FBI executed search warrant at Mar-a-Lago

[AG_PhamD]

After revelation of the recent human trafficking busts, explain to me again why the right wants to defund the FBI?

FBI locates 121 minors, 141 adults in nationwide human trafficking bust

The FBI worked with state and local partners to track down the victims during a campaign dubbed "Operation Cross Country."

www.axios.com

I have to admit, I am quite tired of the hypocrisy of the Republican and Democrat leaders here when it comes to law enforcement (To be clear, that’s not to say law enforcement doesn’t have its own set of legitimate problems)

Starting with the GOP, they have historically called themselves the party of law and order. They’re complaining constantly about Dem lead cities crime problems. They almost always defend the police, in some cases going too far. They were firmly against the anti-defund / disband / radical reformation of policing a couple years ago.

Yet now they want to defund the FBI, but loved Comey when his public statements on Clinton probably helped a lot in her losing the 2016 election. They were silent on cases of blatant FBI entrapment of young Muslim men until it came to the Gretchen Whitmer fiasco. Many seem to have little regard for law enforcement on Jan 6th. They seem to be going after the Border Patrol now because of a video purportedly showing some agents letting migrants in through a locked gate. And so much for law and order when it comes to attempting to overthrow the results of an election... or in some cases insinuating it or failing to reject such claims.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have been critical of law enforcement, in many cases for good reasons such as police brutality and racial profiling. They long criticized the FBI for entrapping vulnerable young Muslim men in fake terrorist plots- like the kid that had to ask his mom first. The FBI, or at least Comey was attributed by many for unfairly ruining Clinton’s campaign, but then became a hero when it came to Russiagate.

There is also a large swath that seem to think cops are almost universally racist pigs with bad intent. That cops don’t deserve any type of respect for the difficult job they have because it’s a career choice they made and they choose to work in a corrupt system. There are those who think law enforcement should be defunded. Or in some cases “abolished”. Border Control and ICE aren’t exactly well regarded by many Dems.

When it came to the protests and riots of 2020 when innocent people were injured, killed, businesses burned, etc- along with many cops injured and some likely killed connection, there was little regard for law enforcement or rule of law.

But on January 6th these same voices had great concern for the safety of law enforcement- rightfully so. And now that many Republicans are making radical comments against the FBI (which is totally unacceptable), the Dems are once again pro-law enforcement.

I’m just going to call it as I see it. Neither side here has much integrity when it comes to law enforcement. Law enforcement is unfortunately used as a convenient pawn in promoting one agenda or another. It’s reasons like this I don’t associate myself with either party.

Disclaimer: My diatribe here is not intended to condemn members here for affiliating with a party, rather the hypocrisy of the political leadership and media.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

I have to admit, I am quite tired of the hypocrisy of the Republican and Democrat leaders here when it comes to law enforcement (To be clear, that’s not to say law enforcement doesn’t have its own set of legitimate problems)

Starting with the GOP, they have historically called themselves the party of law and order. They’re complaining constantly about Dem lead cities crime problems. They almost always defend the police, in some cases going too far. They were firmly against the anti-defund / disband / radical reformation of policing a couple years ago.

Yet now they want to defund the FBI, but loved Comey when his public statements on Clinton probably helped a lot in her losing the 2016 election. They were silent on cases of blatant FBI entrapment of young Muslim men until it came to the Gretchen Whitmer fiasco. Many seem to have little regard for law enforcement on Jan 6th. They seem to be going after the Border Patrol now because of a video purportedly showing some agents letting migrants in through a locked gate. And so much for law and order when it comes to attempting to overthrow the results of an election... or in some cases insinuating it or failing to reject such claims.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have been critical of law enforcement, in many cases for good reasons such as police brutality and racial profiling. They long criticized the FBI for entrapping vulnerable young Muslim men in fake terrorist plots- like the kid that had to ask his mom first. The FBI, or at least Comey was attributed by many for unfairly ruining Clinton’s campaign, but then became a hero when it came to Russiagate.

There is also a large swath that seem to think cops are almost universally racist pigs with bad intent. That cops don’t deserve any type of respect for the difficult job they have because it’s a career choice they made and they choose to work in a corrupt system. There are those who think law enforcement should be defunded. Or in some cases “abolished”. Border Control and ICE aren’t exactly well regarded by many Dems.

