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Judge Bruce Reinhart on Monday admitted the FBI's raid on former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home was "unprecedented" and formally rejected the Justice Department's argument to keep the affidavit leading to the search under seal, citing the "intense public and historical interest." Reinhart, in a filing Monday morning, said he rejects "the Government’s argument that the present record justifies keeping the entire Affidavit under seal." "The Government argues that even requiring it to redact portions of the Affidavit that could not reveal agent identities or investigative sources and methods imposes an undue burden on its resources and sets a precedent that...

Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he was “confident” Attorney General Merrick Garland took every precaution and acted appropriately in the investigation resulting in a raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. Anchor Jake Tapper said, “You asked for a damage assessment and a classified briefing from the intelligence community last week regarding the raid on Mar-a-Lago, the search warrant on Mar-a-Lago. Have you heard back from the intelligence community? And do you have any concerns about the potential for this precedent, a search of a president’s house, to be abused?”

Democratic consultant and political commentator James Carville said in an interview with The Hill TV that former President Trump’s alleged mishandling of top secret documents could be the biggest story since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Carville said, “This Mar-a-Lago story which might be the biggest story since 9/11. That’s not going anywhere. It’s not going anywhere. So if you are a Democrat, you are going to get asked about inflation. If you are a Republican, you are going to get asked about Trump. We can say inflation is bad. They can’t say Trump is bad.”

Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Sunday defended the FBI’s execution of a search warrant at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, saying critics in the GOP need to “pull back on casting judgment.” “The FBI is simply carrying out their responsibilities under the law, a lawful search warrant that a magistrate signed off on. And they didn’t go in there with FBI raid jackets. They tried to constrain their behavior carrying out that warrant,” Hutchinson said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” calling on fellow Republicans to “stand with” law enforcement. “If the GOP is going to be the party...

UPDATE: (Aug. 12, 2022, 3:13 p.m. ET): NBC News on Friday obtained a copy of the warrant used in the FBI's search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, as well as the related property receipt. The FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents in the search, according to the documents. This week, in addition to having his private residence searched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, former President Donald Trump was deposed in an investigation by the New York Attorney General’s office. There he apparently didn’t say much other than that he was asserting his Fifth Amendment...

by about an hour ago The Supreme Court has dealt the Biden administration a defeat on a “caretaking” case. The case tested whether or not police could enter private property without a warrant if an individual was believed to pose a threat to himself or others. In the case Caniglia v. Strom, the Supreme Court ruled that “caretaking” did not justify entering a man’s home to remove firearms because he was believed to have expressed suicidal thoughts. The man was taken to a local mental health facility for psychiatric evaluation. “Police entered the home under a ‘community caretaking’ exception that...

The 4th Amendment right against warrantless searches of a person’s home is a pillar of Americans’ constitutional liberties. Before a police officer, or any other government official, can enter your home, they must show a judge that they have probable cause that they will discover specific evidence of a crime. There are some limited exceptions to this right. There is an “exigent circumstances” exception. If a police officer looks through a home’s window and sees a person about to stab another person, the officer can burst through the door to prevent the attack. There is also the “emergency aid” exception....

Should Biden secure the presidency, it is almost certain that Americans will see their liberties evaporate very quickly in the coming years. Taking into account the resulting outrage over these developments, it is likely that heretofore law-abiding citizens will gravitate toward citizen militias and even nationalist organizations that may employ terrorist tactics. Once again, such a progression could escalate into civil war. We are most certainly already at war, although few have acknowledged this fact. I've taken some heat for comparing the first few salvos we've seen to actual military engagements and the horror that goes with them, but those...

Shortly after President Trump's remarks to the nation Monday morning about back-to-back mass shootings over the weekend, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham announced a bipartisan agreement to federally fund local "Red Flag" laws. “I appreciate President Trump’s strong statement rejecting hate and white supremacist ideology, urging us all to reject a culture of violence, as well as a call to action on multiple fronts," Graham released in a statement. “I have reached an agreement with Senator Blumenthal to create a federal grant program to assist and encourage states to adopt ‘Red Flag’ Protection Order laws to timely intervene in...

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Monday signed into law an Extreme Risk Protection Order bill, commonly referred to as "red flag laws." Under the new law, family members, school administrators and law enforcement officials can have a person's firearms confiscated from people believed to be a threat to themselves or others. "If initially approved by a judge, the individual would be banned from buying, possessing or attempting to buy firearms for up to six days. During that time, a hearing would have to be held on extending the length of the order up to one year. It permits...

