It’s my understanding that the incumbent administration has changed since 1865.
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
It strikes me that given the shitshow that January 6th was, this was a further shitshow we’re eventually going to get to see.
One of the madder of the people advising him around January 6th probably told him to destroy documents which incriminate him, otherwise treason. And destroying documents is better than treason (if they even knew that).
He took the spare boxes with him to hide those documents being missing.
When they were returned (and it sounds as if they were), the documents missing needed confirmed from administration and witnesses. Now they know what is missing.
A further raid is needed to confirm he hasn’t kept these documents.
Now he’ll claim they got lost or went missing and it wasn’t his fault. Despite the fact the documents are not there.
And given how he’s not in jail yet, the (IMHO ineffective) US justice system will let him off. Our views from overseas is “why is he not in prison for inciting a riot and insurrection yet?”, so I’m thinking that will be the result,
This smithsb. Not incriminating to Trump, but to either sell, or use to blackmail. Why else keep it? Time for a boating accident. I’m 99% certain that he has something on Lindsey Graham for instance.
Of course Trump is a moron with an ego that believes he can do no wrong. So there is that too.
But the policy of appeasement has not.
I agree with most of that statement.
IANAL, but based on Garland’s words and actions so far, there are two possibilities I can think of for the timing of this raid:
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The FBI received critical time-sensitive intelligence that required immediate action (i.e. there’s critical evidence in MAL that Trump may be about to move or destroy).
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The DoJ has largely wrapped up its investigation, and is in the beginning stages of charging Trump for criminal behavior, and things will move rapidly towards an indictment.
These two possibilities aren’t mutually exclusive. I can’t think of another likely explanation for the timing.
For an average person, I would agree. In this particular case, though, 1) Trump might have highly classified materials so their mere existence outside of a secure facility could be grounds for immediate action, once they determine the existence of those documents, and 2) Trump has a sufficiently long and detailed history of destroying evidence that they might be able to act on the simple evidence of the existence of incriminating documents, even without explicit knowledge of an intent to destroy the evidence.
Folks keep referring to this as a “raid”. That word has all the connotations of people in FBI body armor, SWAT, heavy armament swarming a building (s). It was a group of agents in suits serving a search warrant.
IIRC, in civvies.
As hopefully everyone knows by now, IANAL, either, but based on experience observing criminal investigations, I think there are more possibilities than the ones you name.
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I agree with your assessment. But equally, it may simply be the case that this particular facet of DOJ’s investigation was ripe for public-facing efforts. By that I mean, DOJ had conducted as much of this facet as they could without doing a search of Trump’s property. This was not a casual, nose-around search. There would have been very specific documents named in the statement of probable cause and a federal judge had to agree there was no other way for DOJ to secure them short of a search and seizure. This is a serious move.
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I disagree DOJ has largely wrapped up its investigation. I don’t think of this as one large investigation; rather, I see it as several investigations into one extended course of conduct by Trump, each being carried out on separate tracks and according to best practices. Remember, there is at least one, and I’ve heard maybe two, federal grand juries hearing evidence pertaining to Trump’s fake electors scheme and coordination of the January 6th insurrection. All these investigations will proceed on different time lines. My belief is that the hiding and/or destruction of official records – including some so top secret they can’t even be referred to in a list of those records – is simply the quickest and easiest case to obtain evidence and prove up a crime. But that by no means implies that DOJ’s work is done with respect to the rest of the investigations currently underway about which we are aware.
This is a no-brainer for sure. There is ample direct evidence from people working in the White House that Trump destroyed documents. They even had to retrieve them from the garbage can and tape them back together for God’s sake. There is photographic evidence and testimony of Trump flushing records down the toilet.
For the Succession fans among us…
That’s how Trump et al described it.
under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.
this unannounced raid on my home
The purpose of the raid was
Because of course he did.
Dying…
Huh. Twitter is apparently down for me…
Still pulls up for me. Might be a cache thing, though
It’s back up now.
That is… just wow!
I’m not convinced that Trump had any plans for the documents at all, either when he took them or in the years since. His thought process was probably no more complicated than “other people want these, so I will keep them.” Hell, even if he made a deal to sell secrets to the highest bidder, he’d take their money and probably never deliver a thing.
Problem is, 40% of Americans probably won’t even recognize it as parody.