I just read this…
So now the DOJ is saying the FBI did take the passports but already returned them.
“In executing search warrants, the FBI follows search and seizure procedures ordered by courts, then returns items that do not need to be retained for law enforcement purposes," the spokesperson said in a statement Monday evening that did not mention the passports.
Maggie Haberman reports on CNN that Trump has been trying to send a message to Merrick Garland through an intermediary. “America is on fire”, he says, and “would like to discuss ways he (Trump) can ‘lower the temperature’.” Haberman says this is the same tactic he tried to use on Nancy Pelosi when the House was planning the second impeachment. It seems to contain an implied threat along with an apparent offer of cooperation. Sounds like Trumpie is genuinely worried. I’m sure the “offer” will have just as much effect on Garland as it did on Pelosi – maybe good for a laugh, but not much else. For a self-declared master of deal-making, Donny Two-Scoops sure is a moron.
Another item on CNN was that the Orange Peril has been claiming that he didn’t do anything that Obama didn’t also do, saying that Obama* made off with 33 million pages of documents when he left office, and lots of it was classified. The National Archives flatly contradicted this, stating that what actually happened was that the National Archives picked up 33 million pages of documents according to standard protocols, and the classified ones were sent to the appropriate secure location – everything according to prescribed procedure. As is often said, you know the traitorous orange shit-stain is lying whenever his lips are moving.
* - ETA: IIRC, the exact reference was to Barack Hussein Obama as the individual who absconded with boxes and boxes of state secrets. This is Donny’s idea of a sophisticated diplomatic statement from a former president. A bald-faced lie isn’t enough; it has to have a racist twist, too.
This is the likely scenario, that documents and other stuff were hastily gathered and boxed at the last minute, when TFG finally realized he had to leave the WH, as his gambit to stay there failed in a spectacularly pathetic way. If he’d just have accepted his election loss like a man, his vacating the WH would have been more orderly and less dramatic, and mistakes likely would have been avoided. Altho, that scenario does not account for the top secret documents being in his posession a year and a half after leaving.
All he has to do is SHUT UP, maybe say something like “I am innocent, I trust the process will exonerate me.”
Well he knows that is a lie. So knowing that a lie is a lie equals the truth in his playbook.
A smart bully picks his targets well, but as in everything else Trump just waves his hands and assumes it will work, though I’m sure the cult will see it as “standing up to the Deep State.”
I’m still intrigued by the mention of a document involving Macron, and I’d love to know his reaction to all of this.
It’s probably a note from Trump to file, complaining about how mean ol’Macron squeezed his tiny hand for way too long.
worst.Jedi.ever.
Undermining the lawful procedural underpinnings of our government is MAGA’s entire deal. Saying something like that runs counter to all of his (extremely profitable) messaging. He gets way more money if he’s fighting against the RIGGED and CORRUPT system.
The closest we’re likely to get to this is if it goes to trial and Trump thinks the judge is on his side. Then it’ll be, “Many people are saying I am fighting against the greatest WITCH HUNT in the history of the world, but luckily the BRAVE and HONORABLE Judge Maga - who has been fighting for our rights his entire career - is known for being fair! The truth will come out and soon Sleepy Joe’s lies will be exposed!”
And talk like that only lasts until the first time the judge shows any signs of impartiality.
There was a story in the Washington Post today about a Jan 6 insurrectionist who tried that on a Republican judge.
A Capitol rioter tried to bond with a Reagan judge, then got a lecture
It didn’t go well.
He does love his weak-minded supporters.
no choice - it’s all he has.
Some here even think he has these powers. “Oh, he’s just going to declare his candidacy and that will stop the investigation” being a common example.
Michael Cohen figures the next phase of Trump’s plan (after “throw shit to the wall and confuse the public”) is the scapegoating.
And he figures that Rudy Colludy Gulliani will be the victim.
First time I read he is an optimist. So OK, then, to the future! 
Documents the FBI doesn’t need for its investigations are often inadvertently seized during document retrievals like this one.
However, I heard an interesting and plausible explanation this morning for why the FBI seized the passports in this case. If the passports are stored in proximity to classified materials, it demonstrates in whose actual possession those classified materials are. Kind of hard to point a finger at a minion as the person who possessed the materials when your passports are stored right there with them.
I’ll bet there are more than a few photographs.
No doubt DOJ would return the passports, as indicated by the notice to Trump that he could pick them up at a specified date and time. They will have served their purpose for the investigation.
Now, that is a nice and cheerful thought.
He pees out of a window?
While most crimes may not result in criminal convictions (how can there be a conviction if the crime is undetected or unreported?), most charged crimes do. 93% for DOJ-charged crimes in 2012.
From Wikipedia:
In the United States federal court system, the conviction rate rose from approximately 75 percent to approximately 85% between 1972 and 1992.[18] For 2012, the US Department of Justice reported a 93% conviction rate.[19] In 2000, the conviction rate was also high in U.S. state courts. Coughlan, writing in 2000, stated, “In recent years, the conviction rate has averaged approximately 84% in Texas, 82% in California, 72% in New York, 67% in North Carolina, and 59% in Florida.”[20]
In 2018, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that among defendants charged with a felony, 68% were convicted
I wonder if the federal conviction rate changes materially among cases which go to trial, as opposed to ending on a plea deal of one sort or another. Or would the ‘conviction rate’ only count trials?