The First Amendment follows the logic of the Constitution as a whole; it restricts what the federal government – in this case, Congress – can do. So does the Second: "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." That "shall not be infringed" is strong language and perfectly clear. To infringe is to trespass, to intrude, to encroach. "Shall not be infringed" in plain language means "No Trespassing." And it is the government that is warned to keep out. George Washington wrote that the American Founding occurred during a time "when the rights of...

One of the nation’s best-known advocates for the Second Amendment is warning of a new push for “star chamber” courtroom proceedings in which a prosecutor and a judge could decide to withdraw constitutional rights from individuals merely because someone claims they are a danger. Moves toward gun control have come up after almost every major mass shooting in recent years. But such “star chamber” plans have not been widespread. Yet. One reason is that there already are procedures to take guns away from someone who, given due process, is determined to be a danger to others. But the advocacy group...

A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit challenging the National Security Agency's collection of emails, texts and other online communications that privacy experts have long argued violates constitutional protections of Americans' privacy. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond on Tuesday reversed a lower court decision and declared that Wikimedia Foundation has the legal standing to pursue the case against the NSA, America's primary foreign spy surveillance agency. Wikimedia alleges in its suit, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, that the NSA's upstream collection practices violate the 4th Amendment because they gather...

https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/supreme-court-weakens-protections-against-unconstitutional-p?utm_term=.bsYgvzddN#.tlERGMqqX Supreme Court Weakens Protections Against Unconstitutional Police Stops The 5-3 decision prompts a sharp rebuke from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who writes that those targeted by police “warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere.” Originally posted on Jun. 20, 2016, at 12:16 p.m. Updated on Jun. 20, 2016, at 1:07 p.m. BuzzFeed News Reporter Chris Geidner/BuzzFeed WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday made it easier for police to get evidence admitted in a prosecution even if that evidence was obtained after an unconstitutional stop. In a 5-3 decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court that...

MADISON, Wis. – Prosecutors of the political John Doe investigation into dozens of conservative groups and Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign will not be able to hold on to the mountains of documents they illegally seized, according to an order issued Tuesday by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The court filing also includes a vitriolic dissenting opinion from Justice Shirley Abrahamson that may set a new standard of bitterness for the liberal former chief justice.Four conservatives on the seven-member court denied a motion for limited intervention in the Supreme Court cases related to Wisconsin’s infamous John Doe probe.Justices Anne Walsh Bradley and...

A majority of Americans say they support warrantless government surveillance of the Internet communications of U.S. citizens, according to a new poll by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It's at least somewhat important for the government to sacrifice freedoms to ensure safety, most say in the survey. ...

Orem • Rand Paul brought his message of limited government and strict observance of the U.S. Constitution to Utah Saturday. A crowd of several hundred applauded his call to stand up for all 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights — not just the one protecting gun rights. "You can't support the Second Amendment unless you protect the Fourth," the GOP presidential candidate said, referring to the constitutional prohibition against unlawful search and seizure. That applause line was the Kentucky senator's segue into his intense opposition to blanket data-gathering on U.S. citizens — a key pillar of his long-shot campaign....

A federal judge on Tuesday sided with the government in a lawsuit alleging the National Security Agency is illegally engaging in the bulk collection of Internet and telephone records in the hunt for potential terrorists. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in Oakland said the plaintiffs in the case—AT&T customers—had not shown that all AT&T customers’ Internet communications were currently the subject of a “dragnet seizure and search program, controlled by or at the direction of the Government,” and they therefore did not have standing to file a lawsuit under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against warrantless searches and seizures. White...

WASHINGTON — Confronting a right-to-privacy question in the new world of smartphones, the Supreme Court justices sounded closely split Tuesday on whether police officers should be free to search through the phone of any person who is arrested. Justice Elena Kagan, the newest and youngest member of the high court, urged her colleagues to insist on protecting privacy. “People carry their entire lives on their cellphone,” she said during the argument involving a San Diego case. If there are no limits, a police officer could stop a motorist for not having seat belt buckled and download a huge amount of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether police can search an arrested criminal suspect's cell phone without a warrant in two cases that showcase how the courts are wrestling to keep up with rapid technological advances. Taking up cases from California and Massachusetts arising from criminal prosecutions that used evidence obtained without a warrant, the high court will wade into how to apply older court precedent, which allows police to search items carried by a defendant at the time of arrest, to cell phones.