Why the FBI redact the Mar-a-Lago raid affidavit

After a series of attempts by the Department of Justice to keep the affidavit used in the FBI's raid of Mar-a-Lago sealed away from the public eyes, the document was finally released on Friday afternoon just before the 12:00 p.m. ET deadline set by federal Magistrate Judge Reinhart.

The affidavit was supposed to provide the reasoning for the Mar-a-Lago raid. 

As expected the affidavit was heavily redacted.

The following is the gist of the exposed contents of the document:

“A preliminary review of the 15 boxes indicated that they contained newspapers, magazines, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous printouts, notes, presidential correspondence, personal and post-presidential records, and ‘a lot of classified records’”.

“The FBI’s investigation has established that documents bearing classification markings, which appear to contain National Defense Information (NDI), were among the materials contained in the FIFTEEN BOXES and were stored at the PREMISES in an unauthorized location”.

“There is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI or that are Presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the PREMISES. There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES.”

Ironically, the DOJ redacted its reasoning for redacting nearly the entire search warrant affidavit. The only justification not redacted is “agent safety”.

https://twitter.com/RepDanBishop/status/1563204060941266952

The DOJ claims the decision was made to protect the witnesses.

So what was the purpose of this redaction?

Barack Obama once said that the only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are the people with something to hide.

If the FBI has ironclad reasons for the raid, they would have released the entire document with the names of the agents redacted.

The purpose of this redaction is to allow the cloud of doubt and suspicion to prevail to furnish a narrative.

This narrative began the day President Trump won the 2016 elections by defeating Hillary Clinton.

First, it was baselessly claimed that Trump had won by colluding with the Russians. There were once again no details provided. The accusers couldn’t say if any votes were altered. They couldn’t reveal the specifics of how Trump colluded with the Russians. It was merely a sinister disinformation campaign based on innuendo and insinuations. The media that functions as mouthpieces for the Democrats led the charge on this abominable hoax that the Russians had ‘meddled in the 2016’ elections, the implication being Trump was an illegitimate President.

The cacophonous campaign caused the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. For the next 22 months, at a cost of $40 million, Mueller, whose team comprised of Trump haters carried out an investigation.

The goal is this probe wasn’t to investigate the truth, it was instead to persecute political adversaries, criminalize political opposition, and push a narrative.

Throughout the ‘investigation’, the FBI and Justice Department leaked “bombshells” to the media. The media then claimed that the “walls are closing in” and Trump will be removed.

In the end, no evidence of collusion was discovered. Mueller’s team purposefully worded their report to keep the inferences ambiguous. It enabled the Democrats to continue to make bogus claims about collusion.

When the Trump-Russia collusion narrative began to fade away, they concocted the Ukraine call narrative that Trump was soliciting foreign electoral intervention in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. 

They claimed Trump ordered the Ukrainian president to concoct damaging narratives about potential Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden. Ironically, it was they who were fabricating scandals about Trump.

Hunter Biden was a director on the board of Burisma - a Ukrainian-owned private energy company while Joe was Obama's point man on US-Ukrainian relations. Ukrainian prosecutors were blocked from investigating Burisma Holdings by Biden who pressured the government to fire the head prosecutor.

President Trump had every reason to compel the Ukrainian government to investigate the shady links between Biden and Ukraine, to know if Joe Biden who could be the next President, was compromised by a foreign power.

But that hardly mattered, the Democrats pushed the narrative that Trump asked Ukraine to meddle in the US elections. Once again, with every leak' they claimed the  ‘wall closing in narrative’ on President.

In the end, Trump was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate.

Next was the Insurrection narrative.

Trump was impeached y the House again for "incitement of insurrection" but once again acquitted by the Senate.

The ‘insurrection’ was actually a protest that went overboard. 

There was footage of one Ray Epps, inciting people to enter the Capitol Building.  The DOJ and FBI, have arrested over 900 individuals but strangely overlooked Epps. Leading some to conclude that he was a covert government agent who incited violence in order that the Democrats could push their insurrection narrative.

When the second impeachment failed, the Democrats launched the Stalinist January 6^th Committee comprising of Trump haters who presumed Trump's guilt much before the ‘probe’ began.

There have been a series of televised hearings from the House Select Committee. The main purpose of these hearings has been to build a narrative of Trump’s culpability for the January 6th riot.

If the goal was to learn the truth, Trump’s lawyers would have been allowed to counter witnesses who often made ludicrous claims. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that, when Trump heard the “Hang Mike Pence” chant, he told aides that the vice president “deserves it”. She also claimed Trump tried to seize the steering wheel of his presidential vehicle and lunged toward his security detail when informed that he wouldn't be taken to the Capitol following his Jan. 6 rally. The secret service denied it ever occurred.

Since the January 6^th hearing gained little traction, they conducted a raid and released a redacted document.

The redacted document provides the Democrats with a platform to fabricate and push their 'walls are closing in' narrative. They may claim that a ‘source’ told them that Trump was planning to dispatch Giuliani to Moscow to sell nuclear secrets to the highest bidder.

They have already pushed this narrative without any basis.

Following the raid, a presidential ‘historian’ invoked the Rosenberg spies who were convicted of leaking U.S. nuclear secrets to the KGB and were executed in June 1953.

https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1557894715307171841

General Haydon, retired USAF four-star general, and former Director of CIA & NSA seemed to endorse that idea of execution.

https://twitter.com/GenMhayden/status/1557899501926596609

Thus various investigative agencies at the behest of the Democrats have been baselessly probing Trump for more than six years. Instead of evidence of guilt, they engage in innuendo and insinuations. These agencies no longer even attempt to appear fair. Consequently trust in the government and its agencies is likely to decrease drastically. That can never be good for a nation.

It is said, that if you want to know what is good for your nation, look at what the powers that be are saying and do the exact opposite.

Trump has been the target of the most significant and prolonged disinformation campaigns in US history. The fact that the establishment is using all its might to prevent Trump from running again makes a strong case for electing him President in 2024.

 Also appears on American Thinker