Awsome Trump Ralley in Wilkes Barre, PA today. President Trump takes the stage at 7:00 PM.

FBI Official Accused of Shutting Down Hunter Biden Probe Was ‘Running Point’ on Key Witness

https://freebeacon.com/biden-a...oint-on-key-witness/

A former FBI official who allegedly shut down part of the investigation into Hunter Biden was "running point" in the bureau’s dealings with a key witness in the probe, according to sources directly familiar with the matter.

The witness, Tony Bobulinski, now has concerns that the former official, Timothy Thibault , helped bury information about his dealings with the Biden family that he gave the FBI, sources told the Washington Free Beacon. Thibault retired from the FBI last week amid allegations from whistleblowers that he shut down an investigation into an avenue of "derogatory" information about Hunter Biden in October 2020. Senate Republicans began scrutinizing Thibault earlier this year over anti-Trump rhetoric he posted on social media.
It had been unclear what role Thibault played in the Biden investigation, which began in 2018. But his oversight of Bobulinski means he oversaw one of the most significant witnesses to come forward with information about the Bidens’ business links to China. The FBI interviewed Bobulinski for five hours on Oct. 23, 2020, after Bobulinski publicly disputed Joe Biden’s claim to have never discussed business with his son. Bobulinski said he met with Hunter and Joe Biden in May 2017 to discuss a multimillion-dollar deal with CEFC China Energy, a Chinese energy conglomerate with ties to Chinese military intelligence. The California-based businessman also said Joe Biden is "the big guy" referenced in cryptic emails discussing equity payments from their business deals.

"In my hour-long meeting with Joe Biden we discussed Biden family business dealings with the Chinese, with which he was plainly familiar," Bobulinski said at a press conference before his FBI interview. Text messages show Bobulinski and Hunter Biden arranging a meeting with Joe Biden at the Beverly Hills Hilton. Emails from Biden’s abandoned laptop show extensive discussions about CEFC China Energy.

Hunter Biden announced in December 2020 that the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware was investigating his taxes, though other reports say prosecutors were scrutinizing Biden’s business dealings in China and Ukraine. CNN reported last month that the probe has reached a "critical juncture," with prosecutors still weighing possible criminal charges.

The New York Post reported earlier this year that a grand jury witness was asked to identify "the big guy" referenced in the emails sent to Biden and Bobulinski. Bobulinski, however, has not been contacted by the U.S. attorney or called before the grand jury, sources told the Free Beacon. According to the sources, Bobulinski’s attorneys had multiple interactions with Thibault after Bobulinski’s FBI interview. They said Thibault told Bobulinski’s lawyers the FBI would reach out if additional information was needed, but that the bureau has not made contact with Bobulinski since then.

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) raised concerns about Thibault earlier this year over social media posts in which the FBI official attacked Trump as a "psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man." According to the Republicans, whistleblowers said Thibault "ordered" the closure of an investigation into "derogatory" reporting about Hunter Biden. The whistleblowers said Thibault improperly marked the information in the FBI’s internal systems in a way that the matter could not be reopened in the future.

FBI director Christopher Wray said at a Senate hearing this month that the allegations against Thibault were "troubling." Thibault’s attorneys denied in a statement to the Free Beacon that he was fired or forced to resign from the FBI. They claimed Thibault "did not supervise" the Hunter Biden probe and "did not seek to close the investigation," though they declined to address questions about Bobulinski. FBI director Christopher Wray said at a Senate hearing this month that the allegations against Thibault were "troubling." Thibault’s attorneys denied in a statement to the Free Beacon that he was fired or forced to resign from the FBI. They claimed Thibault "did not supervise" the Hunter Biden probe and "did not seek to close the investigation," though they declined to address questions about Bobulinski.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, said Congress "must shine a bright light on the FBI" in the wake of the Thibault allegations.

