It was supposed to be a meme but then the meme came true.
https://t.co/2S54fOQ1Dr
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) August 26, 2022
Posted on 08/26/2022 8:14:11 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
As RedState reported, the affidavit for the search warrant that led to an unprecedented FBI raid on Donald Trump’s home has been released in heavily redacted form. As if to play out the meme that had been going around for days suggesting the affidavit would be a giant blob of black ink, that turned out to be mostly true.
The document is full of redacted sections, to the point of absurdity, representing a giant middle finger to transparency by a federal bureaucracy that simply doesn’t care.
It was supposed to be a meme but then the meme came true.
https://t.co/2S54fOQ1Dr— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) August 26, 2022
So what’s in the affidavit? While the redactions cover most of that up, there is enough revealed that exposes just how blatantly political the FBI’s move was. For example, the pursuit partially originated not from any hard evidence of criminal activity, but from a CBS News article.
Biden's DOJ told a federal court that the FBI had to raid Trump's house because a CBS news article saw trucks at Mar-a-Lago when Trump was president.
pic.twitter.com/mROEJAhBz2— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) August 26, 2022
Who could have guessed that there would be moving trucks at Mar-a-Lago while Trump was in the middle of moving from the White House to Mar-a-Lago? Just incredible stuff, but it was apparently enough for the National Archives and the FBI to join forces to break all precedent to target a former president.
The other part of this centers on documents already returned to the NARA. Yes, you heard that right, part of the basis for the search warrant was that Trump had already returned boxes that had been requested. The NARA then identified some of the returned documents as still having classified markings and used it as a pretense to go after whatever else might be at Mar-a-Lago.
The boxes, as we've reported before, were a mishmash of items – a raincoat, golf balls, a razor – and also, per the DOJ filing, other random papers jumbled in with 184 individual documents with unchanged classified markings.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 26, 2022
The boxes being referred to by Maggie Haberman were returned in January of 2022 after the typical negotiation that goes on between former presidents and the National Archives. Also of note is that Haberman is very careful to use the phrase “unchanged classified markings” instead of “classified documents.” That’s a nod to the fact that they were declassified before being copied and taken.
That notion is furthered by the fact that the affidavit makes clear the classification of the documents is not what is at issue under the Espionage Act. This was an incredibly broad fishing expedition based on no legitimate probable cause.
Read this and try to not have your mind melt.
https://t.co/oiELgeM65s— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) August 26, 2022
Despite having an open dialogue that had already produced fruit, the NARA then sent a criminal referral to the FBI upon receiving those documents. The FBI responded by immediately opening a criminal investigation without even a hint of caution given the magnitude of the situation.
Read carefully. On only a NARA referral alone (in Feb) they just plowed ahead and opened a CRIMINAL investigation.
pic.twitter.com/f2KzaqIfAL— Mccabe's Porsche on Blocks (@Larry_Beech) August 26, 2022
Another media narrative also bit the dust within the affidavit. Many claimed that Trump had retroactively made up the story of declassifying the documents as a way to cover himself after the fact. Nope. According to the affidavit, he told the FBI and NARA that same thing prior to the raid. They appear to have simply ignored the fact that Trump declassified the documents in question before taking them under his authority as president. If there is an explanation given for that in the affidavit, it’s redacted.
In the affidavit, the Justice Department acknowledged that Trump’s lawyers and former officials pointed to his “absolute authority to declassify documents” as president.
If the DOJ explains why they ignored that point, their rationale is completely redacted.
pic.twitter.com/5sqyNVMioD— Vince Coglianese (@VinceCoglianese) August 26, 2022
What’s this come down to? If you believe the affidavit’s justification, it’s not really about the possession of classified materials, and there’s no real indication that there will be criminal charges coming. Instead, it appears the grand disagreement was over what constituted a “secure” location at Mar-a-Lago. Yes, they raided a former president’s home because they felt a double-locked storage room protected by Secret Service wasn’t enough, even as Trump had tried to accommodate their concerns.
