# FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [August 8, 2022, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329 "2022-08-08T23:18:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 222
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4421 "2023-01-24T06:12:14Z")
Biden is a sitting president who is cooperating fully in order to appear transparent. There is no need for a search warrant. In other words, he is not Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4422 "2023-01-24T13:08:58Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > The documents that were in the news today (Monday the 23rd) were found by the FBI searching his house. I guess we don’t know if it was a search warrant or he invited them in. I saw that later on. I’d been hemming and hawing for a few days about posting some thoughts I had on inviting them and it looks like I waited a bit too long for it to be an actual prediction. > [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > There is no need for a search warrant. In other words, he is not Trump. I can think of arguments for or against a warrant. Joe could be 100% cooperating, but still want a warrant both to restrict the scope of the search and to protect him against anything else that they might run across. Think about the presidential version of letting a cop search through your car because you know there’s nothing in there to worry about, only to have them find some percocets your brother dropped under the seat a few years ago when you drove him home from the dentist. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4423 "2023-01-24T13:30:09Z")
A warrant against a sitting president by the Justice Department for the FBI to perform a search would be huge news. It couldn’t be kept a secret. It’s wishful thinking and it’s not what’s happening. It’s a republican wet dream, they would love to say that the Biden situation was the same as Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4424 "2023-01-24T13:36:38Z")
Looks like it’s a moot discussion anyways. > **[FBI searched Biden home, found items marked classified](https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-delaware-0827b59ee141b33af95023377713e075)** > > Another search, this one by the FBI at President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, has turned up more material containing classified markings. > The president voluntarily allowed the FBI into his home, but the lack of a search warrant did not dim the extraordinary nature of the search. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4425 "2023-01-24T13:39:55Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Remember, the only reason we knew about Trump’s search was because the DOJ told him it was about to happen and he [Trump] announced it. This isn’t true. Florida Politics reporter Peter Schorsch broke the story with this Tweet. > All the major news outlets were scrambling to confirm the story which included reaching out to sources in Trump world. Trump responded by issuing a statement confirming the search. ---
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4426 "2023-01-24T17:36:50Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > Biden is a sitting president who is cooperating fully in order to appear transparent. There is no need for a search warrant. In other words, he is not Trump. > [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > It’s a republican wet dream, they would love to say that the Biden situation was the same as Trump. I know this is the Trump documents thread, but if “Not as Bad as Trump” is the new standard we are all in trouble. Biden had classified documents improperly stored in at least 3 separate places. That is really, really bad. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4427 "2023-01-24T17:48:40Z")
How many more such cases? > **[Classified documents discovered at Mike Pence’s home in Indiana – report](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/24/mike-pence-classified-documents-discovered-home-indiana)** > > About a dozen classified-marked documents found by former vice-president’s lawyer were turned over to FBI, CNN reported And is there any clarification on what sort of classification applies (I’d imagine over-zealous classification is not impossible)? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4428 "2023-01-24T17:50:31Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > How many more such cases? Let’s check Jimmy Carter’s home! ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4429 "2023-01-24T18:03:03Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > I know this is the Trump documents thread, but if “Not as Bad as Trump” is the new standard we are all in trouble. Biden had classified documents improperly stored in at least 3 separate places. That is really, really bad. On the other hand, if whataboutism and false equivalence are the new standards, then we are all in trouble. If I accidentally take something from a store without paying for it, that’s bad. If I discovered my mistake and took the item back to the store, then that’s proper procedure. If I intentionally steal something from a store, lie about having it, and then refuse to give it back even after I’m offered a quiet, no-consequences resolution, then that is not proper procedure. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4430 "2023-01-24T18:03:32Z")
I wonder how many such documents would show up, if we were to search congress-critters’ homes? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4431 "2023-01-24T18:13:37Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > And is there any clarification on what sort of classification applies (I’d imagine over-zealous classification is not impossible)? This is the question. Not every document marked “classified” contains life-and-death gummint secrets that Putin would sell his left… um… _nostril_ for. I was just googling and reading about different levels of “classified” material. It’s quite nuanced and too long to even summarize. > [@Procrustus](#): > > Let’s check Jimmy Carter’s home! I said this before: let’s search the homes of past presidents and vice-presidents. Hell, let’s search Nancy Pelosi’s home! Working in a job where you swim and even drown in reams and reams of paper every day-- and then leaving that job with boxes of stuff. Haven’t you ever found an old memo or a list of board members’ home phone numbers or something that should have stayed in the office and instead just wound up in a box in the garage where it has sad for years? Trump deliberately, intentionally declared that government documents were his personal property, deliberately took them to his personal residence, and then denied he had them. LOTS of them. Repeatedly. This isn’t the same thing. At all. > [@Mollie\_Magill](#): > > I wonder how many such documents would show up, if we were to search congress-critters’ homes? Absolutely this! ---
