August 22, 2022
"Particularly given the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former President’s residence, the Government has not yet shown that these administrative concerns are sufficient to justify sealing."
Said Judge Bruce Reinhart, rejecting the government's argument that redacting the names of agents and sources wouldn't be enough to protect its interests.
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62 comments:
The swamp cannot be drained.
Well this should be interesting. Either the judge is being honest (LOL) are he thinks the majority of the affidavit will be harmful to Trump if it is released. Now, I really want to see it.
I'm convinced they wanted to retrieve the Russia/Trump collusion Clinton/DOJ/FBI criminal conspiracy documents that Trump declassified and had in his possession.
It’s guaranteed that the affidavit will be so heavily redacted that releasing it will tell us nothing. This is just a sham.
Sideshow. The main object hasn’t changed: get Trump. Showing us scraps of innuendo, speculation and hearsay from nameless informants isn’t going to resolve anything but it may usefully confuse us.
These people are lawless and corrupt.
There are no good reasons why they don't release everything.
Only bad reasons stemming from corruption.
We all note how this is being handled differently than Hunter Biden's laptop and Hillary's Top Secret/NOFRON information she stole off of NIPR and other classified networks.
The quote seems confusing to me, so I clicked through. FoxNews is giving its normal problems but deleting the "s" after https worked. There you get more from Judge Reinhart, and it just gets muddier. This is the clearest sentence I can find:
"Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that by the deadline, the Government shall file under seal a submission addressing possible redactions and providing any additional evidence or legal argument that the Government believes relevant to the pending Motions to Unseal"
Seems like a lot of words to say, the Government still has until the deadline to file a redacted affidavit to be released. If you think you'll get much from the affidavit; here's the Judge's opinion: "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 could be disruptive and burdensome in future cases."
My laymen interpretation, "FBI, you have to provide the affidavit, that's common procedure. However, you can redact it to hide the name of agents, sources, and methods [; which is what matters in determining the justification of warrant]. A [meaningless] affidavit will satisfy the legal precedent and the [gullible] public."
Jen Dyer has been publishing a series of blog articles (the most recent) about her idea that the FBI's raid on Donald Trump's home was prompted by Trump's progress in a RICO lawsuit about the RussiaGate hoax.
Trump sued five Justice Department individuals: James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Kevin Clinesmith.
On July 14, however, the DOJ asked the judge to replace those five individuals with the DOJ as an institution.
As soon as the judge approved that replacement, on July 21, the DOJ asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit for a jurisdiction reason. The judge invited Trump to argue against that dismissal.
On August 4, Trump submitted to the judge his legal argument against the dismissal.
Apparently, the DOJ read Trump's argument and feared that it might convince the judge to allow the lawsuit to proceed. Therefore, on the very next day, August 5, the FBI requested and obtained a warrant to raid Trump's home in order to seize documents there.
The FBI intended to handicap Trump's RICO lawsuit about the RussiaGate hoax by confiscating his crucial documents about that hoax.
Remember that the warrant specified the FBI could seize not only anything the agents thought was produced during the entire Trump Presidency but also any material in the same container or even in other containers nearby. How else do you think they wound up hoovering up his passports? As Andrew McCarthy pointed out almost immediately after the raid (and he should know the kind of tactics prosecutors can use), there is no reason to believe that the affidavit or any other paperwork will reveal what the FBI was actually looking for.
Funny. It doesn't seem like Trump is the one who has anything to hide.
"It’s guaranteed that the affidavit will be so heavily redacted that releasing it will tell us nothing. This is just a sham."
It's up to the judge to make it not a sham. He gave "the Justice Department an 'opportunity to propose redaction'" and ordered it to "file under seal a submission addressing possible redactions." The judge "will then review those redactions and determine how best to proceed — whether to accept the recommendations from government prosecutors or perform his own redactions instead."
And either party can appeal if they don't agree with what the judge chose.
Obviously, this is going to take a while.
What are the odds that the full affidavit has not already been leaked to some journalists on background. If they want to, they could publish it.
Leland at 9:49 AM
FoxNews is giving its normal problems but deleting the "s" after https worked.
A faster trick is to click in the address box and then press your keyboard's ENTER button.
Hes a man who put someone in jail over memes,
>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,<
Reinhart, who is manifestly an FBI tool, should have, of course, contemplated the "unprecedented" nature of this outrageous wall-to-wall fishing expedition in an ex-president's home before he gave them carte blanche permission to do so.
Is there anyone who doesn't know that the FBI will not comply with his order? If we ever see any useful part of this affidavit, it will be a couple years from now.
