Posted on 08/19/2022 9:33:36 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's a move that House Republicans should consider when they regain the majority in November, but will they do it? In the aftermath of the unlawful August 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago, the Republican Party has been united in its revulsion of what appears to be an unprecedented ransacking of a former president’s home. The legal justification doesn’t pass constitutional muster. There seems to be no crime committed, only that the National Archives grew impatient over record retrieval. That’s not a crime; people dragging their feet regarding government documents is quite common in DC.
There is zero legal justification for the home raid of a former President over records: https://t.co/zty94SILmU— ???? Mike Davis ???? (@mrddmia) August 18, 2022
Mike Davis has gone on epic threads on social media gutting the case the government has made for the raid. Davis, a former law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch, decided to take his legal takedowns of this arguably illegal search and reorganize it into an opinion column for Newsweek. He took the position many have felt for a long time: FBI Director Chris Wray, and now Attorney General Merrick Garland should be removed from office. He also added that it's telling why AG Garland did not seek the opinion of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel about signing off on the search warrant (via Newsweek):
All presidents take mementos and other records when they leave office. They don't pack their own boxes. The National Archives takes the position that almost everything is a "presidential record." And the federal government, in general, over-classifies almost everything.
Even if Trump took classified records, that isn't a crime. The president has the inherent constitutional power to declassify any record he wants, in any manner he wants, regardless of any otherwise-pertinent statute or regulation that applies to everyone else. The president does not need to obtain Congress' or a bureaucrat's permission—or jump through their regulatory or statutory hoops—to declassify anything. The Supreme Court reaffirmed this in the 1988 case, Department of the Navy v. Egan : "The President, after all, is the 'Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.' U.S. Const., Art. II, § 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security...flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant."
Thus, if Trump left the White House with classified records, then those records are necessarily declassified by his very actions. He doesn't need to label that decision for, or report that decision to, any bureaucrat who works for him. It is pretextual legal nonsense for the Biden Justice Department to pretend Trump broke any criminal statute. Indeed, it is noteworthy that Attorney General Garland apparently did not seek an opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)—the de facto general counsel for the executive branch—before ordering this home raid of his boss's chief political enemy. Perhaps Garland knew OLC wouldn't give him the answer he wanted.
[…]
All former presidents also get a federally funded office, called the Office of the Former President. They get lawyers and other staff, security clearances, Secret Service protection, and secure facilities (SCIFs) for the maintenance of classified records. Even if Trump had classified records, then, they were protected and secure.
[…]
FBI Director Christopher Wray recently testified that the FBI was too busy to stop dangerous and illegal intimidation campaigns outside Supreme Court justices' homes. This was after an attempted assassin was thankfully arrested outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home. The FBI apparently didn't have the time to investigate actual threats to the lives of constitutional officers, but it had plenty of time to raid the home of a former president over an 18-month-old records dispute—with which Trump publicly stated he was fully cooperating.
[…]
House Republicans must impeach Attorney General Garland and FBI Director Wray for their unprecedented and destructive politicization of the Justice Department, when they reclaim power in January. And over the long term, House and Senate Republicans must dismantle and rebuild the FBI, so political raids like this never happen again. We cannot allow our law enforcement agencies to become third-world political hit squads.
It's a line-by-line takedown of the DOJ’s overreach. The Presidential Records Act isn’t a criminal statute. Since Trump was president, the removal of alleged classified materials isn’t a crime. The president is the ultimate decider on classification status, which dresses down the violation of the Espionage Act allegation as lunacy.
Davis also highlights the gross incompetence and hyper-politicization that has engulfed the Justices Department, noting the FBI’s inability to protect sitting Supreme Court justices from death threats after the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, because they were too busy. And yet, the FBI had plenty of time to pursue this search of Mar-a-Lago with a 30-person team following a treasure hunt over allegations that aren’t crimes regarding Donald Trump and classified materials. People were showing up at the homes of Supreme Court justices; some were armed and prepared to commit political acts of violence over abortion. That was real. The purported classified documents at Mar-a-Lago are not actual law violations, but Garland’s presser, which gave this smash-and-grab a federal blessing, tossed him into the same rogue camp as Wray.
House Republicans promised investigations into these egregious acts of extrajudicial operations conducted by the DOJ. They better make good on those overtures, leaving the door open for possible impeachment articles against these two men.
But the Democrats, the Left, most of the MSM, academia, and the major agencies, bureaus and departments of the executive branch never "accepted him" as President. As far as these entities were concerned, Donald Trump was never elected President, and therefore was not legally the President of the United States. They held this position from the moment he was elected, and still hold it to this day. This was most graphically and lastingly demonstrated when Nancy Pelosi tore up PDJT's STOU report — on national television — immediately after he delivered it; this was a gross and flamboyant act of disrespect and contempt for everyone who voted for Mr. Trump, and will go down in history.
They never accepted him as President, and believed everything he did as President was somehow illegal and meaningless. He could not possibly have the power to declassify documents because he was not the President. He could not have private conversations with foreign heads of state because he was not the President. He could not conduct investigations, or have the FBI or the other organs of government conduct investigations at his instruction because he was not the President; therefore for him to do these things was by definition a crime of the highest order.
You sir, are right on the money. Since his election they’ve acted like a kid having a tantrum and screaming, “You’re not my daddy!”
Remember the poor schlub who treated the Piece of Shite of the House of Representatives with similar disdain by sitting at her desk with his feet up?
How many years is he going to get in the slammer?
Two-tier Merkun "justice".
They need the proverbial wack on the ass with a massive wooden paddle!
This is RAT intimidation of Trump because they know what’s coming in November.
Sounds like an excellent plan to me. Hearings, grand juries, trials, conviction Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Collect Any Pension.
Get sued by victims of their treachery!
The tantrum will return for the Summer of 2024. Riots. Mayhem, Intimidation all for the sole purpose of preventing Trump from becoming President again.
“They need the proverbial wack on the ass with a massive wooden paddle!”
They need something stronger than that....
This is all about judging him in the court of public opinion. “Trump selling nuclear secrets to Russia?! Hang him! I will never vote for him.”
His statements yesterday on Truth Social are powerful, but won’t see the light of day on the MSM.
What is he smoking? I have seen no such thing, has anyone else seen this unity?
Bingo!
TRUMP IS THE VERY LAST PERSON IN AMERICA WHO WOULD SELL ANYTHING TO RUSSIA -—OR CHINA-—OR ANY OTHER COUNTRY
Yes. It is preposterous on the face of it! He is the most America-loving, patriotic president in my lifetime, right up there with Reagan.
The calumny that he is a Russian agent or would sell nuclear secrets to the Russians is just outrageously stupid. But they know they can tell the Big Lie repeatedly and never get called out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.