The FBI should say they found DNA from his tears on the documents.
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
I think they got their intentions mixed up, and what they really meant to assert is that The administration of justice cannot be allowed to impact [our] politics.
My favorite quote from the filing:
"Once back in the dining room, one of the FBI agents said, “Thank you. You did not need to show us the storage room, but we appreciate it. Now it all makes sense.”
Sure, Donny. That’s exactly what they said.
… and the agents gazed up into the Mar-A Lago cameras (with tears in their eyes) and said “Sir we’re really sorry to do this, but Biden is making us.” Big strong men. With tears.
It must be the truth. If it were a lie, they would have addressed him as “sir”.
The Trump appointed judge on the receiving end of Trump’s filing has responded, before the DOJ responded which I’m told is unusual, with some questions for the Trump team. At least two of the five questions appear to be some form of, “Why did you send this to me instead of Judge Reinhart?” Another question seems to be, “What are you even asking for?”
You can see it in an image in this Tweet from Kyle Cheney:
Leaving aside the hilariously unprofessional, self serving and heavily embellished narrative it is very interesting to pay attention to what they seem particularly concerned about.
The specified actions that they want the court to take is:
- An independent third party established to go through the documents
- The FBI to stop looking through the documents until the third party is established
- A complete list of exactly what was taken (how they are supposed to do this without looking at them isn’t specified.)
- Everything not listed on the warrant returned to Trump.
They also seem to making a big deal about how the warrant allowed the FBI to take things that were in the vicinity of the documents they were sent to find.
Note none of this is specifically related to the Top Secret Documents that were at the heart of the warrant and which has got everyone else excited.
Reading between the lines, I think that some unrelated but highly incriminating documents were stored along with the top secret documents that the FBI were sent to retrieve. Trump is shitting bricks since he doesn’t know in detail what they took, so he doesn’t know if they have them. He wants an independent third party to go through what was taken and filter out everything not mentioned in the warrant so the FBI can’t see them and get a whole new list of crimes to charge him with . He also wants to start laying the groundwork for the other documents being illegally seized so that if the FBI do figure out what they have and try to use it against him he can use a fruit of the poisoned tree defense.
No proof of this, obviously, but it does seem interesting.
Lesson to be learned here, don’t keep your personally incriminating documents next to your illegally obtained top secret government documents and you won’t have this problem. Someone who is smarter than everyone else should know that.
Not interesting at all, just more shit thrown agaisnt the wall hoping it will stick.
I don’t think the law works that way. A person suspected of a crime doesn’t get to negotiate how the evidence against them is handled, or ask for independent oversight.
Seriously. They essentially need a judge to agree that the FBI can’t be trusted. What color is the sky in their world?
Orange and pee pee yellow.
I guess to me Trump sending out this note to the judge that ignores all of the top secret stuff and concentrates on the other things they took, makes me as curious as if a strange old man who leads me to a room full of treasure but only seems interested in a dirty old lamp.
Work is the curse of the blogging class!
[Sorry Oscar - had to update it.]
I’ve been involved in US Federal court litigation, and what struck me is that there is no need for sworn testimony in support of a chambers motion for relief. In Canada, a chambers motion must be supported by an affidavit, outlining the basis for the evidence, and sworn by a person who can, if necessary, be cross-examined in front of the chambers judge.
For example, if I tried to file an application with something like footnote 1 in the Trump motion, it would be struck immediately. A lawyer cannot be a witness. Someone has to swear an affidavit in support of factual claims in a chambers motion.
You would also need an affidavit explaining what Mar-a-Lago is like, to support the statements on p. 4.
And if seeking final relief of some sort, the affidavit has to be based on personal knowledge, not “information and belief”.
US counsel explained that none of what I was used to, was required for a US federal motion.
My read is slightly different. He’s always had kompromat-type materials filed away. Just look at his prior relationship with the National Enquirer and what Cohen did for him. Is it so hard to believe that he had compromising documents on leading Republicans that were classified, and those were the documents he kept to maintain his position as King Idiot? He publicly said that the FBI opened his safe, and suddenly all his hangers-on flip and are against the law-and-order FBI? And then, oddly enough, demands to get he documents back, throwing up a bunch of bullshit reasons so that people can find technicalities to justify it, all so he can continue to be King Idiot?
Whether its incriminating on him or on others, the important thing is that Trump’s crew seem to be more interested in getting it back than anything to do with the top secret stuff.
I feel like their logic is that if they get some of it back they can try to claim all of it belongs to Trump. Or if some if it is protected by lawyer-client privilege so is all of it. Or so on. Basically anything to give Trump a toehold on it. I hope these arguments get dismissed for their cartoonish obviousness.
“I want someone friendly to me to go over all the stuff and give me the Kompromat back”
Did the warrant only specify that classified documents could be searched for and seized? Most of the coverage since the search has been about the secret documents that were recovered, and the possible violation of the espionage act. But there’s also the Presidential Records Act. I don’t know all the specifics of it, but aren’t any documents from Trump’s presidency considered to be public, and belong in the Archives after he leaves office?
Trump may want the non-classified documents back, but I hope the warrant included them, too.
Here’s what the warrant said could be recovered:
Property to be seized
All physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793, 2071, or 1519, including the following
- Any physical documents with classification markings, along with any containers/boxes (including any other contents) in which such documents are located, as well as any other containers/boxes that are collectively stored or found together with the aforementioned documents and containers/boxes;
- Information, including communications in any form, regarding the retrieval, storage, or transmission of national defense information or classified material;
- Any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021; or
- Any evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction, or concealment of any government and/or Presidential Records, or of any documents with classification markings.
(links added by me.)