When it came to the protests and riots of 2020 when innocent people were injured, killed, businesses burned, etc- along with many cops injured and some likely killed connection, there was little regard for law enforcement or rule of law.

But on January 6th these same voices had great concern for the safety of law enforcement- rightfully so. And now that many Republicans are making radical comments against the FBI (which is totally unacceptable), the Dems are once again pro-law enforcement.

I’m just going to call it as I see it. Neither side here has much integrity when it comes to law enforcement. Law enforcement is unfortunately used as a convenient pawn in promoting one agenda or another. It’s reasons like this I don’t associate myself with either party.

Disclaimer: My diatribe here is not intended to condemn members here for affiliating with a party, rather the hypocrisy of the political leadership and media.

You make some valid points and there are extreme opinions among Republicans and Democrats. I think however that there's a difference. While some rank and file Democrats might have low opinions of all cops and want to defund or abolish them, that view isn't shared by leaders of the party, certainly not Biden. And similarly there are extremists among the Republican rank and file who are attacking the FBI but much of that is also coming from the titular head of the party, Donald Trump, as well as other leaders. DeSantis said we're turning into a banana republic. McCarthy threatened Garland with an investigation should the GOP win back the house in November. Etc.

The DOJ negotiated with Trump for many months about returning the documents but he lied about having done so. Any reasonable person would conclude that the DOJ and FBI were totally justified in executing a search warrant to retrieve documents which have the potential of grave harm to the nation if they fall into the wrong hands (if they haven't already).

I think the Republicans hypocrisy outweighs that of the Democrats because the shift in their position is so abrupt and is in defense of the indefensible (stolen classified documents) and the extreme views are coming from leaders of the party.

 

[Renzatic]

I think the Republicans hypocrisy outweighs that of the Democrats because the shift in their position is so abrupt and is in defense of the indefensible (stolen classified documents) and the extreme views are coming from leaders of the party.

I'd say that the democrats are very much the lesser of the two evils, but their tendency to look the other way when it came to issues among their own helped open the gates for Trump. That soft corruption I mentioned earlier became justification for the gross corruption we're seeing now. It provided the excuses, the fuel for the whataboutism now so regularly used to justify so much worse.

It's the perfect example of why we shouldn't make exceptions for bad behavior. Hillary's little email fiasco wasn't the worst security breach we've ever faced in our history, and there was no evidence of any criminal intent behind it. When you consider all the facts, it seems all she did was respond to inquiries involving her position as Secretary of State without considering where she was replying from. The end result was that some classified information ended up being mixed in with her private correspondences. Not great, but not the worst thing in the world, either. Mostly, she, and we by extension, were lucky it wasn't any worse than that.

So does that mean we should've done nothing to her, say her punishment was losing the presidency, and call it a day? No. She should've been fined $100k, and put on two years probation. Same as what happened with Patraeus. If we did, then Republicans wouldn't be having such an easy time justifying what Trump did to their voter base now. They wouldn't be able to point at Hillary, and say that she did similar, and they're only wanting to punish Trump because of scared of him.

No, they'd be saying that they only charged Hillary $100k, and two years probation for a similar crime. That'd still be a more difficult position to defend, since it's easy to illustrate what Trump did as being 100 steps beyond in response, plus they wouldn't have the accusations of favoritism and hypocrisy to fall back on.

 

[AG_PhamD]

You make some valid points and there are extreme opinions among Republicans and Democrats. I think however that there's a difference. While some rank and file Democrats might have low opinions of all cops and want to defund or abolish them, that view isn't shared by leaders of the party, certainly not Biden. And similarly there are extremists among the Republican rank and file who are attacking the FBI but much of that is also coming from the titular head of the party, Donald Trump, as well as other leaders. DeSantis said we're turning into a banana republic. McCarthy threatened Garland with an investigation should the GOP win back the house in November. Etc.

The DOJ negotiated with Trump for many months about returning the documents but he lied about having done so. Any reasonable person would conclude that the DOJ and FBI were totally justified in executing a search warrant to retrieve documents which have the potential of grave harm to the nation if they fall into the wrong hands (if they haven't already).

