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Garland Presser on Trump and Mar-a-Lago Search

Attorney General Merrick Garland gave a two minute press conference today on the search warrant that was issued and executed at Mar-a-Lago last week.

The transcript of his remarks is here.

This is not a historic disclosure. DOJ's filing a motion to unseal the warrant (but not the affidavit with the sworn facts supporting it) and the receipt for the property taken, copies of which were left at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the search, are unlikely to disclose anything that hasn't already been in the public arena.

It's the affidavit that bakes the cake (or causes its center to sink). And that's not being released.

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  • Display: Sort:
    CNN says where did he get all that stuff? (5.00 / 1) (#10)
    by CaptHowdy on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 06:27:34 PM EST
    reportedly after classified meetings Trump would say "can I KEEP these?"
    I picturing him saying it quietly.
    And no one stoped him.

    That's just amazing.  An unbelievable scene from a bad movie.


    I guess that's from (none / 0) (#11)
    by CaptHowdy on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 06:40:44 PM EST
    John Bolton.  Just confirmed by Mick Mulvaney.

    Parent
    Yet more information ... (5.00 / 1) (#14)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 07:26:31 PM EST
    ... that would have been useful for Congress to know in 2019, had John Bolton actually been more concerned with our national security than his then-pending book deal.

    Parent
    Honestly (none / 0) (#16)
    by CaptHowdy on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 07:29:38 PM EST
    in the scope of the Trump era its sort of a weird stupid detail that might not have seemed worth mentioning.  Until now.

    Parent
    Mick Mulvaney (none / 0) (#17)
    by CaptHowdy on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 07:31:06 PM EST
    was, like, "Oh yeah.  He did that."

    Parent
    Warrant (none / 0) (#1)
    by FlJoe on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 02:29:35 PM EST
    cite espionage act, obstruction and removing government records, per NYT


    Here is the Link (none / 0) (#2)
    by RickyJim on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 03:06:30 PM EST
    It (none / 0) (#3)
    by FlJoe on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 03:22:49 PM EST
    won't shut them up, but I think his circle of friends will shrink by an unknown amount, it could be a trickle or a flood of rats jumping ship, this is some  bad cheese.

    Parent
    Speaking (none / 0) (#7)
    by FlJoe on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 03:58:33 PM EST
    of rats I see Roger Stone gets top billing in the receipts, and WTF does he have to do with the president of France and why would the FBI even bother with it?

    #2 was the "leather bound" box which contained the top level SCI stuff.

    I wonder if those two items were in the safe and somehow weirdly related.

    Parent

    The has long been talk that Roger Stone ... (none / 0) (#12)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 07:06:37 PM EST
    ... was linked to the Wikileaks email hack-and-dump from then-presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's 2017 campaign organization. If you remember, Trump & Co., LLC were rooting for France's resident right-wing crackpot, Marine Le Pen. Maybe this is related to that.

    Parent
    So (none / 0) (#18)
    by FlJoe on Sat Aug 13, 2022 at 04:48:08 AM EST
    I heard over at Empty Wheel, I don't understand the prominence given to it by tRump (or the FBI for that matter), it was listed separately by the FBI so I am assuming it was not chucked in a box somewhere.

    The first 7 items listed in the numbered receipts were more specific than the rest, my gut feeling is they were in the safe. Stone's clemency, leather boxed super duper classified docs, binders of photos, handwritten note. tRump's kompromat stash?

    I could see the leather bound box as some kind of trophy box he would whip out to impress people but Stone's clemency is nowhere near one of his greatest hits.

    The photos are interesting I am assuming the FBI wouldn't be grabbing the family pics or meet and greets he had with world leaders.

    The hand written note could be anything but it all seemed significant to tRump and the FBI.

    Parent

    "Oh, those! I DEclassified those" (none / 0) (#4)
    by CaptHowdy on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 03:39:19 PM EST
    Might work as a talking point but apparently expected.

    May Not Matter If Info Seized from Trump Was Classified
    August 12, 2022 at 3:37 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 177 Comments

    Donald Trump is now arguing that he used his authority to declassify the material seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago before he left office.

    But the New York Times reports none of the three criminal laws cited in the search warrant "turn on whether information was deemed to be unclassified."

    More from the New York Times: "Two of the laws that a search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago this week referenced -- Sections 1519 and 2071 of Title 18 of the United States Code -- make the taking or concealment of government records a crime regardless of whether they had anything to do with national security."

    "For another, laws against taking or hoarding material with restricted national-security information -- which generally carry heavier penalties than theft of ordinary documents -- do not always line up with whether the files are technically classified."



