It’s a cliche that when a streetpunk gets caught holding drugs his first statement is “Hey, that aint mine, you planted that,” so I’m thinking that all cops everywhere have efficient, succinct safeguards against this accusation. But I haven’t heard the FBI’s in the Mar-a-lago caper, likely because they’re waiting to hear it said in court and because they don’t want to dignify such shenanigans with a premature rebuttal. But what is it? Their own sworn testimony that they didn’t plant it? Filmed evidence of the search? A paper trail showing Trump had these documents at one point and no paper trail of him returning them?
In Trump’s case, I’d guess the sheer impracticality of secretly schlepping dozens of boxes of documents into Mar-a-Lago would make any accusations of planting evidence pretty silly.
In the generic case of someone arrested with a small amount of contraband, I suppose it’s generally “your word against ours” combined with body cameras.
I think that with any public agency, the more transparency, the less chance of charges of malfeasance. Whenever possible, police should use cameras to document their work.
On Cops, a common defense during vehicle stops is that an unknown passerby tossed drugs through an open window into the car.
Possibly someone who has it in for Trump threw classified documents through a window at Mar-A-Lago.
Not really what I’m asking. I can imagine all sorts of defenses–what I’d like to know is what’s the FBI’s best way of showing this is nonsense.
If Trump demands the documents be returned, wouldn’t that argue against them being planted?
There’s plenty of possibilities. I suspect the whole “planted” thing will die on the vine once Trump acknowledges in court that he did in fact have the documents in his possession. Maybe the police don’t have to bother to refute “It was planted” because in 99% of the cases, the accused just gives up on that defense anyway, and in the other 1% they have evidence like their sworn testimony and photographic evidence of the bust itself?
In the general case: Because the agents aren’t allowed to investigate anything where they have a conflict of interest. So you’re just dealing with professionals who don’t know the suspect, e.g. Billy, and don’t care whether the guy that stole all the money is Billy or some other person except that the evidence is pointing at Billy. There’s no motive for these agents to pick this particular guy.
In the Trump case: To the extent that there is a conflict of interest, most of it runs in Trump’s favor. Garland was appointed by Trump’s political foe but, outside of that:
- Trump appointed the head of the FBI, Chris Wray.
- Jeff Sessions probably hired Jay Bratt, the FBI person leading the investigation. Sessions was appointed by Trump.
- The head of the DOJ in the Southern District of Florida, Juan Antonio “Tony” Gonzalez, was appointed by Trump.
- Since its founding, nearly 100 years ago, the director of the FBI has been a Republican for all but a brief 2 month period in the 1990s.
- Trump had four years to purge the FBI of anyone who was politically motivated against him and there’s been no great rehiring since he left.
So, really, unless Garland can be shown as having flown down to Florida, telling everyone to step out of the room for a few minutes, and then flying back to Washington…
Sadly, the FBI doesn’t have a great record on handling evidence.
OK, but Billy’s lawyers say they just picked some innocent person off the street to say they’ve solved the crime. Does that ever fly?
I’m sure that someone has tried it. But, minus some evidence that they were truly lazy - e.g. the defense lawyer has found a better suspect - that’s a hard case to make.
The Feds take notes on everything they do as they do it. They can walk through the whole case from start to finish, explaining where they went, who they talked to, and the whole course of events that lead them to Billy. They can bring in witnesses who can confirm that they had a conversation matching the notes and they can bring in documents and items that match the notes.
The officers don’t just need to drop a piece of evidence, they need to invent the story of a whole investigation and all the steps along the way. They didn’t get into that room, with a warrant in hand, out of thin air. There were dozens of steps that preceded it and lots of paperwork around it all. People who work alongside them can confirm that they saw them doing the work.
If they were genuinely lazy, the defense might be able to prove that they were lazy. But if they weren’t lazy and were going through the process in a reasonable manner, then there’s no reason to think that they would be any less methodical and fair when dealing with physical evidence.
Would they go through all of this to plant evidence?
Those clever Democrats? Sure. The deep state knows no end to their perfidy…
All the way into Trump’s desk!!!
I was under the impression that the Trump clan watched the entire maneuver on the security cameras and that those recordings had been subpoenaed.
Would Trump admitting he had cartons of documents the FBI took help disabuse those against it being planted evidence?
Pretty sure a skilled federal prosecutor will be able to make it clear to a jury that that’s what this is.
Yes. Generally in a drug bust or similar crime a jury is going to believe a police officer more than the drug addict. Absent strong proof of malfeasance or antagonism towards the defendant (see: Mark Furman) it’s hard to impugn the integrity of the police during a trial.
Yeah, that can help too. Most reports say that the cameras were on at Mar-a-Lago so any planting would be recorded. I suppose you could try to argue that the documents were “planted” at the FBI facility after the search, but anything taken during the search would have been clearly documented at the time, along with photographs taken.
That might help, but I doubt Trump had a log of what documents he took from the White House (or had at Mar-a-Lago during his presidency). There seems to be this common idea that every piece of classified information is logged somehow and that there is a master list of every item and where it is located at all times. While this might be true for high-level stuff, it isn’t for lower level documents.
One technique you didn’t mention is corroborating testimony. Someone, for example, seems to have told the FBI that there were documents there. That person could always testify at the trial to rebut the claims that the documents were planted.
They have a record of messing with evidence in the lab, along with numerous other issues, but I’ll take their word over Trump’s without hesitation.
And at this point Trump has acknowledged possession of the documents in question proving once again that any number of Trumps randomly banging on keyboards for any number of years will ever be able to type out a single true statement,
To quote myself: