lost a good 10 pounds off my butt from what she gave me. Although it was an honest mistake, that's no excuse. I still remember being at the bad end of a judge. Never again. And she was correct. So just sit and take it. I also understand you just can't poop the stuff sometimes. But it doesn't take more than a month, maybe 2 or 3 depending on what they're asking for. Both sides do it, especially with congress because they've never taken any action with it until recently. "YOU might not be convinced that the warrant which you’ve never seen is not a valid warrant and you don’t trust the current FBI...So what" "When you have some solid evidence to back up your opinions then maybe we can discuss this"" isle- If you're going to be a dick, get your facts straight. You remind me of another poster that was a dick all the time. I will respond to you in the way I'm spoken to. And trust me, I can. I said I don't trust that echelon of the Bureau because of their case history. None of them should be allowed near a case. They've lied to the courts (with malice) regarding another warrant, and re upped the warrant with the same known bad information. That is an ethics in any position that holds any type of clearance at all. Including nursses, lawyers, teachers, DOJ, DOD, IC, etc. I know you believe the dims to be infallible. But it's not true. And, when you have some solid evidence to back up your opinions then maybe we can discuss this. What you have, is hearsay and TDS so bad that anything against him is "true" whatever that may be. You may think the pee tape is true. Sorry that was part of the hoax you still believe in. If you weren't living in the upper New England area, I would be able to spot you with the aluminum foil hat you're wearing, but there's too many up there that already wear them. by islander on August 12, 2022 12:18 pm Just a lot of blustering but still no evidence that the legally authorized search warrant was obtained fraudulently and/or that the search itself was illegal in any way shape or form, eh olddude ? Like I said, when you can do that maybe we can discuss it. by islander on August 12, 2022 12:22 pm I agree with you Donna with your disgust in regard to any of our politicians, no matter which side they are on, who think they don’t need to follow the law just like the rest of us...and that includes snubbing a Congressional subpoena like Holder did back in 2012. Unfortunately we’re still witnessing that stuff going on right now. However that isn’t, as olddude seems to think, relevant to, nor does it demonstrate or imply that there is anything illegal or nefarious about the DOJ search warrant issued for the Mar-a-Lago estate which is what we have been discussing. I’m very interested to know what was found and how this all transpires. by oldedude on August 12, 2022 12:24 pm "Just a lot of blustering but still no evidence that the legally authorized search warrant was obtained fraudulently and/or that the search itself was illegal in any way shape or form, eh olddude ?" Show me the evidence you have right now. Because all I get from you is bullshit about how you "feel." That's not evidence. by islander on August 12, 2022 1:08 pm The decision to seek a warrant  was made by the head of the DOJ, Merrick Garland. To obtain a warrant requires convincing a judge that they have probable cause that a crime occurred .The required affidavit was presented to Judge Bruce Reinhart who examined it and signed off on the warrant. The search was carried out and a copies of the warrant were given to Trump and his attorneys that same day. If you dispute any of that where is your evidence? That you don’t trust Garland, Judge Reinhart, the FBI and/or those who took part in the search is not evidence that the warrant or the search was unethical or illegal. Where is your evidence that it was? Not your opinion but solid objective evidence? by oldedude on August 12, 2022 1:23 pm I am really shocked you actually had to ask the question. Had you been keeping up even with the cartoon channel, you would have known this. Two of four FISA warrants against Carter Page declared invalid "Washington (CNN)The Justice Department has declared invalid two of the four surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign associate Carter Page, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said Thursday. The acknowledgment to the surveillance court is the latest fallout from December's scathing inspector general report, which faulted the FBI for a series of misstatements and omissions in the applications to get secret court warrants to eavesdrop on Page. The Justice Department's concession to the court means the department now believes, at a minimum, the surveillance of Page should have ended after the second warrant expired in early 2017." FBI director admits: Yes, surveillance of Carter Page was illegal "FBI Director Christopher Wray agreed that the Justice Department and the FBI illegally surveilled Carter Page when they used British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s unverified dossier to obtain four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against the Trump campaign associate. Wray made the claim during congressional testimony before the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee earlier this week, as Republicans pressed him for answers about the bureau’s response to the Justice Department watchdog’s FISA abuse report." FISA court slams FBI conduct in Carter