    The three (none / 0) (#5)
    by CaptHowdy on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 03:41:14 PM EST
    18 USC 2071 -- Concealment, removal or mutilation

    18 USC 793 -- Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

    18 USC 1519 -- Destruction, alteration or falsification of records in Federal investigation

    Parent

    Lotta years (none / 0) (#8)
    by smott on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 05:35:44 PM EST
    Of prison in those three....

    Parent
    I was thinking (none / 0) (#9)
    by CaptHowdy on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 06:08:19 PM EST
    What if "it" really is ultimately just mishandling classified information.  

    Seems easy to prove.  Serious penalties, enforced all the time.  

    It could be like Al Capone's taxes.  At least it gets him off the streets.

    Parent

    My guess is (none / 0) (#19)
    by smott on Sat Aug 13, 2022 at 11:00:04 AM EST
    They got new Intel recently that made acting on it very urgent.
    Likely something happened at the Befminster golf event attended by MBS.
    I think it was bad and implicated national defense and
    Security else Bratt the head of Counterintelligence would not have been there personally.
    I doubt Garland, who likely hates this kind of splashy
    thing, would sign of on something so high risk if it was only document handling.

    Parent
    Supposedly (none / 0) (#20)
    by CaptHowdy on Sat Aug 13, 2022 at 12:36:32 PM EST
    They had seized some CCTV footage before the big search.

    Maybe the security cameras showed MBS getting a tour.

    It would be very Trump for him to say to someone like MBS he wants to impress, 'hey, you won't believe what I got'

    Parent

    Yep (none / 0) (#21)
    by smott on Sat Aug 13, 2022 at 05:29:22 PM EST
    It does seem the security footage or other singint might have been the impetus to move.
    But back to Bratt, if some of the docs were the TS-compartmentalized level, he may be the only person with high enough security to handle them.
    I've read that they are so sensitive that their existence cannot even be acknowledged. Crazy.
    Here's hoping Donald is truly EFFed.
    Jared too.

    Parent
    Mother of Mercy... (none / 0) (#6)
    by desertswine on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 03:45:42 PM EST
    Is this the end of Rico?

    Wouldn't the affidavit ... (none / 0) (#13)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 07:23:58 PM EST
    Jeralyn: "This is not a historic disclosure. DOJ's filing a motion to unseal the warrant (but not the affidavit with the sworn facts supporting it) and the receipt for the property taken, copies of which were left at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the search, are unlikely to disclose anything that hasn't already been in the public arena. It's the affidavit that bakes the cake (or causes its center to sink). And that's not being released."

    ... likely contain information pertaining to the FBI's source of information concerning the whereabouts of the material being kept at Mar-a-Lago? Agents apparently knew exactly where to look in order to find it. Burning that source would probably not be a good look, particularly given the escalating threats of violence emanating from the far-right.

    This is a very serious national security issue and a potentially volatile situation. As much as it pains me to say it as an LE skeptic, we're going to have to trust AG Garland and DOJ on this one. They need to first assess the full scope of the security breach and its accompanying threat level, and then determine whether Trump actually shared these documents with anyone and if so, with whom.

    Aloha.

    and if he was planning (none / 0) (#15)
    by CaptHowdy on Fri Aug 12, 2022 at 07:27:17 PM EST
    or even tried to sell it.

    Parent
    Exactly. (none / 0) (#23)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Aug 15, 2022 at 03:59:36 PM EST
    Eric Trump's scrapbook excuse is a dog that doesn't hunt.

    Parent
    Rudy is informed he is a target (none / 0) (#22)
    by CaptHowdy on Mon Aug 15, 2022 at 12:31:20 PM EST
    Why now (none / 0) (#24)
    by CaptHowdy on Thu Aug 18, 2022 at 04:30:27 PM EST

    Weeks before Mar-a-Lago search, ex-Trump DOD official vowed to publish classified documents from National Archives
    Kash Patel said he planned to post documents from the National Archives online.

    If that scheme involved Trump himself and the Mar-a-Lago documents, it could have significant legal implications for the Justice Department's ongoing criminal investigation. Any plan to release the documents could potentially trigger specific elements of the Espionage Act and other criminal statutes designed with the core purpose of preventing unlawful dissemination of classified and other sensitive government documents. As I discuss below, credible evidence of such a plan also would likely factor into the Justice Department's decision on whether to bring criminal charges.

    just security

    Although Biden campaigned on opposition (none / 0) (#25)
    by Peter G on Thu Sep 22, 2022 at 08:33:02 PM EST
    to the death penalty, his AG continues to approve new death cases and to defend capital verdicts on appeal, including Tsarnaev and Roof. On the other hand, the Administration has not scheduled and carried out any executions, as Tr*mp/Barr did.