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4432 "2023-01-24T19:23:14Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Haven’t you ever found an old memo or a list of board members’ home phone numbers or something that should have stayed in the office and instead just wound up in a box in the garage where it has sad for years? Nothing that was classified. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > If I accidentally take something from a store without paying for it, that’s bad. This is more like working in a bank and accidentally going home with $100,000 of cash and leaving it in your personal office, garage, and house for 10 years before going, “whoops, there’s $30,000 here in the office I’m not supposed to have” then the FBI searching your home and finding the other $70,000. You’d have to make a pretty convincing case it was unintentional, and “I worked with stacks of cash every day” isn’t going to cut it. There are procedures at my local bank branch to make sure my $10 doesn’t “accidentally” go home with an employee, and generally those procedures work pretty well. If the office of the Vice President of the United States can’t manage the equivalent with the secrets of the nation, that’s really bad. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4433 "2023-01-24T19:26:07Z")
Well, it’s obviously a structural thing given that Pence, Trump, and Biden have had errant documents (but only Trump refused to return them). The idea that this is the equivalent of a $100k bank heist is just silly and an amazingly bad analogy. ---
**Author:** ![Dahnlor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahnlor/32/533_2.png) [@Dahnlor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahnlor)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4434 "2023-01-24T19:34:53Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > Personally, I think Trump should be prosecuted for the obstruction only (unless they can show the original taking was intentional and malicious which I think is a big lift)… I disagree about that being a big lift. First of all, malice is not a factor here, only intent. There is already a lot of publicly available evidence, just from Trump’s own words alone, that he not only took the documents intentionally, but also intended to keep them and not return them to the government. I believe it makes more sense to prosecute both possession and obstruction, since including the easily-proven crime of possession would only strengthen the obstruction case. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4435 "2023-01-24T19:38:59Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > I know this is the Trump documents thread, but if “Not as Bad as Trump” is the new standard we are all in trouble. No, the standard is what the law says. > [@tofor](#): > > Biden had classified documents improperly stored in at least 3 separate places. That is really, really bad. Probably? It depends on what the documents are. And bad for whom? That’s what investigations are for. They determine what happened, who did it, who’s at fault, what rules did they violate, and what are the consequences. We have a crap ton of info about what Trump did. We have hints about what kind of info was there. We know very little about what Biden or Pence or anyone else has, or who did what. It’s not a matter of “not as bad as Trump”. It’s a matter of, we have a good idea what Trump and his minions did. We don’t have a lot of info about anything else. We can speculate but anyone drawing conclusions is making guesses and assumptions, and those will inevitably be colored by their biases. I’m not exempt from that. I have assumptions and they’re definitely colored by my political opinions. But I don’t have any strong conclusions about these recent document controversies because we don’t have all that info yet. Remember that this Trump document thing goes back a long time, all the way to 2021 at least when he was told he had to return them. Things didn’t escalate until the middle of last year when the FBI got involved. But it has been in the news for a while. All this other stuff is really new. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4436 "2023-01-24T19:43:52Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > The idea that this is the equivalent of a $100k bank heist is just silly and an amazingly bad analogy. Yes, just about every other piece of paper you touch in the White House is likely to be Classified at some level. It’s not like bank personnel are handling $100,000 worth of cash on a daily basis, several times a day. Or even any cash at all unless you are a teller, many people in banks don’t touch money at all. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4437 "2023-01-24T19:52:54Z")
And we’re back to whataboutism and false equivalence. Unintentionally having something is not equal to deliberate theft, concealment, and obstruction. ---
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4438 "2023-01-24T20:09:02Z")
I never said it was, and intentionally avoided any comparisons. But I can see how it was misunderstood given that this is the Trump documents thread, not the Biden documents thread, so I apologize for contributing to the hijack. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4439 "2023-01-24T20:18:39Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > This is more like working in a bank and accidentally going home with $100,000 of cash and leaving it in your personal office, garage, and house for 10 years before going, “whoops, there’s $30,000 here in the office I’m not supposed to have” then the FBI searching your home and finding the other $70,000. > > You’d have to make a pretty convincing case it was unintentional, and “I worked with stacks of cash every day” isn’t going to cut it. Huh. Seems to be you intentionally _making_ a comparison here. ---
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2023, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/4440 "2023-01-24T20:25:29Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Huh. Seems to be you intentionally _making_ a comparison here. An analogy is not false equivalence or whataboutism. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Unintentionally having something is not equal to deliberate theft, concealment, and obstruction. These things did not happen in my analogy, and are clearly a reference to Trump’s actions. Nothing in my analogy related to Trump. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329.md?page=221) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329.md?page=223)