I think the Republicans hypocrisy outweighs that of the Democrats because the shift in their position is so abrupt and is in defense of the indefensible (stolen classified documents) and the extreme views are coming from leaders of the party.

Don’t get me wrong, the response of many republicans and right wing media is completely unacceptable on this. And by no means am I defending them or whatever it is that Trump did to justify a search warrant- which I will reiterate it amazes me how strong the opinions of GOP and Dems are when just how little is officially known about this.

I would agree with your assessment currently regarding Dem pro-law enforcement sentiment at the level of the Biden administration. Things were very different in the run up to the 2020 election if you may remember- and that’s basically my point.

Biden called for the defunding of the police which then was claimed “that’s not really what he meant” (and now has plans to vastly expand policing). Harris backed a fund to bail rioters out of jail. Last I heard Biden also wants to “punish” the Border officers who were falsely accused of “whipping” purely out of optics. And the Dems overwhelming lack of condemnation of 2020 riots is really inexcusable. It would be naive to say the chaos of 2020 riots wasn’t exploited for political benefit (on both sides).

The politicians perception around law enforcement changes in whatever way it is most beneficial. I would also say the Dem leadership opinions at the level of Congress and State/Local are often quite negative of law enforcement.

Back to Mar-a-lago- the default position should be the DOJ and FBI executed their processes by the book, unless and until proven otherwise. Given the FBI’s track record with Trump I believe you’d have to be willfully ignorant not to think the GOP wouldn’t be at a minimum skeptical of the FBI acting in less than ethical ways. Frankly I see no way around that reality (which is a position the FBI put themselves in thanks to the past unethical actions of a small few) other than to be as transparent as feasible. On the other hand, the GOP has to admit at the very least many of Trump’s responses to this raid only appear to incriminate him further.

 

[ronntaylor]

Awful lot of projection going on is all I’m saying. I submit that a man acting exactly the same as she acted would not be accused of being “arrogant.”

Wesley Clark, John Edwards, Howard Dean and a host of other men would like to remind you that they also were called arrogant. For less egregious behavior. And HC et al called Obama arrogant for even competing against her.

<delete>repetitive list of HC's arrogant actions: 2008, 2016</delete>

 

[GermanSuplex]

Wesley Clark, John Edwards, Howard Dean and a host of other men would like to remind you that they also were called arrogant. For less egregious behavior. And HC et al called Obama arrogant for even competing against her.

<delete>repetitive list of HC's arrogant actions: 2008, 2016</delete>

It’s hard to believe Dean giving a loud scream tanked the rest of his candidacy. Trump has had every scandal most democrats have had over the last two decades, and he’s still the de-facto party leader.

Porn stars, sexual assault and rape allegations, cozying up to Russia, hauling off government documents, saying mind-boggling stupid shit, mishandling a pandemic, telling thousands of massive lies, trying to get foreign officials to investigate political opponents, getting caught on tape pressuring a Georgia official to “find” votes… it has callbacks to Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Rod Blagojevich and who knows how many others,

 

[ronntaylor]

It’s hard to believe Dean giving a loud scream tanked the rest of his candidacy.

Media manipulation! It was such a blatant move by the press. The scream was manufactured because Dean was considered an outsider and really too liberal. By the mostly liberal press/companies.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

DeSantis said we're turning into a banana republic.

I like how he got that exactly backwards, but of course he did because he's a Republican. In a banana republic leaders aren't held accountable. The Republican party is mad because that's exactly what we are attempting to do. Fucking morons.

 

[shadow puppet]

So I'm reading they found more than 300 classified documents at MAL. Some TS/SCI? National defense secrets?
Now can we lock his fat arse up?

Oh and just for posterity, even Fox news agrees the search was justified.

 

[DT]

It’s hard to believe Dean giving a loud scream tanked the rest of his candidacy. Trump has had every scandal most democrats have had over the last two decades, and he’s still the de-facto party leader.