If you have a week stomach for real politic you shouldn't explore the back rooms where the sausage is made. Long tedious drawn out legal battles can be unsettling for the short attention span hot take world of people mesmerized by social media sound bites rumors etc
It was a fishing expedition.
Trump is the kitchen light that suddenly came on at midnight, and now we know that the floor, the sink, the counters, all of it, are covered with roaches, hidden by the darkness provided by "news outlets" like the WaPo, roaches with three letters in various combinations emblazoned on their filthy carapaces. Trump is the actual "lightbringer."
The federal magistrate judge who authorized the warrant to search Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate emphasized Monday that he “carefully reviewed” the FBI’s sworn evidence before signing off and considers the facts contained in an accompanying affidavit to be “reliable.”
“I was — and am — satisfied that the facts sworn by the affiant are reliable,” Reinhart said in the order.“
Politico
It may be unprecedented, but the facts in the affidavit are reliable. I’m in favor of unsealing the affidavit, redact what is necessary.
Bleach bit and hammers to the rescue!
A faster trick is to click in the address box and then press your keyboard's ENTER button.
Fox does not empathize with redirects, steering platforms.
“Funny. It doesn't seem like Trump is the one who has anything to hide.”
“In his order, Reinhart noted that “neither Former President Trump nor anyone else purporting to be the owner of the Premises has filed a pleading taking a position” on efforts to unseal the affidavit.”
Politico
Presumably in the many months since Trump left the WH with these documents, they were copied and the copies disseminated (e.g. to his lawyers). Presumably at least some of those copies were held offsite by persons not yet named. Is there a Doomsday Switch working here, where some or all of the copies might be published à la Julian Assange?
Pass the popcorn.
The Feds LIE to us all the time. There is no trust. For example... "In a shocking report, the U.S. Census Bureau recently admitted that it overcounted the populations of eight states and undercounted the populations of six states in the 2020 census.
"All but one of the states overcounted is a blue state, and all but one of the undercounted states is red. "These harmful errors also mean billions in federal funds will be misallocated. Funding for many federal programs is distributed to the states based on population. Overcounted states will now receive a larger share of federal funds than they are entitled to, at the expense of the undercounted states."
The federal bureaucracy is an arm of the Democrat Party. This was deliberate sabotage.
H/T Don Surber
‘It may be unprecedented, but the facts in the affidavit are reliable.’
I didn’t know facts were a function of reliability. Facts are either true or they’re not facts. The information contained in an affidavit is yet to be proven, hence the phrase: probable cause.
You have to love the "undue burden" bit in the quote by Leland at 9:49. Government is basically saying "we don't want to".
I mean, an I supposed to take that "burden on our resources" seriously? The effing U.S. Federal government?
This is just another instance of that disgusting smirk on the face of the traitorous Peter Strzok during the impeachment.
Inga said...“In his order, Reinhart noted that “neither Former President Trump nor anyone else purporting to be the owner of the Premises has filed a pleading taking a position” on efforts to unseal the affidavit.” Politico
So what??? What's your point? Why should Trump or anyone at Mara Lago take ANY position? The burden is all on the FBI and the DOJ. Completely.
I'm sure Trump is just waiting for the best time the release of the video surveillance. Then we can all see FBI agents taking selfies in Melania's bedroom.
Said Judge Bruce Reinhart, rejecting the government's argument that redacting the names of agents and sources wouldn't be enough to protect its interests.
The government is supposed to be looking after the people's interests, not its own.
The government looking after the government's interests is .... what's the word? ... Authoritarian.
‘It may be unprecedented, but the facts in the affidavit are reliable.’.
Doubtful, given diverse precedents under the Obama and Biden administrations with democratic/dictatorial rule.
That said, plausible until presented as probable then proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Impeachment 3.0: This time she's viable, baby... or another ectopic pregnancy in the Democrat body through self-impregnation and a fetid fetus left on a metal slab. Will they bray and sue for abortion in order to remain viable?
Critter said...
It’s guaranteed that the affidavit will be so heavily redacted that releasing it will tell us nothing. This is just a sham.
That only works when people aren't interested in what's being hidden.
When they are, then you get great campaign ads out of holding up the backed out page and asking "what are they hiding"?
I know there’s a process here, but I suggest Trump release all the damned docs. Forget the affidavit. I’m so tired of these never ending legal bs investigations that only serve to hide the info until everyone has passed out from holding their breath. He’s declassified everything, so let’s see it…. Show us how widespread this corruption is - DOJ/congress/Intel cmtes/media/wall st, etc.
Let's be clear here:
If the search were honestly ordered, there'd be essentially nothing to hide in the affidavits.