Page surveillance warrant applications "The typically ultra-close-lipped Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court slammed the FBI for mistakes it made in the Carter Page surveillance warrants and ordered the agency to detail how it will improve its warrant applications in light of the errors, uncovered recently by the Justice Department’s inspector general. The order is a startling departure from the court’s typical comprehensive secrecy as it reviews from federal investigators requests for warrants related to foreign intelligence. The public statement on Tuesday from its presiding judge appears to nod to growing criticism that the warrant-application process has become lax or lacks transparency. “The FBI’s handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the [Office of the inspector general] report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above. The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable,” federal Judge Rosemary Collyer wrote in an order from the court published Tuesday." FBI and DOJ have ruined their credibility and cannot be trusted on Mar-a-Lago "Whatever statement they might provide about the Trump raid, the fact remains that FBI and DOJ officials have been acting as partisans on behalf of the Democratic Party for years now. There’s simply no reason to believe anything they say. The Russia collusion investigation is the best example of the Justice Department and FBI’s willingness to bend the rules and abuse their own authority. The FBI falsified information on a FISA warrant application so that it could wiretap Trump’s campaign. An agent submitted Christopher Steele’s dossier as legitimate evidence despite knowing its sourcing was bogus. The FBI met with Clinton associates despite the obvious conflict of interest. Multiple FBI agents openly talked about how they hoped the investigation would prevent Trump from winning and taking office. Yet they were able to pass all of this off as legal because they obtained approval from a FISA court and upper-level DOJ officials. So, it doesn’t really matter whether the FBI’s warrant application to raid Trump’s home was technically legal. The FBI’s FISA warrant application to wiretap Trump’s campaign was also legal, only it was based on a fraud that took years and multiple federal investigations, one of which Trump ordered himself, to uncover. Nor does it matter what kind of justifications the DOJ and FBI offer up in public. These people are liars. They shopped the bogus collusion accusations to the media and Congress’s “Gang of Eight,” knowing full well that none of it was true. They aided and abetted a political hit job against the sitting president of the United States. Not a single person involved has since been subjected to serious, long-term repercussions. Why should we believe things will be any different this time around?" Bold cnn.com washingtonexaminer.com cnn.com washingtonexaminer.com by islander on August 12, 2022 2:02 pm Your talking about the the wrong case, olddude. You really don’t understand your flawed logic, do you. Your belief that you are presenting evidence that shows that the Mar-a-lago Warrant and search were unethical or illegal demonstrates that. by oldedude on August 12, 2022 2:28 pm No. Yet again... I am showing that I don't trust the people that are involved in the warrant because it's the same group that lied to the FISA judge twice. That's the basis for my decision. In the real world they would have been ousted without a retirement within a week or two. by oldedude on August 13, 2022 7:35 am Also, we were talking about not responding to subpoenas. Fast and Furious, Benghazi, J6, etc. So. On both sides. The only people that have been charged by congress are the GOP. by Donna on August 13, 2022 9:01 am So? Republicans have controlled Congress. They were free to go after anyone they wanted. What, you think they haven't indicted Democrats because they're nice guys? Or you think it's because they've never been able to prove any of their allegations? by oldedude on August 13, 2022 10:39 am I think civility has a LOT to do with it. They should have continued with cliton and completely ruined her life. They did a subpoena on her for ALL DOCUMENTS, and she erased 30,000 plus emails, and admitted it in sworn testimony. She destroyed evidence on her blackberries that were government property (ergo everything that's done on them is subject to seizure by the government). And I won't even start on the classified server behind her toilet that was hooked into the open internet, and her using an unclassified phone for classified material (emails mostly, although there were calls that the other party may "assume" were on a classified line). by oldedude on August 13, 2022 10:40 am And, if Trump has classified documents, I expect him to get the same treatment as everyone else. No more, no less. The precedent has been set. by oldedude on August 13, 2022 10:46 am Sorry, should have put these on one post. This is what Schumer is worried about. We have a president now that known business affiliation with the Chinese and Russians to say the least. The fact that he uses his son to be the go between is a moot point. Chuckie is more than a little worried about what the GOP might do to the dims if they get in. Thusly the reason I put that thread up. Then we'll have another president that has a real hearing, not a kangaroo court.

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