Porn stars, sexual assault and rape allegations, cozying up to Russia, hauling off government documents, saying mind-boggling stupid shit, mishandling a pandemic, telling thousands of massive lies, trying to get foreign officials to investigate political opponents, getting caught on tape pressuring a Georgia official to “find” votes… it has callbacks to Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Rod Blagojevich and who knows how many others,

One the trump moments where I couldn't believe he had any goodwill afterwards - specifically with christians - was when he was asked about his "favorite chapter or verse from the bible", this was shortly after parading down to a church with armed guards, an waving one around.

He couldn't quote a single __anything__, I mean, FFS, just toss out John 3:16, we've all seen the guy for decades who used to wear the wig and hold up the sign at sporting events. The follow up was a softball, something about Old vs. New Testament, even that he couldn't respond to, I think he mumbled something about "It's a personal choice".

Here's a guy, positioning himself as a christian, as a man of some faith, and he knows absolutely nothing it, but still gets support from that group, and even worse, they project some kind of divinity on this guy who's never been to church ...

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1561410345272545283/

 

[Eric]

Oh FFS...

Trump filed a lawsuit arguing DOJ should stop reviewing materials from Mar-a-Lago until a 'special master' is appointed​

Trump filed a lawsuit arguing DOJ should stop reviewing materials from Mar-a-Lago until a 'special master' is appointed

Trump's lawyers said he's the "clear frontrunner" in the 2024 GOP primary and claimed the Mar-a-Lago raid was politically motivated.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[Cmaier]

Oh FFS...

Trump filed a lawsuit arguing DOJ should stop reviewing materials from Mar-a-Lago until a 'special master' is appointed​

Trump filed a lawsuit arguing DOJ should stop reviewing materials from Mar-a-Lago until a 'special master' is appointed

Trump's lawyers said he's the "clear frontrunner" in the 2024 GOP primary and claimed the Mar-a-Lago raid was politically motivated.

www.businessinsider.com

It’s really comical. You are supposed to have a sworn affidavit and cite to it for each supposed fact that you allege. It doesn’t do that. You are supposed to cite why the court has jurisdiction. It doesn’t do that (and it probably doesn’t). You are supposed to cite case law. It barely does that, and the case it cites actually says the opposite of what they claim it says (Nixon). You aren’t supposed to ask rhetorical questions.

And the reason a special master supposedly should be appointed is that these are presidential documents and thus entitled to executive privilege. But executive privileged documents are supposed to be with the national archives now.

And the document keeps referring to Trump as president and making arguments as if he is still president.

 

[fooferdoggie]

It’s really comical. You are supposed to have a sworn affidavit and cite to it for each supposed fact that you allege. It doesn’t do that. You are supposed to cite why the court has jurisdiction. It doesn’t do that (and it probably doesn’t). You are supposed to cite case law. It barely does that, and the case it cites actually says the opposite of what they claim it says (Nixon). You aren’t supposed to ask rhetorical questions.

And the reason a special master supposedly should be appointed is that these are presidential documents and thus entitled to executive privilege. But executive privileged documents are supposed to be with the national archives now.

And the document keeps referring to Trump as president and making arguments as if he is still president.

well when you have no real lawyers anymore this is what you get.

 

[Cmaier]

well when you have no real lawyers anymore this is what you get.

There are indications this was written by Kash Patel and Trump, himself. When it was first filed, the case was listed as pro se, meaning trump is acting as his own lawyer. But the document is signed (e-signed) by three lawyers, who appear to actually be witnesses (and thus subject to conflict). Not clear whether they actually signed it or not (you are allowed to affix a signature of a lawyer by doing ”/s/ firstname last name” but only if the lawyer authorizes you. And it turns out a different lawyer (the insurance lawyer) finally made “an appearance” on his behalf in this docket, but the three lawyers who supposedly signed the document did not.

There are a ton of statements in there that open Trump and his attorneys up to all sorts of discovery, and allow the DoJ to “speak” about an open investigation in order to refute the crazy lies and theories.

Note that even though nobody swore an affidavit supporting any of the lies that are listed in this complaint, the lawyers who signed it are still on the hook, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they eventually get sanctioned for this nonsense.

