The more we find out about the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, the more ridiculous — and ominous — the story becomes. Now, Donald Trump claims agents “stole” his three passports, one of which was expired. What’s next — are they going to go after his birth certificate for harassing Barack Obama about his?
If true, does this mean Merrick Garland’s Justice Department actually considers Trump a flight risk?
In a post to Truth Social, Trump said:
Wow! In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else. This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!
Trump is correct in the sense the raid on the former president’s home was unprecedented. And if Garland ordered Trump’s passports to be seized, we have a whole new ballgame.
— Dr. Hold My Beer’s Ministry of Truth (@RealLibSmacker) August 15, 2022
After last Monday’s raid, confusion reigned over what the FBI was looking for.
While the Washington Post claimed the raid was over nuclear secrets — which Russia claims it has read — others said it was about still-classified documents that should have been in the National Archives. Trump immediately demanded that the warrant be unsealed and released to the public.
As reported by my colleague Nick Arama, the search warrant was released by a Florida court on Friday. The Wall Street Journal reported that FBI agents recovered 11 sets of classified documents, including documents marked as top secret and meant to be only available in special government facilities.
Breaking: FBI agents searching Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home removed 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to be only kept in special government facilities, according to a copy of the inventory reviewed by WSJ https://t.co/n6veD2OVSt
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 12, 2022
The warrant details the address and locations to be searched, including, “The locations to be searched include the ‘45 Office,’ all storage rooms, and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by FPOTUS and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate.”
As we also reported on Friday, the warrant contained a list of items 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:
a. 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;
b. Information, including communications in any form, regarding the retrieval, storage, or transmission of national defense information or classified material;
c. Any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021; or
d. Any evidence of the knowing alteration, destruction, or concealment of any government and/or Presidential Records, or of any documents with classification markings.
Just me, or is “Donald Trump’s passports” missing from the above list?
Trump also claims the FBI seized documents covered by attorney-client privilege as well as documents potentially protected by executive privilege during the raid, which he is demanding be returned.
But again, passports? If true, how Orwellian. Not that this whole fiasco wasn’t already that — given that Trump is being investigated under the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917.
The Act prohibits, in part “obtaining information, recording pictures, or copying descriptions of any information relating to the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information may be used for the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.”
The bottom line:
Regardless of what one thinks about Donald Trump, the 2020 election, January 6, or the raid on Mar-a-Lago, this is the same Justice Department that labeled parents as “terrorists” for demanding that Loudoun County schools stop indoctrinating their children with Marxist-derived so-called “critical race theory” and concealing incidences of sexual abuse against their children
This is the same Justice Department that failed to enforce federal law to protect Supreme Court justices and their families in their own homes, following the Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade.
This is the same Justice Department that continues to take selective, politically motivated actions against Donald Trump, former Trump associates Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, and others, while having ignored Hillary Clinton’s private server and deleted email scandal, and continues to do its best to avoid indicting Hunter Biden, despite an indisputable amount incriminating evidence.
This is the same Justice Department that has no place in our democracy.
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