The Epoch Times - By Petr Svab August 9, 2022

There’s reason to suspect that the FBI search of the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump was improperly intrusive, according to several lawyers. The raid prompted a rebuke from Trump and Republicans more broadly and further escalated political tensions in the nation.

About two dozen FBI agents entered Trump’s Palm Beach resort of Mar-a-Lago around 9 a.m. on Aug. 8 and left about 10 hours later with “a handful of boxes of documents,” one of Trump’s attorneys on scene, Christina Bobb, told The Epoch Times.

“I didn’t actually get to oversee the search, they wouldn’t let anybody see what they were doing,” she said.

It isn’t clear what legal basis the FBI had for the raid. The agents had a search warrant signed by a judge, however, the affidavit explaining the basis—its probable cause—was filed under seal, and Trump’s lawyers weren’t allowed to examine it, Bobb said.

In general, the agents were looking for “what they deemed to be presidential records,” she said.

“I don’t think there was anything of substance.”

Trump’s legal team will take steps to obtain the affidavit, she said.

There has been a dispute between National Archives and Trump about whether he has documents that should be stored at the archives under the U.S. Presidential Records Act.

Trump has been cooperative on that front, Bobb said, and previously had invited the FBI to Mar-a-Lago to examine the White House records he had in storage at the time.

“Nothing had been hidden and nothing had been kept secret from them, which makes this all the more ridiculous,” she said.

Potentially Illegal

“I’m stunned and dismayed,” commented Marc Ruskin, 27-year FBI veteran, and former federal prosecutor.

“The disregard for traditional norms and apparent lack of concern with the appearance of impropriety is indicative of an abandonment of even a veneer of independence and objectivity,” he told The Epoch Times.

Former federal prosecutor Mike Davis went even further, saying the raid may have been illegally invasive.

“Under the case law, you can’t do a home raid if you can secure the documents through less intrusive means,” he told “Bannon War Room” on Aug. 9.

The FBI had to first determine that requests for the documents or even subpoenas wouldn’t be sufficient, said Davis, who formerly advised Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on judicial nominations and now heads The Article III Project.

“There’s zero evidence” that Trump wouldn’t have cooperated, he said.

“There was no allegation or evidence that he [Trump] was destroying any of this evidence or putting it into the wrong hands. This is banana republic-level tactics from the Biden Justice Department.”

Even if Trump took classified documents, he took possession of them when he was still chief executive and had the authority to declassify them, Davis said.

Bobb suggested that the invocation of classified documents was a disingenuous attempt to “shroud this in a national security blanket.”

“They don’t want to disclose what they’re doing, because what they’re doing is wrong. And so they want to hide it behind the premise of  ‘Oh, it’s a matter of national security and classified documents, so we can’t disclose to you what we’re doing or why we’re doing it. But just trust us. We’re not lying to you,’” she said.

“Well, no, the American people aren’t going to stand for that anymore.”

Even if the DOJ tried to charge Trump with withholding documents, it wouldn’t hold up, Bobb said, because the statute in question requires a “willful” violation and Trump would have had to have “some malicious intent” to take specific documents.

“They would have to lay the foundation that Donald Trump actually packed up his own office” or ordered somebody what specifically to take, she said.

History of Missing Documents

If Trump had documents that should go to the archives, it would add him to a lineup of former government officials.

Former FBI Director James Comey took his handwritten notes when he was fired by Trump in 2017. His home wasn’t raided. He handed the notes to FBI agents who came to interview him.

The Obama administration didn’t just fail to hand over documents, tens of thousands of its documents went missing or were destroyed. No homes were raided.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton failed to hand over tens of thousands of emails and documents from her server, claiming they were of a personal nature. The FBI was able to retrieve some of the documents, revealing that many were work-related. Moreover, the documents were under congressional subpoena at the time when a Clinton aide deleted them.

Immediate Skepticism

The raid prompted an immediate wave of skepticism, particularly because the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have a history of breaking protocol, misrepresentations, and even forging of evidence, in their case against Trump and members of his campaign.

“After six years of unfounded, absurd investigations of President Trump, the presumption is that any investigation of President Trump is politically motivated, and the burden of proof is on FBI/DOJ to prove otherwise,” Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at the Internet Accountability Project, wrote in an Aug. 9 tweet.