"What Mr. Thibault knows about the FBI’s significant misconduct and running of interference for the Biden family won’t stay hidden just because he’s no longer with the bureau," Issa told the Free Beacon.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware and the FBI declined comment.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wcb6092,

Federal judge hands Trump win, orders special master to review evidence seized from Mar-a-Lago

https://justthenews.com/politi..._campaign=newsletter

A federal judge on Monday handed Donald Trump a significant win, ordering a special master to review evidence seized by the FBI during its raid of the former president's Florida estate last month.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon said the independent master can "review the seized property, manage assertions of privilege and make recommendations thereon, and evaluate claims for return of property."

Trump responded to the victory on his social media platform Truth Social.

"Remember, it takes courage and 'guts' to fight a totally corrupt Department of 'Justice' and the FBI," Trump's post read. "They are being pushed to do the wrong things by many sinister and evil outside sources. Until impartiality, wisdom, fairness, and courage are shown by them, our Country can never come back or recover — it will be reduced to being a Third World Nation!"

Cannon also halted the Justice Department's review of the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago "pending completion of the special master's review or further Court order."

Trump asked for the special master, claiming documents seized from him were covered by attorney client privilege and executive privilege. The FBI also acknowledged it overcollected evidence, including passports, attorney-client privilege records and even clothing.

A special master is typically a lawyer from outside the government who makes independent judgments on whether evidence has been properly seized.

They even confiscated clothing.......I guess Melania will need to go purchase some new underwear!!

Most reasonable conclusion I have seen so far.


Why Did the FBI Raid Mar-a-Lago?

Trump’s ‘stash of nuclear secrets’ is this summer’s Kremlin collusion conspiracy. But the latest chapter of Russiagate may end with a bang.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sect...russiagate-lee-smith

The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago feels like peak Russiagate. There’s the synchronized press hysteria, moving from one absurd end-of-America “bombshell” to the next, accompanied by dark intonations regarding secrets about to be revealed and blustering accusations of high treason. Donald Trump was said to be hoarding “nuclear documents,” which he planned to peddle for billions to the Saudis. Who’s buying the map of Fort Knox? Does Trump have access to Colonel Sanders’ secret fried chicken recipe, too?

It’s no laughing matter to the American press, or for the partisan operatives and national security bureaucrats who feed them their cues. For them, the Mar-a-Lago raid is Russiagate II: The Palm Beach Papers.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’ proposed damage assessment of the documents is a remake of the January 2017 intelligence community assessment which claimed, without evidence, that Vladimir Putin wanted to put Trump in the Oval Office. The extensive redactions on the affidavit the FBI used to get a warrant to raid Trump’s home are akin to the excessive redactions on the application that the FBI showed a secret court in 2016 to get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. What was true for the original Russiagate holds here, too: The redactions are designed to hide not state secrets, but government corruption.

The Mar-a-Lago raid feels like Russiagate because, well, it is Russiagate: a conspiracy theory weaponized by the country’s courtier class to serve the interests of a delirious and deracinated oligarchy, spawning daily prophesies of doom fed by an endless supply of national security “leaks” asserting that the former commander-in-chief really was and is a secret Russian agent. And proof of the president’s treachery, chant the priestly keepers of the “collusion” mysteries, will soon be revealed to the public. It is their blanket justification for every past crime and every new banana republic-style abuse of power, accompanied by a drumbeat of ever more outlandish and violent threats.

It is in this context that the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago should be understood: Government records and reports from political and media operatives and bureaucrats who previously starred in Russiagate I give evidence that the FBI raided Trump’s home to seize documents exposing the crimes that the FBI and Justice Department have been committing since 2016. The fact that Russiagate shows no signs of ending anytime soon is bad news for the republic, betrayed from within by a performative elite whose ability to project power outside its gilded bubble requires a steady supply of paranoia, fear, and hysteria.

The story of the Mar-a-Lago raid begins at the end of Trump’s presidency, when he declassified documents related to Russiagate. Those records contain evidence of how the FBI spied on Trump’s campaign, presidential transition team, and administration. The documents reportedly include transcripts of FBI intercepts of Trump aides, a declassified copy of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to collect the electronic communications of Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page, and reports regarding Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper, the two main confidential human sources used by the FBI to spy on Trump’s circle.