Lol they raided his house because the paper pushers at National Archives were bent out of shape about document storage.
https://t.co/EPwqti4GQi— Rachel Bovard (@rachelbovard) August 26, 2022
What was shown today in this affidavit is a gross abuse of power by an out-of-control federal bureaucracy that is targeting Trump based purely on politics. The NARA never treated Barack Obama like this despite him taking millions of documents, many sensitive, and not following through on his commitment to scan and upload them. The fact that Trump was cooperative over what turned out to be a relatively mundane issue only makes things worse.
The NARA is run by a democrat hack and the partisan FBI has been trying to get the bad orange man from the moment he announced his first presidential run. Both institutions used their power to gin up bad headlines for Trump via the raid and coordinated leaks knowing full well there was no reason to treat this as a criminal matter. It’s more evidence on top of the already existing mountain that the bureaucracy must be torn down brick by brick. Any Republican still arguing for the “rank-and-file” doesn’t know what time it is.
As expected - the usual coverup by the secret police
Only reason for the raid is because powerful Democrats want it. Nothing more need to be said.
Banana republics have higher standards of conduct than this.
These activities are in the process of deligitimizing the State.
Sounds like an attempted Insurrection by the FBI.
How many cover ups can the FIB and the dem party pile on top of each other? I’ve totally lost count at this point anyway.
Can some creative FReeper make a meme with a page of redacted lines that look like “FJB” or Let’s Go Brandon”?
The dirty cops make the other 2% look bad.
The USA, a once-great country, is under the control of a fascist government which is in the process of using “law enforcement” to disable its greatest enemy.
So why don’t Trump’s attorneys release a complete unredacted form they have a copy.
Yeah he’s the victim all right… Everyone knows this man can do absolutely no wrong, that he has a sinless birth, and that he is the second coming of Christ I. Our political times. /sarc
People are in gonna be really surprised as to what comes out in the next six weeks or so. Foremost: Why he took them. Nobody has answered that one yet.
And sorry, so far of the Judge Reinhart-allowed-redacted not gacilitating anyone yet to identify the snitches and narcs in Mar-a-Lago (and maybe even within Donald Trump’s own family), certainly his staff who knew what was what and where, who cannot be off’ed or intimidated or tampered with just yet. :-(
They’re are after us, Trump is just in the way.
If they can do this to Trump then we are all f’d.
As President he has the plenary power to take and declassify any document he wants. And it doesn't require some special permission by some low level flunky at Archives. If Trump says they're declassified, then they are. Period. End of discussion.
The DOJ and FBI can alter any Gov’t doc for their own purposes.
I’m sorry, but I do not buy that narrative anymore. AFAIC, the entirety of the FBI is corrupt and complicit - from the mail room to the board room. Silence in the face of known criminal/corrupt action is COMPLICITY.
Trump’s attorneys are a joke.
Crap you get better lawyers from stripmalls specializing in rent collection… He’s exhausted all his options on the legal representative front for a number of reasons; first and foremost a long record since NYC of not paying people and not being a cooperative client… He dug his own damn hole and is now essentially down to fourth string with these Jack balls like Bobb, Habba, Halligan, Wiles, Epshtyn, Patel and that idiot instance lawyer. So many of his counsel are now battling for they’re own careers (sanctions, disbar, even possible criminal violations) joke The feds are going. to. eat. them. alive.
Wait til the IRS shows up next week....
Crap you get better lawyers from stripmalls specializing in rent collection… He’s exhausted all his options on the legal representative front for a number of reasons; first and foremost a long record since NYC of not paying people and not being a cooperative client… He dug his own damn hole and is now essentially down to fourth string with these Jack balls like Bobb, Habba, Halligan, Wiles, Epshtyn, Patel and that idiot instance lawyer. So many of his counsel are now battling for they’re own careers (sanctions, disbar, even possible criminal violations) joke The feds are going. to. eat. them. alive.
and why is that? who is trying to punish anyone who represents him?
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