So its very possible that there just isn’t a universally applied standard and the DOJ sometimes gets away with bending/breaking rules that they know they wouldn’t get away with in the case of someone who can afford top-flight lawyers.
It’s also possible that the DOJ is trying to walk a line where they can get enough evidence to prosecute, continue the investigation, etc. while avoiding anything that could be viewed as an arbitrary political persecution by the public and/or a judge.
So, if I a rob a bank, they can’t search my house for the money unless someone has given sworn information that it’s there?
It’s not, “We found docs at his place in Florida, so we are going to look at his other properties.” It’s “We know he has possession of these documents, and they were not all located when we searched his place in Florida, so we should search his other homes.”
Is your argument that because Trump is not currently in jail, he did nothing wrong, or is your argument that because he hasn’t been indicted yet, he can’t be charged with anything?
Excellent and informative post, thank you.
Former President Donald Trump late last year floated the idea of swapping the files that he took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago in exchange for “sensitive” documents about the FBI investigation of his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, according to The New York Times.
Um, neither of those? Not sure where you got them. I was talking about lack of a warrant.
Finally - we have a transactional explanation for why he kept the docs!
“I got something you want, you got something I want, let’s make a deal, guys!”
As you wish.
Glad you liked it. You’re welcome.
And that is also a tacit admission that the documents were stolen, Trump knew they were stolen, Trump was the one that stole them, and that he knew they were important. Game, Set, Match. A first-year law student could prosecute this case and win.
Wouldn’t that be illegal in itself?
It’s almost certainly confessing to a crime to make such an offer.
He probably did it through intermediaries though.
Oh, c’mon. Don’tcha know how things really work in the world of New York real estate? The deal’s the thing and then the lawyer flaks paper it over in nice sounding docs! Same thing here!
Who now might be looking at federal charges as accomplices, and could have an incentive to flip instead of going off to Club Fed for 20 years.
"DOJ, come on down!
It would depend on the facts, but yes, normally that’s required. I keep coming back to the 4th Amendment:
Now, if the cops have someone willing to swear that they saw k9bfriender running into his house with a big bag marked “loot” 20 minutes after the bank job, that’s pretty good.
But if the cops’ own tracking of k9bfriender is that he’s not been seen near his house since the bank job, and there are reports that his car was spotted in the next state over just a couple of hours after the bank job, then the cops likely don’t have probable cause to search the house.
There are exceptions, like hot pursuit. If the cops are chasing you to your house right after the bank job, they can likely go in to try to arrest you. And if they find you counting the cash from a big bag marked “loot”, they can seize that on the spot, because of the plain view doctrine. But even then, they can’t search the house to see if they’ve got all the cash. They would arrest you, secure the scene, and go apply for a warrant, based on the probable cause they tracked you from the bank job, entered the house in hot pursuit, and found you counting cash. That would get them a warrant for the rest of the house.
Two points:
First, why do you distinguish between all his other properties, and his homes? Why couldn’t the docs be at any of his places of business? If it’s enough that he had docs at one of his properties, how can you restrict it to homes?
Second, this is the point that I’ve been trying to make. Why can you expand the search in that way, to a place a thousand miles away? So there’s good grounds to beleive he had the docs. What allows you to say to a judge, “we’ve narrowed the search to his place in Jersey?”
Maybe he sold the docs to a “foreign visitor” at his Florida place.
Maybe a “foreign visitor” stole the missing docs.
Maybe he gave them to an accomplice to hold for him, because the heat was turning up.
Maybe he got really cold feet and shredded them.
Sure, there’s a reasonable possibility those docs are at one of his other residences. But reasonable possibility and reasonable inferences aren’t probable cause.
The Times article says the lawyers refused to pass along the swap offer.
Finally! Some Trump lawyers who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid.
At this point I think its highly unlikely that the DOJ will be able to find more documents. The only reason that they found the one’s in Mar-a-lago was that Trump believed he was safe. Now that they have shown that they are willing to play hard ball and have started asking about the other documents, anyone with half a brain (yes, I know, assumes facts not in evidence) would have either destroyed them or moved them to a random storage unit far away from his offices.