Kash Patel, who served in a variety of Pentagon roles and as a principal deputy in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration, has said that 60% of the documents related to Russiagate are already in public view. As lead investigator for the House Intelligence Committee’s probe of the FBI’s illegal investigation of the Trump campaign, Patel helped get vital Russiagate records declassified. When Trump named Patel to the ODNI post, he and acting Director Richard Grenell put more Russiagate documents before the U.S. public in 2020. Patel has told the press that what Trump declassified on Jan. 19, 2021, constitutes the remainder of the Russiagate records—which is what the FBI was apparently after.

So, are the Russiagate documents secret? With hours left in Trump’s presidency, the DOJ raised “privacy concerns” about Trump’s declassification, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows agreed to submit the documents for a final review. “I am returning the bulk of the binder of declassified documents to the Department of Justice,” Meadows wrote in a memo, “with the instruction that the Department must expeditiously conduct a Privacy Act review under the standards that the Department of Justice would normally apply, redact material appropriately, and release the remaining material with redactions applied.”

The problem, however, is that Biden’s DOJ, which was tasked with conducting that review, is staffed with key operatives who targeted Trump starting in 2016, like Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. As Barack Obama’s Homeland Security adviser, Monaco met in the White House with Haines, then deputy national security adviser (and former deputy CIA director), and National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who is now director of Biden’s Domestic Policy Council, to push the Trump-Russia narrative. As far as Monaco and her confederates were concerned, once Meadows turned over the declassified documents, the national security establishment was in the clear: The documents would never be seen again.

After Trump’s departure, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) demanded Trump hand over papers the former president claimed as his own. Starting in the spring of 2021, Trump’s lawyers and NARA officials went back and forth over certain items, like his correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and a letter from Obama. Eventually, the Trump team agreed to hand over 15 boxes’ worth of records. On Jan. 18, 2022, NARA retrieved the documents from Mar-a-Lago, including the Kim letters. (Press reports concerning nuclear “secrets” in Trump’s possession seem to be purposeful misrepresentations of his correspondence with the North Korean dictator, with whom he sought to strike a nuclear accord.)

The archives and DOJ tracks crossed on Feb. 9, when NARA told federal law enforcement that the 15 boxes contained classified information. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., made this information public when she wrote a letter to the archives the same day asking if the 15 boxes included classified information. NARA officials responded that they did, and that they were in communication with the Justice Department. The stage was thus set for the Russiagate revival, which began three months later.

In a May 5 article, Breitbart News asked Patel to comment on reports that the former president had been holding classified material at Mar-a-Lago. No, said Patel. He explained that while president, “Trump declassified whole sets of materials.” “The president has unilateral authority to declassify documents,” said Patel. “He exercised it here in full.”

Patel told Breitbart that he wouldn’t get into specifics about the documents that Trump had officially made public. Despite the fact that the material was no longer classified, the former federal prosecutor suspected that the press would nonetheless accuse him of illegally disclosing government secrets. So he vaguely indicated what the documents contained.

“It’s information that Trump felt spoke to matters regarding everything from Russiagate to the Ukraine impeachment fiasco to major national security matters of great public importance,” said Patel, “anything the president felt the American people had a right to know is in there and more.”

It seems that the FBI and DOJ may have interpreted Patel to mean that he had seen the declassified Russiagate documents at Mar-A-Lago. Maybe they thought there were copies of the records. They’d demonized Trump for six years—after all that time, they likely came to believe the image of him they’d pushed through the media. He was capable of committing any outrage—even copying the documents to protect himself, which, as seasoned bureaucrats, is precisely what they would have done. And hadn’t Patel intimated that among the papers Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago were the very records exposing their crimes?