Because they've already carried out the search and the seizure. If what they claimed was there was in fact there, and if it was legitimate for them to seize it, then it would cause them no harm to say "we were looking for X, and we found it."
It's only if they lied to the court, or if the filing was so bad that only a corrupt hack would approve it, that they have something to hide.
The Government argues that even requiring it to redact portions of the Affidavit that could not reveal agent identities or investigative sources and methods
So, they're claiming they have a source in the Trump household spying on Trump, and that no one in the Trump household knows who that source is?
If the source is an honest one, then they already grabbed what they needed. If the source is a dishonest one, who made claims about what's there that turned out not to be true, then the source isn't worthy of protection
The only reason why the FBI can't reveal its "methods" is because they are corrupt
Either that, or the whole raid was just a fishing expedition, rather than an attempt to get the actual specified evidence for an actual crime.
And if that is the case, then the warrant application was dishonest, and should be entirely revealed just for that
I guess this proves that the ruling made by Judge Amy Berman Jackson allowing outgoing President Clinton to have carte blanche in removing documents from the White House doesn't work for President Trump, right?
["Under the statutory scheme established by the PRA, the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the President's term and in his sole discretion," Jackson wrote in her March 2012 decision, which was never appealed.
"Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records," she added.
The judge noted a president could destroy any record he wanted during his tenure and his only responsibility was to inform the Archives.]
Guess some animals are more equal than others.
It's up to the judge to make it not a sham.
Reminds me of my thoughts when DOJ prosecutors finally brought forward to Judge Sullivan that the FBI had lied in their affidavits regarding Gen. Flynn, and that those lies were used to coerce Gen. Flynn to falsely plead guilty. Judge Sullivan decided to one up the sham by claiming himself the prosecutor and continuing to pursue Gen. Flynn. Later, we learn that DC jurist don't even care if the FBI lying is also a crime. Now I start with the opinion it is all a sham until proven otherwise.
I get a sense that Reinhart didn't understand that the FBI was handing him a bag of shit to sign off on. He's not enjoying his time in the spotlight.
SO, the judge rejected the argument that the affadivit should be sealed. Now, the Government gets to redact what they want and give it to the Judge, who will approve or disappove the redactions.
And if he redacts more than the Government wants, they get to appeal and have THOSE judges look at it. Remember the Mueller report? remember all those redactions? It turned out most of them had nothing to do with "national security" it was just the FBI/Mueller covering their ass.
If Garland has a good case against Trump, the ex-POTUS, he should provide everything, right now. The only thing that needs to be "redacted" are the names of the agents. Why should Garland be hiding stuff, if the unheard of, prescedent breaking raid (on a man who got 75 million votes) was so obviously neccessary?
All for the people supporting sealing the affadavit, or redacting it, why not just be honest? You don't care about anything except harming Trump. that's it. Maybe, thats Garland's real position too.
Oh, here's the Key sentence:
"I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the Government.”
So, Reinhart will play THAT Game. "Sorry, i WANTED it unsealed - REALLY - But I looked at the redactions that were neccessary, and they were SO EXTENSIVE it renders the document meaningless. So, sorry, I wont release any of it. I don't want to waste anyone's time."
Why would he write this, unless that was the PLAN? And why write 13 pages? the fix is in!
I agree with Jupiter above. Reinhart knows the FBI and DOJ were judge shopping and he got chosen as the fall guy if this blows up in their faces.
The FBI intended to handicap Trump's RICO lawsuit about the RussiaGate hoax by confiscating his crucial documents about that hoax.
I agree that this is the motive for the raid. Somebody above said that Trump should release all the documents. That's why I hope he made copies of the important ones. Otherwise they have been through the FBI shredder.
Remember the MAL raid was by the Crossfire Hurricane team. Same personnel.
Russia Collusion Truther and Hillary Hoax Dossier Dead Ender Inga: "It may be unprecedented, but the facts in the affidavit are reliable."
LOL
It's literally "You don't know what Mueller knows...but I do!" mindreading time again for Inga!!! Except now its Epstein pal/lawyer Reinhart instead of the Mueller The Walking Failure.
Readers will recall Inga spent about 2 years regaling us all with "insider" scoops and "insight" from the Weissman/Mueller deep-state-cover-up / frame-Trump-with-a-process-crime "investigation".
Reinhart's regrets per chance remorse to enabling a progressive process run amuck.
Reinhart ruled last week that he would consider unsealing portions of the affidavit after conferring with the Justice Department and determining whether proposed redactions would be sufficient to protect the ongoing criminal investigation connected to the search. But in his order, Reinhart emphasized that he may ultimately agree with prosecutors that any redactions would be so extensive that they would render the document useless.
