# 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:** 35
**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:** [August 12, 2022, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/681 "2022-08-12T15:19:16Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > It’s only **espionage** if it comes from the **Espionage** region of France. Otherwise, it’s “sparkling treason”. [Looks at label] “Produced in Russia for distribution in USA”. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/682 "2022-08-12T15:28:22Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > [Looks at label] “Produced in Russia for distribution in USA”. Very good — although when it comes to these particular documents, it’s the other way around: “Produced in the USA for sale in Russia”. Also comes with a prestigious Royal Warrant: “By Appointment to HRH Czar Vladimir”. _Exclusive suppliers of nuclear secrets to the House of Vlad_ ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/683 "2022-08-12T15:34:08Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > I’d like to know if there’s a common theme that links these boxes. IOW, why these particular boxes? What the hell did he even want them for? It’s not as though the semi-literate pustule was ever going read them. Yeah. I’m wondering how he gathered them together? Was there a storage area with boxes full of top secret documents? Did he take a document to his residence every day to ‘review’ and squirrel it away? I very much doubt that any President can wander around the White House without there being at least two Secret Service agents with him. Day or night. And Trump sure as shit would never carry a box full of paper. He had to have help. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/684 "2022-08-12T15:39:39Z")
> [@Spiff](#): > > Really? > > My take on this is different, namely that a witness has committed perjury during one of those investigative interviews, and that is therefore good material for prosecutors to work with. Sure, if the version of events differs significantly, a perjury charge is a possibility. Much more common, however, is where a witness makes small discrepancies in their testimony between two different interviews. There’s no basis for a perjury charge. If this happens with a primary witness for a prosecutor, defense attorneys will exploit such small discrepancies to cast doubt on the veracity of the witness’s entire testimony before a jury. It can happen to defense witnesses, too, but they are rarely interviewed by two separate agencies so I’ve never seen that happen. IANAL but I watched a lot of trials due to my career as a judge’s assistant. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/685 "2022-08-12T15:40:58Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > Stolen from Twitter this morning, after **Espionage** was trending. > > _It’s only **espionage** if it comes from the **Espionage** region of France. Otherwise, it’s “sparkling treason”._ That’s hilarious. 😃 In an our-country-is-being-destroyed-by-a-clown sort of way. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/686 "2022-08-12T15:42:30Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > If there was a rat, it means there was something there to rat on. That would seem to conflict with the “planted it” scenario. > [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > The contradiction will not bother them. Whichever story starts gaining the most traction is the one they’ll go with. Well, the rat could have planted the evidence under orders from the Deep State. Which, if you were going to plant evidence, is how to do it - have it in place when you show up, then you don’t have to worry about someone asking why you are carrying _in_ a box labeled 'secret nuclear stuff that shouldn’t be here". ---
**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:** [August 12, 2022, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/687 "2022-08-12T15:45:12Z")
_Bolton v. Newsmax_ Click to watch video. It’s worth it. > ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/688 "2022-08-12T15:50:16Z")
John Bolton is an absolute shitstain of a human being. This is 100% a leopards ate my face moment. “Gee, the party I’ve supported for decades while it invented its own reality no longer believes in reality.” ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/689 "2022-08-12T16:00:05Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Trump, in his own way, confessed to having nuclear weapons information. This is a tweet which contains Trump’s _Truth Social_ statement: Mob bosses and career criminals often blather on about how “them cops planted that on me! I’m innocent!”. Bullshit spouted by criminals caught in a crime is not convincing. Absent evidence, this bullshit “defense” will never see the inside of a courtroom. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/690 "2022-08-12T16:11:13Z")