On May 11, less than a week after the Breitbart story, the DOJ obtained a grand jury subpoena to search Trump’s home. But before visiting Mar-a-Lago, they made a “preliminary review” of the 15 boxes of NARA material that they’d ignored for four months.

According to the affidavit, between May 16 and 18, a team of FBI agents poured through the documents. But they couldn’t have found any of the Russiagate documents Patel had referred to in the Breitbart article, because, according to a July 2022 article by reporter John Solomon, the archives did not have the declassified documents.

Did Trump have them? It seems the Justice Department was determined to find out. On June 3, a DOJ official and three FBI agents visited Mar-a-Lago on official business. Trump hailed them cheerfully. “I appreciate the job you’re doing,” he said to the law enforcement officials. “Anything you need, let us know.”

The agents asked to see the storage locker where Trump kept mementos from his term in office. Shortly after the visit, DOJ sent a letter to his aides instructing them to further secure the facility. Trump’s staff complied by adding a second lock. With DOJ trying to flush Trump out by showing up at his door, they wanted to find out who went into the facility after they officially warned that the facility wasn’t secure. It seems they were looking for someone in particular.

On June 21, Patel announced that he and Solomon had been appointed by Trump to obtain the declassified Russiagate documents from the archives: Patel said he was going to post them on his website. DOJ, however, already knew what Patel and Solomon would only discover a month later: The archives didn’t have the declassified documents. So if Patel said he would post them, law enforcement may have wondered, where would he get them from?

The answer must have seemed clear: Mar-a-Lago. On June 22, the Justice Department subpoenaed surveillance video footage of the storage locker. According to a New York Times story, sourced to “people familiar with the tapes,” “video showed boxes being moved out of the storage room sometime around the contact from the Justice Department.” Video “also showed boxes being slipped into different containers.” With this, the FBI was ready to move on Trump’s home.

Still, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland deliberated for weeks about whether to raid a a former president’s home. It had never been done before. Was it his destiny to be the man who ushered the United States into such dangerous territory? But the pressure to get Trump was building. It likely came from below (Monaco) and above: President Biden told aides he wanted his top law enforcement officer to target Trump. Garland finally resolved to pull the trigger. On Aug. 5, the FBI got the warrant for the raid, which took place three days later.

Preserving the stability of the United States at present is something like a Mexican standoff.

So was the FBI after what they believed to be Trump’s secret stash of Russiagate documents? The warrant was drawn so broadly that it allowed the agents to seize any document from Trump’s term in the White House. But an Aug. 26 New York Times story confirmed that the FBI was “spurred” to act after discovering Trump had retained “documents related to the use of ‘clandestine human sources,’”and other documents related to “foreign intercepts collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.”

Those at all familiar with Russiagate will recognize these keywords, employed by the same media organization that won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for partnering with U.S. intelligence services to destabilize and delegitimize Trump’s presidency. The descriptions in the article also line up with what Trump reportedly declassified before he left the White House.

Yet if what the FBI was after were the Russiagate documents that it imagined were hidden somewhere at Mar-a-Lago, it’s not clear if the agents found them. According to the Times story, the safe in Trump’s closet “did not contain the materials investigators sought.” Maybe the materials were somewhere else. Perhaps Trump never had them. Trump allies I’ve spoken with don’t think he has the documents.

Garland’s dilemma now is whether to risk finding out the truth. Press reports suggest that he is undecided about indicting Trump. That makes sense—it would likely sow chaos across the country and, Garland must worry, perhaps force Trump’s hand. For if the former president does have the documents, in whatever form, and posts them, it might bring the house down on the U.S. national security apparatus and the Democratic administration that it shields.

The effect of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago is therefore to obscure the real scandal: U.S. spies committed a series of crimes in their effort to unseat a U.S. president, and then ignored the lawful orders of that president in order to keep their crimes hidden from the American public.