The judge emphasized Monday that he “carefully reviewed” the FBI’s sworn evidence before signing off and considers the facts in the affidavit reliable.
Fox leans heavily on a "formal rejection" of the Justice Department's argument to keep the affidavit leading to the search under seal, citing the "intense public and historical interest." But that is simply not true.
Reinhart had lots of other things to say in his 13-page presentation today But he has already seen the seizure list so he can easily imagine a government redacted proposal consisting largely of black lines useless to the American public but important for confidentiality.
He says one of the reasons to not unseal the affidavit used to justify the search warrant for Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence is doing so might hamper efforts used to protect the former president.
But Trump has moved on to demanding a special referee to ascertain what documents seized can be used by the government, which is really dumb since it is an admission that there are troublesome documents recovered. But all the DOJ needs to say is that all documents are potential bits of evidence that Donald ain't allowed to touch or have identified. The FBI is returning unneeded documents already, such as TFG's passport.
My goodness, the obvious is never out there for Trumpites to see. Let me 'splain:
If Donald Trump had returned all required records to the National Archives, no search of MAL could have been ordered and golly folks, as the smartest man in the world, he had 18 months and several formal requests to turn his attention to the records he needed to send back.
Who is at fault here? Trump even signed the law now in place.
If the investigation is ongoing, how did the information to date get to be so serious as to warrant the warrant? Wasn't tis kind of premature, then?
And now this. Maybe Reinhart really isn't mentioned in Epstein's flight logs.
gadfly said...Let me 'splain:
If Donald Trump had returned all required records to the National Archives...
Do you see the assumption, or do you need it 'splained to you?
Remember when all the leftists on this board were screeching (or braying) demanding Trump release the warrant? A warrant he didn't even have at the time?
Notice their silence now?
Partial disclosure is worse than none...the feds will only release what they (and the media lapdogs) can spin...
Blogger gadfly said...
My goodness, the obvious is never out there for Trumpites to see. Let me 'splain:
I wonder if gadfly has ever been to Epstein's island? Everybody knows why this "magistrate" was chosen and not a federal judge. He is compromised and that is why he was selected. The rest is balderdash.
Blogger Owen said...
Presumably in the many months since Trump left the WH with these documents, they were copied and the copies disseminated (e.g. to his lawyers). Presumably at least some of those copies were held offsite by persons not yet named.
We can only hope so. Trump was fooled once by thinking most people in government are patriots. Let's hope that lesson was learned well.
The Trump Warrant Had No Legal Basis
A former president’s rights under the Presidential Records Act trump the statutes the FBI cited to justify the Mar-a-Lago raid.
By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey
Considering that the judge had no real justification to issue a warrant in the first place, plus had a known conflict of interest, anything the judge says is self-serving. The only question is whether the current action is go through the motions BS that will lead to nothing but provide an illusion of impartiality, or a desperate attempt to protect himself from misconduct accusations.
Our Republic dies a slow death...
Let's follow gadfly's "reasoning":
Gadfly: "But Trump has moved on to demanding a special referee to ascertain what documents seized can be used by the government, which is really dumb since it is an admission that there are troublesome documents recovered."
Nope. If seized documents are privileged, their possession can be challenged:
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41
Rule 41. Search and Seizure
(g) Motion to Return Property. A person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure of property or by the deprivation of property may move for the property's return. The motion must be filed in the district where the property was seized. The court must receive evidence on any factual issue necessary to decide the motion. If it grants the motion, the court must return the property to the movant, but may impose reasonable conditions to protect access to the property and its use in later proceedings.
(h) Motion to Suppress. A defendant may move to suppress evidence in the court where the trial will occur, as Rule 12 provides.
Gadfly: "But all the DOJ needs to say is that all documents are potential bits of evidence that Donald ain't allowed to touch or have identified. The FBI is returning unneeded documents already, such as TFG's passport."
Nope. Trump holds the privilege, and the DOJ can't decide on its own to over-rule it or ignore its assertion. Disinterested government third-parties ("taint teams") are required to view the evidence upon receiving the request of privileged documents. If it retains evidence despite the assertion, the defendant can seek to quash it during proceedings following an indictment.
From the same citation:
"The USAM instructs prosecutors to design procedures to “ensure that privileged
materials are not improperly viewed, seized or retained during the course of the search.” It does not define what those procedures are, leaving the targets of searches at the whim of the local U.S. Attorney’s Office. The search warrant should be drafted in a way that minimizes the need to search where privileged materials may be located, but if a prosecutor seeks all documents related to a topic, the warrant likely will not define what materials responsive to that topic may be privileged and which may not be. The warrant should, however, include some statement that the prosecutor intends to implement some procedure to protect privilege."
