Just yesterday, Federal Judge Canon declined to lift any part of an order she issued last week.
The
order barred the Department of Justice from using records obtained by the
F.B.I. during their raid on Trump’s estate, Mar-a-Lago until an appointed arbiter, known as a special master,
had completed a review.
Judge Cannon had appointed semi-retired Judge
Raymond J. Dearie a special master who has the authority to sift
through the documents and set aside using any potentially covered by the
attorney-client privilege or, in a legally disputed move, executive
privilege.
The DOJ had asked Judge Cannon to lift
restrictions on its use of documents with classification markings and set a
Thursday deadline for her to respond. The DOJ says it would ask an appeals
court to intervene.
The move was a blow to the DOJ's
'investigation’ whose stated goal is to verify whether Trump unlawfully
retained national defense records or obstructed repeated attempts by federal
officials to retrieve them.
While Judge Cannon’s order was a
victory for Trump, she also made some concessions to the DOJ.
The special master has a deadline of
Nov. 30 to complete his review.
The F.B.I. can continue to investigate
“the movement and storage of seized materials, including documents marked as
classified, without discussion of their contents.”
Trump would bear the entire cost of
the special master’s compensation and expenses, along with the cost of support
staff or advisers.
So let's suspend our disbelief and hypothesize
the following scenarios that favor the F.B.I
· Assume, the F.B.I. was certain of Trump’s guilt i.e. they were
sure he was in possession of classified documents and state secrets.
· Assume, they were unaware of the existence of these documents
before. Perhaps they did an inventory review of the documents after Trump left
the White House, but no record of the Mar-a-Lago documents.
· Assume a whistleblower informed the DOJ about the documents with a
warning that Trump was about to sell the documents to the highest bidder in the
next few days. Trump waited for so long because his buyers could agree on
the price.
Let’s even accept the claim from Democrats that the goal behind
the raid wasn’t political but instead to ensure national security isn’t
compromised.
How would the F.B.I. conduct the raid
if they were certain of guilt and if their goal wasn’t to politics?
They would have presented Trump’s lawyers
with the warrant and supporting documents that allowed the lawyer to examine
and ask questions. They would have insisted that Trump’s lawyers accompany them
at every juncture of the raid. They would have been transparent at every stage
– when they rifled through Melania’s wardrobe and cracked open Trump’s personal
safe. They would have made a video of every stage of the raid and shared the
unedited footage with Trump’s lawyers.
Once the classified documents were
obtained they would have shown them to the lawyers.
They would have released a statement
highlighting the kind of documents that were obtained and announced a swift
investigation
But nothing of the kind occurred.
They arrived on the property, but they
didn’t allow Trump’s lawyers to read the warrant. They asked staffers to turn
off the security cameras. They didn’t allow Trump’s lawyers to accompany
them during the operation. They seized documents unsupervised. When they
released the affidavit that was
supposed to provide the reasoning for the Mar-a-Lago raid, it was heavily
redacted. Even the portions citing the reason for the redaction were redacted.
Back to hypothetical scenarios that
favor the F.B.I.
Let’s assume the leadership of the F.B.I.
and the DOJ learned the political motives of the raid conducted. Perhaps the
raid was planned, conceived, and conducted by rogue agents who falsified their
motives to mislead everyone including Attorney General Merrick Garland.
How would the F.B.I. and the DOJ have
reacted?
The F.B.I. would have insisted on transparency
and the presence of a neutral party – a special master who reviewed the documents process because they have nothing to hide and no political motive.
The arbiter would be able to
independently verify the presence or absence of classified documents which
would strengthen their investigation if fact-finding was the goal.
So what happened in reality?
The F.B.I. appealed against the
appointment of a special master by a federal judge.
Despite the fact that the special
master isn’t going to impede their investigation, he is merely going to review
the documents.
The DOJ seems unwilling to allow an
independent reviewer that is planning to appeal the ruling to retain the
special master.
Do they fear disclosure of the truth because they have something to hide?
Now for the reality.
What was the
motive behind the raid, the redaction of the affidavit, and the pushback against
the special master?
The goal is to purposefully create a
vacuum of mystery around the raid. They know the news will fill the void with
their myriad fabrications.
The Washington Post was the
first to fabricate.
The paper claimed that the F.B.I. was
looking for classified documents related to nuclear weapons during their raid.
The sources were obviously anonymous and the details or proof were absent. But
the lie traveled around the US and is being used to justify the raid.
Some 'experts' have called the raid
has been called Trump’s Al Capone moment, i.e. a situation where a crime boss
is not found guilty for his crimes but instead for process violations.
The peddlers of these lies are
cautious to place question marks at the end of their allegations, at times they
do not.
In time they will claim the ‘walls are
closing in’ and Trump could be indicted soon, but no proof will be provided.
This will continue all through the
2024 elections and perhaps even after Trump is elected.
These relentless witch-hunts and the
narrative building has destroyed the central tenant of the Justice System i.e.
the presumption of innocence.
Currently, Trump and indeed his
supporters have no such facility. They are guilty until proven innocent. Even
if proven innocent, the power will deliberately frame the exoneration vaguely.
They just claim no proof of wrongdoing was discovered which implies
unlawful acts didn’t occur but the evidence was destroyed. The cloud of doubt
continues to hover over which enables a thousand conspiracy theories to
float.
Sadly mainstream historians are also quite likely
to cover the events from the perspective of the conspiracy theorists.
The following is an example
https://twitter.com/BeschlossDC/status/1557894715307171841
It was endorsed by a retired USAF four-star general and former Director of CIA and Director of NSA.
https://twitter.com/GenMhayden/status/1557899501926596609
Draining this swamp is going to take a
brave prolonged and committed effort i.e. it seems like a near impossibility. But we can still hope!
Also appears on American Thinker
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