What is preserving the stability of the United States at present is therefore something like a Mexican standoff. Does Trump actually have the documents? If so, will he put them before the public? Will Garland indict him, and risk finding out? Given the Biden administration’s tendency to instrumentalize the violence of its rhetoric and turn federal bureaucracies loose on its political opponents, it is likely that the standoff will not hold for long.

Just put all those documents on a unsecured server in a bathroom in the basement… Allow it to be hacked by the Daily Mail…

Bleach bit it later and the fbi let you off Scott free.

Interesting. Court documents reveal Former Vice President Bidiot ordered the Eff Bee Eye raid on President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

https://100percentfedup.com/li...en-ordered-the-raid/

It’s kind of funny watching the left meltdown over this special master thing.

Just a few weeks ago they were screaming that the search warrant must be 100% legit since a federal judge signed off on it. Now all the sudden a federal judges opinion is controversial.

quote:

Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
Interesting. Court documents reveal Former Vice President Bidiot ordered the Eff Bee Eye raid on President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

https://100percentfedup.com/li...en-ordered-the-raid/

It's parsing at its best. When asked if Biden had any notice of THE Mar-a-lago raid, Biden and the WH can say they had no foreknowledge of the specifics of the raid. That Biden told the FBI to go raid Trump's place some indeterminate time before the raid is another matter.

And there's no press to hold their feet to the fire.

If my memory is correct the FBI spent 9 hours in there with over 30 agents. There is no way this is not intentional. They had plenty of time and personnel to sort out documents that were not specified on the warrant. This is criminal behavior by our own government.


FBI Seized Trump’s Medical Records and Tax Documents during Mar-a-Lago Raid, Judge Reveals

https://slaynews.com/news/fbi-...ign=daily-newsletter

A federal judge has revealed that FBI agents seized President Donald Trump’s medical records and tax documents during the raid on his Mar-a-Lago home last month.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge from the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen M. Cannon ordered that an independent special master be appointed to review Trump’s records for attorney-client and executive privilege.

As Slay News reported, Cannon also ordered the Department of Justice halts its own review of the material for investigative purposes.

While issuing the order, the judge also revealed the types of documents that had been seized from Trump’s Florida residence.

“According to the Privilege Review Team’s Report, the seized materials include medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information,” Cannon wrote.

A source familiar with the case reportedly told Fox News that Democrat President Joe Biden’s FBI seized 40 years of Trump’s medical records from Mar-a-Lago during the raid.

Congressional Democrats have been seeking Trump’s tax returns since 2019.

Last month, a federal appeals court paved the way for the House Ways and Means Committee to finally obtain Trump’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service, under a law that permits the disclosure of an individual’s tax returns to the congressional committee.

Trump may seek emergency intervention measures from the Supreme Court in an attempt to temporarily block any release of those tax records to the committee.

“The United States is examining the opinion and will consider appropriate next steps in the ongoing litigation,” Justice Department Spokesman Anthony Coley said in a statement.

I don't get all the fuss about the special master. I litigate cases for a living and while special masters aren't used often, disputes like this don't happen often either. Every time I've had a special master appointed in a case it was to resolve issues exactly like this. They are like a receiver, but instead of handling money they deal with documents and things. And don't believe anything you read about Judge Cannon - she is fantastic and she will follow the law.

quote:

Just a few weeks ago they were screaming that the search warrant must be 100% legit since a federal judge signed off on it. Now all the sudden a federal judges opinion is controversial.

Lest we for get, the judge that signed the search warrant was a federal magistrate, Judge Cannon is a US District Court Judge, confirmed by the US Senate (vote was 56-21 on 11/12/2020).

So yeah, the first judge (a male) was cool with dems, but not her. Which BTW, isn't misogynistic, at all.

Judge's order exposes FBI sloppiness, excessive evidence collection at Trump home

Court also acknowledges Joe Biden helped initiate criminal probe of his chief Republican rival, alarming many.

https://justthenews.com/politi..._campaign=newsletter

A criminal probe "requested by the incumbent president." The seizure of clothing, medical records, tax records and 500 pages of attorney-client privileged documents not covered by a warrant. The sharing of privileged documents with investigators.

