The Raid on Mar-a-Lago
A deep dive into the chaos surrounding this week’s 'unprecedented' event, and what it could mean for 2024
On a sticky Florida night around 6 p.m. EST on Aug. 8, 30 FBI agents executed a search warrant on former President Donald J. Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.
The warrant authorizing the search, leaked by Breitbart news on Friday morning, revealed the FBI was granted permission Aug. 5 to search the “45 Office,” as well as all storage rooms and areas “used or available” by the former President that contained boxes, documents or other items of interest.
The search resulted in the seizure of some 28 numbered items ranging from boxes to files to individual documents.
Some retain classified yet vague titles like “Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents” and “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” while others were more specific, including “Executive Grant of Clemency re: Roger Jason Stone, Jr.” and “Info re: President of France.”
The warrant was signed and approved by Judge Bruce Reinhart, a controversial figure known for having been the federal prosecutor who worked on the case against now-deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Reinhart switched sides in the middle of the case, leaving his position at the U.S. Attorney’s office and going on to serve as defense for several of Epstein’s employees. The New York Post reported that Reinhart faced several lawsuits from Epstein’s victims, who claimed he shared crucial information with Epstein’s legal team during the transition. But let's not forget Trump has his own ties to Epstein, and we’ll get back to the warrant.
Attachment B listed three criminal statutes under which items could be searched and seized, and these provide clues for what the case against Trump could be. They mention sections that deal with “defense information,” destroying federal documents and concealing, removing, or damaging federal documents.
So far, the Department of Justice has been relatively quiet on the case, with Attorney General Merrick Garland offering only a few statements so far.
“I personally approved the decision,” he confirmed on Thursday, also asking the court to unseal the warrant due to “substantial public interest in this matter.”
Press outlets have also been quiet too, running headlines but avoiding in-depth reporting.
The New York Times kept the story below the fold on Aug. 8, calling the documents “sensitive materials,” with a later report alluding the search may have been due to the “delayed returning” of “15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives,” an accusation of merit, but less serious than treason.
The Washington Post took a head-on approach, calling the raid “Garland’s Opening Act” and placed stronger emphasis on its possible relation to Jan. 6, stoking the fire.
The initial narrative unraveling is similar to the prolonged “Russia-gate” conspiracy, a fallacy that journalist Matt Taibbi referred to as: “We have evidence of an investigation, therefore the investigation must have evidence.”
For those who forgot, the FBI obtained FISA warrants to monitor Trump’s former advisor Carter Page during the Russia chaos, with then FBI Director James Comey jumping to conclusions.
He said applications for FISA warrants are often “thicker than his wrists,” and “that thickness represents all the work Justice Department attorneys and FBI agents have to do to convince a judge that such surveillance is appropriate in an investigation.” Even the New York Times went as far to quote a “government official” who claimed that “based on evidence, (Page) was operating as a Russian agent.”
In 2019, the Justice Department found that the last two of four FISA warrants to surveil Page were invalid, and Page went on to sue the Justice Department, the FBI and Comey for $75 million for unlawful surveillance. Comey himself came out saying “I was wrong,” and that “I was overconfident in those procedures, because he’s right, there was real sloppiness.”
The press jumped the gun, and the FISA warrants became a massive headache for the Justice Department and FBI. Ultimately, the Russia investigation didn’t amount to much, although it did earn the Washington Post and the New York Times another Pulitzer Prize for its coverage.
Back to the raid, what was the reason for it? Why now?
Rumors are spreading related to potential nuclear information that Trump may have used as leverage to improve personal relationships with the Saudi royal family. But that’s a complex accusation and worth breaking down.
The nuclear rumor could be attributed to that first criminal statute mentioned in the warrant, referring to “defense information.”
Add in the fact that Trump recently hosted the Saudi-backed LIV golf tournament in July at his Bedminster club, a controversial decision that caused several professional golfers to be excluded from the PGA tour for their participation. He also agreed to host the LIV Golf Invitational Series finale in October at his Miami Doral course, expected to bring in another $50 million.
Toss in there a recently disclosed check for $2 billion from the Saudi Kingdom’s Sovereign Wealth Fund to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s private equity firm. Despite the $2 billion being listed by the Saudi fund review panel as “excessive,” “inexperienced,” and “unsatisfactory in all aspects,” the board approved the deal. It helped that the board is led by royal family member Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that guy responsible for kidnapping and dismembering journalist Jamal Khashoggi with a bone saw, but again, back to the nuclear thing.