In 2017, the FBI and DOJ obtained two extensions of a spying warrant on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page although the warrant was based on false or unsubstantiated allegations. The FBI later acknowledged that spying based on the extensions was illegal.

The FBI also has a history of harsh treatment of people associated with Trump. His aides have been arrested at gunpoint, handcuffed, and “perp-walked,” and their homes and offices have been raided in pursuit of trivial or nonviolent offenses, even when the targets were cooperating with the government.

Shoe on the Other Foot

The Trump raid increased the already polarized political playing field, as Republicans can now argue that home raids of former presidents are acceptable.

“They’re setting a very dangerous precedent where you can do a home raid of a former president of the United States,” Davis said, noting that such a thing has never happened “in our 250 years as a republic.”

Already, Republican lawmakers are promising to subject the DOJ and the FBI to intense scrutiny, with the expectation of reclaiming the majority in the House after the November midterms.

“When Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts, and leave no stone unturned,” House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in an Aug. 8 statement.

“Attorney General Garland: preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”

Judge’s Epstein Connection

The search warrant was issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart in the Southern District of Florida. Reinhart was a senior prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida when the office reached a non-prosecution agreement with Jeffrey Epstein, who was later indicted for sex trafficking children and died by apparent suicide in a New York jail.

Upon leaving office, Reinhart went into private practice and represented multiple Epstein associates and employees in civil cases against Epstein by his alleged victims.

Reinhart was appointed a magistrate judge in 2018 by the district judges in the Southern District of Florida.

The warrant was issued on Aug. 5, the day after FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee and was questioned about multiple whistleblower reports alleging politicization of the bureau. Wray cut the questioning short because he said he had to urgently travel. Flight records indicate he flew in the FBI private jet to his vacation retreat in the Adirondacks, according to New York Post columnist Miranda Devine.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the time around which the search of Donald Trump’s residence started. The raid started around 9 a.m. The Epoch Times regrets the error.

Update: The article has been updated with a comment from Marc Ruskin.

Petr Svab is a reporter covering New York. Previously, he covered national topics including politics, economy, education, and law enforcement.

Former President Donald Trump waves while walking to a vehicle outside of Trump Tower in New York on Aug. 10, 2022. (Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)

Judge Orders Department of Justice to Respond to Requests to Unseal FBI’s Trump Warrant

The Epoch Times - By Jack Phillips August 10, 2022

The Justice Department has to respond to motions to unseal a warrant that triggered the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, according to a magistrate judge who reportedly approved the search.

Judicial Watch and the Albany Times Union newspaper filed a motion to unseal the document earlier this week, which was granted by a judge in the case.

“On or before 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on August 15, 2022, the Government shall file a Response to the Motion to Unseal,” wrote Judge Bruce Reinhart on Wednesday afternoon, referring to the Department of Justice.

“The response may be filed ex parte and under seal as necessary to avoid disclosing matters already under seal. In that event, the Government shall file a redacted Response in the public record. If it chooses, the Government may file a consolidated Response to all Motions to Seal,” he wrote.

Neither the FBI nor Justice Department has issued public comments about the raid, which was first confirmed by Trump on Monday evening.

The FBI declined to comment when contacted by The Epoch Times, and the Justice Department has not responded to several requests for comment.

As for the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden was not aware of the raid before Trump’s announcement. Her claim was refuted by Trump on his social media platform, Truth Social.

“What I can tell you definitively and for sure, he was not aware of this,” Jean-Pierre said of Biden. “Nobody at the White House was. Nobody was given a heads up and we did not know about what happened yesterday.”

Requests

On Wednesday, the Times Union’s managing editor, Brendan J. Lyons, wrote to Reinhart to ask for the warrant to be unsealed.

“Given that the search warrant(s) have been executed, and the target of that search has full knowledge of what occurred, there is no impediment to any ongoing investigation from the disclosure of the search warrant order or the returns. As such, these records should be unsealed,” the letter to the Florida judge reads.

Judicial Watch asked for the warrant as part of an investigation into “the potential politicization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice and whether the FBI and the Justice Department are abusing their law enforcement powers to harass a likely future political opponent of President [Joe] Biden.”