More than simply appointing a special master to referee an evidence dispute, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon exposed this week a Justice Department search of former President Donald Trump's home that was initiated by his chief Democrat rival, that was carried out so sloppily that it violated the "least intrusive" mandate in the FBI agent's manual, and that failed to keep legally-protected materials from falling into the hands of investigators.

The problems uncovered so far placed Trump "at risk of suffering injury from the Government's retention and potential use of privileged materials," Cannon wrote, adding that a future indictment of the ex-president based on the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago "would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude."

File
SpecialMasterOrder.pdf
In other words, Cannon was not convinced by the Justice Department's argument that its honor system — known as "filter" or "taint" teams — was adequate to protect the 45th president's constitutional rights. "The Court takes a different view on this record," she wrote.

Cannon's Labor Day ruling is simply an opening salvo. Whether Trump's claims of executive privilege, attorney-client privilege or an unconstitutional, overly broad search prevail will be decided some time in the future.

But one thing is clear. The FBI and its overseers at the Biden Justice Department bumbled on what was certain to be one of the most scrutinized search warrant executions in modern American history. And that's according to one of the bureau's own former and highly respected executives.

"The more that's revealed, the more it looks like a kind of sloppy government overreach is in play," former Assistant FBI Director of Intelligence Kevin Brock told Just the News. "It seems more than a bit 'loose' to those of us who have executed numerous search warrants."

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor and avowed Democrat, said the judge's ruling cited the sort of FBI failures that in the past would have enraged liberals who have gone silent about such concerns in the Trump era.

"Many faculty on the left continue the curious objections to a court seeking review of the FBI or not accepting its overbroad claims of authority," Turley wrote Tuesday. "It is a bizarre shift that we have seen in other Trump investigations where liberals suddenly express shock that a court would override sweeping national security claims or seek to review the Justice Department's review of material for privilege.

Turley noted that there "appears to have been mistakes by the taint team and that privileged material (as well as an assortment of private material from medical records to tax records) were seized."

To appreciate the concerns of experts like Brock and Turley, one need only scan the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, or DIOG, the documents most FBI agents regard as their on-the-job bible.

The investigative manual requires FBI agents to use the "least intrusive" means of gathering evidence, especially when it comes to "sensitive investigative matters" like a probe of a former president where privileges and First Amendment are front and center.

That means framing a search in the narrowest possible terms to avoid communications protected by the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. "Rigorous obedience to constitutional principles ensures that individually and institutionally our adherence to constitutional guarantees is more important than the outcome of any single interview, search for evidence, or investigation," the manual states.

But Cannon's ruling exposed significant failures of the FBI agents at Mar-a-Lago to adhere to strict rules governing collection of evidence. For instance, more than 500 pages of documents protected by attorney-client privilege were collected, along with personal medical and tax records and even an article of clothing.

Such overcollection, Brock told the "Just the News, Not Noise" television show, is completely uncharacteristic for FBI agents who are trained to avoid such mistakes, suggesting the former president got worse treatment than a drug dealer or gang member,

"I don't care if it was a drug trafficker, or a child exploiter, or whatever, you go into a home, you set up a system where those things that you seize are assiduously documented," said Brock, who oversaw numerous search warrants in his three decade FBI career. "They're given a specific tracking number, barcodes, if you will, and each piece is gone through meticulously before you leave the premises to make sure that it's within the scope of the document."

The fact that did not happen raises the danger that the judge may eventually throw out the entire search, both because it was overly broad to begin with and then overcollected evidence outside the scope authorized by the magistrate, Brock said.

"If I'm a prosecutor, I am concerned going forward that this search warrant could be suppressed for those types of reasons, and they would lose access to anything that was collected throughout the search as a fruit of the poisonous tree," he said.

The judge also revealed that the DOJ's taint or filter teams failed to keep two pieces of protected, privileged documents from reaching frontline investigators. And even after the mistake was discovered, no efforts were made to wall off the evidence, she added.