Trump’s ties with Saudi leaders have been prevalent even during his presidency. Who could forget the magical glowing orb moment that looked like something out of Dr. Strangelove.
But so far, no direct ties to Saudi Arabia have been connected to what was recovered during the raid.
Plus, we can’t ignore Biden getting a little cozy with the Crown Prince last month either.
There’s also the potential connection to Jan. 6, which has been pushed by statements from people like Andrew C. McCarthy, a former assistant attorney for the Southern District of New York, who told the Washington Times “They’re looking for evidence to try to make a case on Trump for Jan. 6” without any evidence of his own to back up the claim.
There’s also Biden’s quote in the New York Times to AG Garland about Jan. 6, taking place months before the raid, where the outlet stated “That (Biden) wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.”
But the FBI remains cautious on this investigation, juxtaposing the constant announcements and updates when it came to “Russia-Gate,” where the FBI held weekly conferences for the public regarding the fabled Steele dossier, as well as the Nunes memo and the FISA warrants, all of which turned out to be little more than red herrings.
The ongoing push to get any legal charges to stick to the former president have been an endless series of attacks, followed by setbacks, for the establishment ever since he announced his presidential bid back in June 2015.
A quick recap: there was the Access Hollywood tape, the Trump University scandal, the tax returns scandal, The Soho deal, immigration quotes, the impeachment, and don’t forget the second impeachment, firing Comey, Flynn’s resignation, the Twitter ban, collusion, more Tweets, more collusion, and the Paris Accord (some of which may have actually been significant crimes worth looking into, especially the Soho and tax return scandals).
Instead, the constant pile-ons have had the opposite effect, creating a stronger fan base and shifting Trump’s image from a totalitarian oppressor to a victim of the “deep-state,” whether intentional or not.
Even Forbes was willing to admit in 2016 “Trump benefited from ‘overwhelmingly negative’ tone of election news coverage,” with NPR providing a study that “News coverage of Trump (was) more negative than for other presidents.”
It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.
The Independent reported on Saturday that the “FBI raid gave Trump a 10-point boost over DeSantis” according to a poll of GOP primary voters.
There’s also controversy surrounding Biden’s knowledge of the raid.
The White House claimed the President was “not aware of this,” on Aug. 8, leading Bloomberg to report “Biden learned of the Trump raid from media reports.”
But the President and his administration continue to refuse all direct questions about the raid and the ongoing investigation.
Can the raid and the seizure of any top secret documents keep Trump from running again in 2024? The answer is murky.
After Watergate, the Presidential Records Act was created, requiring the president to preserve all records created during their tenure so they can be handed over to the National Archives. Attached is U.S. Code 2071, which states anyone who “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates or destroys” official government documents “shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”
“Phew,” said the Dems. “Not quite,” said the GOP.
Legal scholars have been pointing out to the New York Times that it’s the U.S. Constitution, not criminal law, that sets the eligibility requirements for the presidency, as well as how someone can be disqualified.
All eyes have now turned to the Espionage Act, a dangerous angle that places Trump in the same category as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
The Espionage Act makes it illegal for anyone who has information related to national “defense” to use it “to the injury of the United States” or “to the advantage of any foreign nation.”
The Act also makes it illegal for anyone who lawfully has possession of information related to national security to provide it or attempt to provide it to those not permitted to obtain it. But the key is these individuals cannot “willfully” retain and fail to deliver documents or other materials on demand to an officer of the United States who is allowed to receive them. Anyone convicted of violating the Espionage Act can face a fine or up to 10 years in prison.
Back in 1917, the Espionage Act was established shortly after the start of the first World War to protect military operations, but as early as 1919, the Act has been attacked and contested in regards to freedom of speech.
During the charging of Daniel Ellsberg of the Espionage Act for taking the “Pentagon Papers” to the New York Times for publication, the paper published an Op-Ed saying the decision “stiffened the spines of all journalists.” But just a short ten years later, the same paper ran another Op-Ed titled “Leaking the Pentagon Papers was an Assault on Democracy.” So what happened? The simple answer is 9-11.
Ellsberg told the outlet Useful Idiots in 2021: “They’ve learned to wield the Espionage Act, to criminalize whistleblowing… 9/11 comes along, and it’s ‘Constitution be damned.’ Since then we’ve had total surveillance of everybody, totally unconstitutionally… We’re not a police state, but we could be a police state almost from one day to the next… They know where we are, they know our names, they know from our iPhones if we’re on our way to the grocery store or not… We could be East Germany in weeks, in a month.”