“If the Court were to unseal the materials, Judicial Watch would obtain the materials, analyze them, and make them available to the public,” the letter said. “Unsealing the records therefore would further Judicial Watch’s mission of educating the public.”

It comes as Eric Trump, a son of the former president, told the Daily Mail that a Trump attorney at Mar-a-Lago, Christina Bobb, asked FBI agents Monday about seeing a warrant.

“They would not give her the search warrant,” he told the outlet, referring to Bobb. “So they showed it to her from about 10 feet away. They would not give her a copy of the search warrant.”

Top Republicans, meanwhile, demanded an investigation into the raid and argued that it was politically motivated to wound the GOP ahead of the 2022 midterms. Some have said the Justice Department immediately needs to release documents pertaining to the raid.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said there needs to be a “thorough and immediate explanation” of how the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago was approved. Legal historians have said that such a raid against a former president is unprecedented.

“Attorney General Garland and the Department of Justice should already have provided answers to the American people and must do so immediately,” McConnel added.

Trump on Monday said that federal agents entered Mar-a-Lago despite him having cooperated with federal officials for months to return documents that he allegedly took from the White House after leaving office last year.

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter at The Epoch Times based in New York.

“Coordinated Attack”

Infowars - by Paul Joseph WatsonAugust 10th 2022, 4:53 am

Donald Trump derided claims by the White House that it had no advance knowledge of the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate, asserting that “Biden knew” about the “coordinated attack.”

"We are no better than a third-world country."

Trump’s Florida home was ransacked by 30 federal agents, who searched the entire property, including Melania Trump’s wardrobes, in what critics have labeled a disgraceful abuse of power.

The White House initially responded to the raid by claiming they had no advance knowledge, an assertion that was ridiculed by some.

Trump himself has remained on the offensive and is now accusing the Biden administration of conspiring with the feds to plan the raid.

“A horrible thing that took place yesterday at Mar-a-Lago. We are no better than a third world country, a banana republic,” Trump posted on his Truth Social site.

“It is a continuation of Russia, Russia, Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax # 2, the no collusion Mueller Report, and more. To make matters worse it is all, in my opinion, a coordinated attack with Radical Left Democrat state & local D.A.’s & A.G.’s.”

He followed up that post by asserting, “Biden knew all about this, just like he knew all about Hunter’s “deals.”

Meanwhile, a report out of the UK claims that a “disloyal aide” planted documents that would later be used by the FBI to frame Trump.

“They [the FBI] won’t come out empty-handed,” said the anonymous source.

“As if Trump were stupid enough to do what they said he did. The only thing that could have happened is that a disloyal aid planted it in a box that was moved out in January of 2021,” he added. noting, “They wouldn’t have gone in without expecting a result.”

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Editors Comments:

*Follow the WEF trail to Switzerland to discover the Khazarian Mafia hiding behind Klaus Schwab and his cohorts. The US and its people have nothing to do with the disasters caused to the ordinary people of the Earth.

The Khazarians have once again constructed an intricate web, whose aim is to destroy the world's economy by setting people up against each other, blocking each other's supply chains, and leaving just death and ruins.

What everybody must be aware of is that this is not a war to prevent Putin from occupying Ukraine, but an attempt by the evil Khazarian Jews/WEF/NATO to control yet another country in their growing New World Order. They are simply using Ukraine as a battlefield. Their plan is to destroy totally the world's economy and turn the population into slaves.

Like the Freemasons, they have also life-threatening rules in their membership, one being REVENGE, 10 times harder than was ever perpetrated on them.

Russia in particular, in the past, has expelled the Khazars several times. I have all of 7 detailed articles in book format on the Khazarian Jews if anybody is interested in further information.

Putin, and earlier also Trump, are the ONLY Presidents who have enough guts to see what they are attempting to do to the world population and have sufficient courage to do something about it.

HUMAN SYNTHESIS

COPYRIGHTS

Copy & Paste the link above for Yandex translation to Norwegian.

WHO and WHAT is behind it all? : >

The bottom line is for the people to regain their original, moral principles, which have intentionally been watered out over the past generations by our press, TV, and other media owned by the Illuminati/Bilderberger Group, corrupting our morals by making misbehavior acceptable to our society. Only in this way shall we conquer this oncoming wave of evil.

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