"Perhaps most concerning, the Filter Review Team's Report does not indicate that any steps were taken after these instances of exposure to wall off the two tainted members of the Investigation Team," she wrote.

Cannon also acknowledged one other fact, citing government documents she saw, that troubled experts across the board: The criminal probe began with the National Archives "providing the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President." In other words, as Just the News reported last week, Biden gave an instruction that was the ignition for a criminal probe of his rival.

Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) said the judge's revelation about Biden smacks of hypocrisy for Democrats after all their efforts to suggest Trump meddled with DOJ or Ukraine investigations when he was president. And, he added, it raises questions about Biden's denials of any involvement in the probe.

"All of the things that they accuse President Trump of doing, they're actually doing," Scott told "Just the News, Not Noise." "I mean, the hypocrisy of it just knows no bounds. … If the judge is saying this stuff, then Biden has obviously been lying. That's the bottom line."

Brock said the judge's acknowledgment of Biden's role in prompting the start of the FBI probe will only add to public concern.

"That's a major escalation, obviously," he said. "It jumped out to me as well. It said at the request of the incumbent president. Now, that's not going to calm anybody's concerns that there weren't political motivations lurking behind all of these actions."

This is becoming a debacle of epic proportions for the FBI.

There is no way the FBI’d ever be dissolved and everyone fired from federal employment, but one can dream, if one is so inclined.

If only the fbi were so aggressive with Hunter’s laptops.

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
If only the fbi were so aggressive with Hunter’s laptops.

Or Hillary......or many things.

It is interesting to now see after this became public that so many of the media are now trying to defend Biden and saying that the term “as requested by the incumbent president” does not mean that Biden requested the raid by the FBI. What does it mean then ??? God Bless

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Judge's order exposes FBI sloppiness, excessive evidence collection at Trump home

Court also acknowledges Joe Biden helped initiate criminal probe of his chief Republican rival, alarming many.

https://justthenews.com/politi..._campaign=newsletter

A criminal probe "requested by the incumbent president." The seizure of clothing, medical records, tax records and 500 pages of attorney-client privileged documents not covered by a warrant. The sharing of privileged documents with investigators.

More than simply appointing a special master to referee an evidence dispute, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon exposed this week a Justice Department search of former President Donald Trump's home that was initiated by his chief Democrat rival, that was carried out so sloppily that it violated the "least intrusive" mandate in the FBI agent's manual, and that failed to keep legally-protected materials from falling into the hands of investigators.

The problems uncovered so far placed Trump "at risk of suffering injury from the Government's retention and potential use of privileged materials," Cannon wrote, adding that a future indictment of the ex-president based on the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago "would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude."

File
SpecialMasterOrder.pdf
In other words, Cannon was not convinced by the Justice Department's argument that its honor system — known as "filter" or "taint" teams — was adequate to protect the 45th president's constitutional rights. "The Court takes a different view on this record," she wrote.

Cannon's Labor Day ruling is simply an opening salvo. Whether Trump's claims of executive privilege, attorney-client privilege or an unconstitutional, overly broad search prevail will be decided some time in the future.

But one thing is clear. The FBI and its overseers at the Biden Justice Department bumbled on what was certain to be one of the most scrutinized search warrant executions in modern American history. And that's according to one of the bureau's own former and highly respected executives.

"The more that's revealed, the more it looks like a kind of sloppy government overreach is in play," former Assistant FBI Director of Intelligence Kevin Brock told Just the News. "It seems more than a bit 'loose' to those of us who have executed numerous search warrants."

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor and avowed Democrat, said the judge's ruling cited the sort of FBI failures that in the past would have enraged liberals who have gone silent about such concerns in the Trump era.

"Many faculty on the left continue the curious objections to a court seeking review of the FBI or not accepting its overbroad claims of authority," Turley wrote Tuesday. "It is a bizarre shift that we have seen in other Trump investigations where liberals suddenly express shock that a court would override sweeping national security claims or seek to review the Justice Department's review of material for privilege.

