Posted on 08/22/2022 12:00:26 PM PDT by karpov
Was the Federal Bureau of Investigation justified in searching Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago? The judge who issued the warrant for Mar-a-Lago has signaled that he is likely to release a redacted version of the affidavit supporting it. But the warrant itself suggests the answer is likely no—the FBI had no legally valid cause for the raid.
The warrant authorized the FBI to seize “all physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§793, 2071, or 1519” (emphasis added). These three criminal statutes all address the possession and handling of materials that contain national-security information, public records or material relevant to an investigation or other matters properly before a federal agency or the courts.
The materials to be seized included “any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021”—i.e., during Mr. Trump’s term of office. Virtually all the materials at Mar-a-Lago are likely to fall within this category. Federal law gives Mr. Trump a right of access to them. His possession of them is entirely consistent with that right, and therefore lawful, regardless of the statutes the FBI cites in its warrant.
Those statutes are general in their text and application. But Mr. Trump’s documents are covered by a specific statute, the Presidential Records Act of 1978. It has long been the Supreme Court position, as stated in Morton v. Mancari (1974), that “where there is no clear intention otherwise, a specific statute will not be controlled or nullified by a general one, regardless of the priority of enactment.” The former president’s rights under the PRA trump any application of the laws the FBI warrant cites.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Government overreach is a way of life.
Bookmark
Ping
“Well, yeah....so! We know he did bad things! We’re gonna get him because he’s dangerous and orange and bad.”
If this were done by a GOP DOJ on a DEM ex-POTUS, this would have been reversed long ago. Instead, this is going to be milked through the midterms.
WSJ doesn’t seem to understand.
The Democrat Party has gone from being merely lawless to ideating that its interests are the very metes and bounds in which all law must operate.
Oops
doesnt matter
they wanted to get their hands on documents that incriminate THEM!
It was the judges responsibility to rule based on knowledge of this. Either he was ignorant of the SCOTUS position or chose to ignore it. Either way it’s an egregious malfeasance.
Use of the word ‘legal’ with anything involving the democRATS produces nothing. For them, there are no rules, regulations, laws or statutes. All of those terms are for ‘others.’ At times, they may quote something in relation to an ‘other’ but only when it is useful to their endgame.
Research Michael Anton and Parallax for a great explanation.
Maybe if judge is smart, he CYAs by releasing all unredacted under the premise that he was lied to by the FBI and hang them out to dry.
You know, if he hadn’t sent those snarky tweets...
You can “unscrew a light bulb” but how do you unscrew this improper raid?
Trump will never see those documents again. I certainly hope that he indexed and copied them.
Who can stop them? Nobody.
Yes and as long as lefties controld MSM, education, the Fed bureaucracy and a lot of the courts it doesn’t matter how illegal it is-we live in a world w 2 criterion/separate scales-one for lefties-anything fine/goes and one for conservatives-nail their butts
My question? Was EACH AND EVERY FBI AGENT AND DRIVER INVOLVED IN THE RAID CLEARED FOR OUR HIGHEST SECURITY CLEARANCES?
Someone who hates Trump and hates our country on the 7th floor of the FBI handpicked the agents who raided Trump's home.
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.