"The USAM approves of the use of a “privilege team” or “taint team” to review
potentially privileged material. The taint team should “consist of agents and lawyers not involvedin the underlying investigation.” (This article will refer to the government lawyers and agent involved in the substantive investigation as the “trial team.”) The USAM suggests that taint team members be available at the time of the search but that they should not participate in the search itself. The USAM provides some procedures to review potentially privileged documents, though it leaves the exact method to the prosecutor’s discretion."
Bottom line: the seizure of privileged documents can be challenged, and NOT challenging NON-privileged documents is NOT an admission that they help prove a crime.
Gadfly, you are full of more shit than all the giant towers sitting on Boston's Deer Park Island sanitation center.
This is all easy to interpret- the FBI didn't find what they claimed to be looking for in the affidavit. If they had found it, there is no reason to do anything other than redact the names of the agents themselves (and I don't think there is justification to do even that if you are a transparent law enforcement agency with good intentions).
It is all but certain the affidavit was a load of horseshit thrown together to either get access to the Trump papers, or was completely mistaken in what was at the residence.
I suggested a week or 2 back that the Fbi has compromising info on Epstein's former lawyer. This, I hypothesized, is why he was chosen for the warrant.
Suppose Team MAGA has the same, similar or worse info.
Fbi: "cooperate or we release the video of you and Christine"
Team Maga:"Mr Reinhart, have you seen this video of Jennifer giving you a massage on Epstein's Island?"
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Gadfly, no one needs idiot-splaining.
The swamp cannot be drained.
Send Trump your money, all of it.
Jupiter said...
I get a sense that Reinhart didn't understand that the FBI was handing him a bag of shit to sign off on. He's not enjoying his time in the spotlight.
I disagree.
I think the judge has proven to be a self interested corrupt actor in the past with how he handled the Epstein clients and resigned to defend the same people he was prosecuting the day before.
Everything in the Epstein case was a corrupt boondoggle and the FBI was working with people to cover it up. One of those people was this judge.
I think this is more of an ongoing working relationship and he is trying to help the FBI cover up things because he is going to be implicated too if the corruption is uncovered.
My translation of the judge's statement is "Your screw up is your problem now, not mine."
“These people are lawless and corrupt.”
“There are no good reasons why they don't release everything.”
“Only bad reasons stemming from corruption.”
I still think that much of this obfuscation by the government is to cover that the search was being driven by the FBI’s Counterintelligence Divisiin and the DOJ’s National Security Division. Initially, it was being claimed that the raid was being driven by the US Attorney’s office in FL. Nope - apparently it was being driven and managed from HQ in DC. And that means the FBI’s CD and DOJ’s NSD. And, of course, that is where Trump’s RICO case was aimed. And where many of the documents formally ordered declassified by Trump his last full day in office were created. And the same documents that still haven’t been declassified a year and a half later. And the same documents that were likely still marked as classified (despite their ordered declassification, thus center to the search warrant.
So, yes, corrupt as you can get. They used the same trick of extensively redacting significant amounts of the underlying documents for the 4 fraudulently acquired FISA warrants on Carter Page. Same exact justification. And it worked to slow down the investigation into their perfidy and malfeasance for most of Trump’s term of office. It took over three years before we saw how venal and corrupt they had been, and they were able to do this under the guise of protecting methods and sources. Turns out that the methods they were using were illegal and fraudulent, and the sources were known to be corrupt, compromised, and mostly originating from Crooked Hillary’s campaign. Their primary source, Igor "Iggy" Danchenko, had stated to the FBI early on that his allegations about Trump were junk, and mostly made up around drinking parties in Georgetown bars (and being Russians, that very likely meant large quantities of vodka). Those were the sources and methods that they were hiding.
Viva Frei was in the courtroom and has thoughts on the process and ruling
It is probably on YouTube but I listened to it as a podcast. Ep 225.
John LGBTQ+Henry
Yancy nails it. "It is all but certain the affidavit was a load of horseshit thrown together to either get access to the Trump papers, or was completely mistaken in what was at the residence."
If anyone can come away thinking the FBI being competent after 6 years, they are fucking hopeless. They trailed and surveilled Carter Page based on drunken boasting "over heard" in a bar for Christ sakes.
The other reason we know they found shit was it wasn't leaked immediately. The Keystone cops have more discipline than these birds.
No comments from federal crimonal lawyers. Hmmm.
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