NBC Radio News has been running audio of some unidentified Trumpeteer – possibly Mike Turner of Ohio – wondering why other avenues of obtaining the documents weren’t explored. 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/691 "2022-08-12T16:18:03Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > Classified documents _will_ put up a fight ! When I got out of the navy it took a couple months for my household goods to catch up to me – they’d been misrouted down to Virginia instead of coming to California. When I was going through them in the papers there was a single page that had a _Confidential_ stamp on it. How it got there I have no idea; it should have never left the working site. I burned it, stirred the ashes, _then_ flushed them down the toilet. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/692 "2022-08-12T16:22:24Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > I burned it, stirred the ashes, _then_ flushed them down the toilet. You’ll be getting a knock on the door soon. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/693 "2022-08-12T16:28:02Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Bolton v. Newsmax Yep, Biden hit the go button on everything that Trump teed up. It was Trump’s people and Trump’s plan, in Afghanistan. Either Trump was going to follow through and we’d have gotten the same result or he’d have backed out for the 80th time during his presidency, and just shown himself to be any old lying politician - yet again. ---
**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:** [August 12, 2022, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/694 "2022-08-12T16:30:26Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Mob bosses and career criminals often blather on about how “them cops planted that on me! I’m innocent!”. [https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/57393264.jpg](https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/57393264.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/695 "2022-08-12T16:42:09Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > You know how depressing this is to read? You’re right and it’s extremely depressing; I fear, regardless of how serious this is, that nothing will come of it. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/696 "2022-08-12T16:48:49Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > John Bolton is an absolute shitstain of a human being. This is 100% a leopards ate my face moment. “Gee, the party I’ve supported for decades while it invented its own reality no longer believes in reality.” This is a “how low our standards have fallen” moment. Bolton is indeed an absolute shitstain of a human being. But by current standards his saving grace is that despite being a warmongering hawk he’s at least somewhat rational, moderately sane, and apparently on the side of his country rather than the side of the enemy. The fact that he isn’t an unconscionable traitor makes him practically a saint in comparison to the Orange Peril. ---
**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:** [August 12, 2022, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/697 "2022-08-12T16:51:55Z")
He might be an asshole, but at least he’s _America’s_ asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/698 "2022-08-12T16:55:45Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I’m curious - for purposes of hopeful schadenfreude - when Mr. Bratt was appointed/promoted into his current position? To answer my own question: Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section was [David Laufman](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-dept-official-who-helped-oversee-clinton-russia-probes-steps-down/2018/02/07/ab19f24e-0b69-11e8-8b0d-891602206fb7_story.html) in February of 2018. And, here’s a org sheet from when Bill Barr was AG and it has Bratt in the position of Chief of CECS: > **[CDIR-2020-07-22-DEPARTMENTS-9.pdf](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDIR-2020-07-22/pdf/CDIR-2020-07-22-DEPARTMENTS-9.pdf)** > > 374.69 KB I’d say that it’s likely that Laufman’s successor was Bratt, so if Laufman was stepping down in February of 2018, that would make Bratt the chosen head of Counterintelligence according to that big ol’ lefty, **Jeff Sessions**. But if it’s not Sessions then it would have been Barr. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/699 "2022-08-12T17:08:35Z")
An interesting legal point: > **[Trump’s ignoring legitimate legal recourse — that speaks volumes](https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3597339-trumps-ignoring-legitimate-legal-recourse-that-speaks-volumes/)** > > Trump has scampered away from available immediate legal challenges to the FBI search. Basically, if Trump thinks that any part of the warrant was illegitimate then he can challenge it and get his stuff back. If he’s not doing that then he’s tacitly admitting that it’s not his stuff and that the warrant was fair. I suspect (personal theory - not a fact) that you can also fight a subpoena on similar grounds so, if the DOJ had issued a subpoena for all of this stuff, and Trump thought that they had no fair basis for it, he could have challenged the subpoena and never gotten to this point. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2022, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-search-and-seizure-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-residence-august-8-2022-case-dismissed-july-15-2024/969329/700 "2022-08-12T17:16:04Z")
At this point, does Trump have any lawyers that are worth a pinch of dingo kidneys at this point? I mean, who the hell would work for him now? Everything he touches turns to shit. Even the CFO of the Trump organization is likely on his way to a small jail cell. [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=34) [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=36)