The warrant to search former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort residence in Florida was unsealed yesterday by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, but not until after it had already been leaked to numerous press outlets, in violation of the judge’s order sealing it from view. The version the court made available was partially redacted, with black boxes concealing the case number of the underlying case for which the warrant was issued (“WF-3560824”), as well as the names of FBI agents responsible for the inventory of items seized. We know this because the version leaked to the press was not redacted.1 Numerous media organizations all claimed an "exclusive" on the leaked documents before they were unsealed by the court.
If I were the judge, I'd be pretty pissed about the leak (we'll see whether that's the case for this judge, though). It's a potential contempt of court violation for one of the parties to have leaked it prior to its being unsealed (due to violating the court's order). I also suppose a reporter could have wheedled it out of someone at the court itself ("You know the judge is about to release it anyway, give me a scoop"), rather than it being leaked by one of the parties, in which case it would be a potential employment issue. There may be criminal statutes involved for the leaker, as well, but I'll defer to a prosecutor or criminal defense lawyer about that.
The warrant reveals a very broad scope of search, including “[a]ny government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017. and January 20, 2021,” hoovering up basically any and all "presidential documents” from President Trump’s entire term in office! You can’t keep anything, Trump! (One suspects that the Democrats would prevent President Trump from having a presidential library if they could.) One could hardly have a broader net for a fishing expedition, and this is important for what I think may be going on.
(The FBI’s first Director, J. Edgar Hoover, reflected in his conference table. Hoover established the culture of the Bureau, including its history of interfering in politics.)
Contrary to earlier anonymously sourced leaks to the media, however, nothing specific to nuclear secrets is mentioned in the warrant (18 U.S.C. §793, which is cited in the warrant, deals with defense information generally). This resolves some problems for the Biden DOJ, such as having to explain when or whether Joe Biden was notified about the investigation of missing “nuclear documents” (as one would expect the Commander-In-Chief should be); and for that matter, how the General Services Administration managed to pack up some of the nation’s “nuclear documents” when they moved President Trump out of the Oval Office —but creates others, namely, why the extraordinary and unprecedented steps taken to raid a former President’s residence? And why now, more than 18 months after he left office?
(Washington Post headline, screenshot via @RaheemKassam)
The warrant appears to cover some ESI (electronically stored information) as well, because it says "[i]nformation, including communications in any form, regarding the retrieval, storage, or transmission of national defense information or classified material." However, as I noticed from the inventory list, it doesn't appear the FBI took any computers, though the warrant scope seems to allow for it. I wonder whether any of the relevant documents have already been scanned and backed up for safekeeping (I would expect so).
One of the statutes cited in the warrant, 18 U.S.C. §1519, suggests to me that they're looking for, among other things, evidence that President Trump concealed or destroyed evidence related to the January 6th investigation. Perhaps the scope of previous subpoenas can be argued not to have been fully complied with, which is why they would want to seize all the documents. Then they could hit him with a charge of "obstruction of justice" (a "process" crime), even if they can't prove anything else in relation to their “insurrection” narrative. It’s not really that important, politically, whether they can prove their obstruction charge, either —just that they can continue their playbook of “dirtying him up” with investigations to try to make his endorsements toxic, or force him to run for president again under a cloud of indictment.
The "obstruction" charge is really all they need to get their headline: “Former President Trump was indicted today by a federal grand jury in D.C. on charges he obstructed the January 6th committee investigation."
Chances are the indictment would be handled similarly to the recent indictment of former Trump advisor (now podcaster) Steve Bannon, who was convicted of disregarding the subpoenas issued by the Democrats’ show trial January 6th committee. President Trump arranges to surrender, gets released on recognizance (no bail), they confiscate his passport, and the whole stupid thing gets litigated up to the 2024 election. But can these people resist their long-fantasized "perp walk" or “early morning arrest live on CNN"?
They about have to charge him with something now, to justify their heavy-handed raid. And soon. Probably the day after he announces his candidacy.
Mark it down.
==end==
Scribd upload courtesy the website “Human Events.”