 

[GermanSuplex]

It was reported on The Beat that the FBI asked for surveillance footage BEFORE the search of Mar-A-Lago. And that finding over 100 (may have been 150) classified documents in January is what triggered this investigation. No wonder they’re behind the J6 committee, they were probably already knee-deep into this investigation. And let’s not pretend we know everything they do about Trump and his crime ring’s actions regarding to January 6. Garland’s DoJ could just be less leaky than Trump’s. I always thought the leaks in the justice department were less about them having an issue and more about people trying to sound the alarm on a criminal enterprise operating out of the White House.

What all this says to me is that Trump is in trouble. This is not a satellite investigation from January 6. This is independent, a crime of its own. Illegally taking documents he wasn’t entitled to, refusing to give them back, and then in typical Trump fashion, obstructing any attempts to get them back or investigate his wrongdoing. He’s going to be indicted, and I highly doubt his lies, bluster and thinly-veiled attacks on the DoJ are going to help him.

The most laughable defense so far is a “standing order” to declassify documents. One, because the potential charges makes that irrelevant: declassifying they documents doesn’t make it legal for him to take and store them at home, and refusing to turn them over to the National Archives. Then they’re saying he “took his work home”. That goes against ANOTHER defense his supporters have made, that he isn’t sitting around reading them, or that someone else packed them and they just “ended up” there. Each of these arguments contradict one another.

The arguments are all over the place. I would not be surprised if others are indicted for aiding in this.

The “Gang of 8” on Capitol Hill want to see the documents Trump stole. I’d be interested in seeing their reaction to what was taken.

I heard a good theory as to why Trump took these documents: turning them back in to where they belonged would be somewhat of an admission he had lost, symbolically at least. And of course, Trump’s instinct to do anything he’s told is to do the opposite. Someone joked that if he had been told to take them home with him and glance over them, they would have been turned into the Archives the same day.

The cult will whine, yell, discredit everyone and maybe even drum up some random violence, but it won’t hinder the investigation or help Trump.

 

[Citysnaps]

The most laughable defense so far is a “standing order” to declassify documents. One, because the potential charges makes that irrelevant: declassifying they documents doesn’t make it legal for him to take and store them at home, and refusing to turn them over to the National Archives. Then they’re saying he “took his work home”.

And...presidential declassifications are required to be memorialized in writing as part of the process. Apparently such documents simply don't exist. Shocked!

 

[Eric]

 

[Eric]

I refuse to believe Trump would be untruthful about this.

DOJ is seeking further surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago, suggesting Trump may still have secret documents there: NYT​

• The New York Times reported that officials are seeking more evidence from Mar-a-Lago.
• Per the paper, it could be because the think more classified documents are being kept there.
• FBI agents retrieved vast numbers of records on August 8, sparking a political firestorm.

DOJ is seeking further surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago, suggesting Trump may still have secret documents there: NYT

The FBI's investigation into former President Donald Trump's handling of classified information is not winding up, reported The New York Times.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[fooferdoggie]

I refuse to believe Trump would be untruthful about this.

DOJ is seeking further surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago, suggesting Trump may still have secret documents there: NYT​

they must not have looked in the bathrooms.

 

[GermanSuplex]

Since Trump's lawyers (including that gal that's been doing the rounds on TV recently) signed documents stating Trump had turned over all classified documents - which could probably be used as proof anything he held onto was criminal - it also puts them in quite the bind. That's not something you just sign hastily. They would be tasked with going through documents and consulting with their client to ensure they truthfully believed he had no more classified info.

This means that they were either in on the crime, and attorney/client privilege will be harder for them to argue, or they were indeed duped by Trump, which would also show Trump's guilt and force them to implicate their client.

Also, if Trump tries to argue in court that he declassified the documents, that's a tacit admission they didn't belong to him. Those belong in the archives, as the property of the federal government.

His lies are really catching up to him here. I thought the DoJ would send him to prison based on his involvement (and by involvement, I mean leading) the coup plot around January 6. This investigation is a monster unto itself, even if you throw out the cases in Georgia and the J6 committee's work.

Am I really to believe a guy who campaigned on locking Hillary Clinton up for less egregious acts just did all this by accident, or with some non-existent "standing order to declassify"?