In fairness, Snowden and Assange have revamped some of our passion for freedom of speech and disclosure, at least those of us who want transparency. But the Obama administration continued to work with Swedish officials behind the scenes in an attempt to bring WikiLeaks’ founder Assange into American custody.
Obama leveraged the Espionage Act eight other times to bring charges against people for even simply talking to the press. This included: Thomas Drake, Shamai Leibowitz, Stephen Kim, Chelsea Manning, Donald Sachtleben, Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou and Snowden. The administration also obtained the home and cell phone numbers of 20 Associates Press journalists, citing the Act as justification.
Establishment attitudes towards whistleblowing have shifted, and this is yet another opportunity to demonize the sharing of information in the name of transparency. It’s a complicated issue, one that warrants an article of its own, but the bottom line is unfortunately, mishandling information related to national defense is left to the discretion of the government and the administration in charge. Back to the raid.
One key word being stressed by Trump, the media, and the FBI in connection to the raid is “unprecedented.”
Trump himself took to his Truth Social platform to state, “Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before.”
And he’s right, no former president’s home has ever been raided by the FBI in the past, although the FBI has entered into several investigations into former presidents, and it’s worth remembering a few recent examples.
In June of 1972, police caught five men breaking into the Democratic National Committee’s offices in the Watergate complex and by October, the FBI had found connections between Nixon’s aides and those involved in the break-in.
The scandal resulted in Nixon becoming the only U.S. president to resign from office to avoid removal over the scandal, but his home was never raided.
40th president Ronald Reagan was also under investigation due to the Iran-Contra scandal, involving secret U.S. arms sales to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages held in Lebanon. But the conflict came down to money resulting from the arms deals, which was reportedly used to help fund rebel factions to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. The results were several convictions, including for National Security Council member Oliver North, but Reagan was never tied to the crime.
Both Bill and Hillary Clinton were investigated in 1996 due to their involvement with the Whitewater scandal involving shady real estate developments in Arkansas.
Accused of pressuring an Arkansas banker to provide their partners Jim and Susan McDougal with an illegal loan, several investigations were launched, however, the Clintons were cleared of any wrongdoing. There’s also Bill’s lying under oath scandal regarding Monica Lewinsky that led to his impeachment, but he was later acquitted in 1999, after which he served out the remained of his second term.
George W. Bush faced a 22-month investigation after some members of his administration reportedly leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to journalist Robert Nova. Plame accused Bush of exaggerating evidence to justify going to war in Iraq, and while Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of lying to federal agents, no evidence was ever found against Bush.
Going by history, when the FBI is called upon to investigate a president, it rarely results in criminal charges, at least for the president. There’s usually no there there.
So the question remains, will these finally be the charges that stick?
When you look at the inconsistent press coverage, the overwhelming excitement reminiscent of the Russia-gate scandal, the history of presidents surviving investigations, and the lack of confidence coming from federal authorities, the outlook is unlikely.
Maybe the overarching goal will be to connect Trump to the Saudis, a replica of the Russia-gate situation that could cause a potential global conflict. Or maybe they will help tie the President to more Jan. 6 charges, potentially linking together the raid with the text messages and emails that Alex Jones’s lawyer accidentally sent to the defense attorneys during his Sandy Hook trial.
Or maybe it will just fizzle out into nothing altogether, leading the FBI to become the target of the 2024 elections.
A positive outcome could be questioning how much power the FBI and Justice Department actually have and need, something reasonable when you look at recent contradictions; like when the FBI claimed they didn’t know the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing suspects, yet had interviewed them both just two years prior. Or when Edward Curran, former supervisor at the Los Angles FBI office, testified the organization had lied about recruiting an informant close to Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s? Or how about the ATF’s role in the Waco massacre, that led Attorney General Janet Reno to seek an independent investigator to probe charges of an FBI cover-up related to the massacre in September of 1999. Just a few FBI mishaps to get you thinking.
The unfortunate reality is the raid will likely do nothing but bolster the base of both political parties, leading to another showdown in 2024 between a likely Trump/DeSantis ticket and whoever the democrats manage to resurrect this time around.
God forbid we start calling Liz Cheney a dem.
Sources:
NYTimes, AP News, Slate, AA, WashingtonTimes, CBSNews, NYPost, Reuters, Forbes, WSWS, NBCNews, Independent, Esquire, TKNews, WashingtonPost, VanityFair, NationalReview, TheSun, CNN, TheHill, Vox, BBC, NPR
This is an interesting theory... But if you really want anyone to read, you need to spell names correctly... Ronald REAGAN was the President during the Iran-Contra affair... REAGAN...