Turley noted that there "appears to have been mistakes by the taint team and that privileged material (as well as an assortment of private material from medical records to tax records) were seized."

To appreciate the concerns of experts like Brock and Turley, one need only scan the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, or DIOG, the documents most FBI agents regard as their on-the-job bible.

The investigative manual requires FBI agents to use the "least intrusive" means of gathering evidence, especially when it comes to "sensitive investigative matters" like a probe of a former president where privileges and First Amendment are front and center.

That means framing a search in the narrowest possible terms to avoid communications protected by the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. "Rigorous obedience to constitutional principles ensures that individually and institutionally our adherence to constitutional guarantees is more important than the outcome of any single interview, search for evidence, or investigation," the manual states.

But Cannon's ruling exposed significant failures of the FBI agents at Mar-a-Lago to adhere to strict rules governing collection of evidence. For instance, more than 500 pages of documents protected by attorney-client privilege were collected, along with personal medical and tax records and even an article of clothing.

Such overcollection, Brock told the "Just the News, Not Noise" television show, is completely uncharacteristic for FBI agents who are trained to avoid such mistakes, suggesting the former president got worse treatment than a drug dealer or gang member,

"I don't care if it was a drug trafficker, or a child exploiter, or whatever, you go into a home, you set up a system where those things that you seize are assiduously documented," said Brock, who oversaw numerous search warrants in his three decade FBI career. "They're given a specific tracking number, barcodes, if you will, and each piece is gone through meticulously before you leave the premises to make sure that it's within the scope of the document."

The fact that did not happen raises the danger that the judge may eventually throw out the entire search, both because it was overly broad to begin with and then overcollected evidence outside the scope authorized by the magistrate, Brock said.

"If I'm a prosecutor, I am concerned going forward that this search warrant could be suppressed for those types of reasons, and they would lose access to anything that was collected throughout the search as a fruit of the poisonous tree," he said.

The judge also revealed that the DOJ's taint or filter teams failed to keep two pieces of protected, privileged documents from reaching frontline investigators. And even after the mistake was discovered, no efforts were made to wall off the evidence, she added.

"Perhaps most concerning, the Filter Review Team's Report does not indicate that any steps were taken after these instances of exposure to wall off the two tainted members of the Investigation Team," she wrote.

Cannon also acknowledged one other fact, citing government documents she saw, that troubled experts across the board: The criminal probe began with the National Archives "providing the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President." In other words, as Just the News reported last week, Biden gave an instruction that was the ignition for a criminal probe of his rival.

Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) said the judge's revelation about Biden smacks of hypocrisy for Democrats after all their efforts to suggest Trump meddled with DOJ or Ukraine investigations when he was president. And, he added, it raises questions about Biden's denials of any involvement in the probe.

"All of the things that they accuse President Trump of doing, they're actually doing," Scott told "Just the News, Not Noise." "I mean, the hypocrisy of it just knows no bounds. … If the judge is saying this stuff, then Biden has obviously been lying. That's the bottom line."

Brock said the judge's acknowledgment of Biden's role in prompting the start of the FBI probe will only add to public concern.

"That's a major escalation, obviously," he said. "It jumped out to me as well. It said at the request of the incumbent president. Now, that's not going to calm anybody's concerns that there weren't political motivations lurking behind all of these actions."

Babylon Bee Funny:


FBI Drops Investigation After Discovering Trump's Top Secret Nuclear Documents Were Just Print-Outs Of Hillary Clinton Emails

https://babylonbee.com/news/fb...llary-clinton-emails

WASHINGTON, DC — Officials running the FBI investigation into former President Donald Trump's possession of allegedly classified nuclear documents were sent scrambling to halt their work after learning the documents in question are actually just printed-out emails from Hillary Clinton's private server.

"We were all set to see this through to the end and hopefully indict Mr. Trump on very serious charges, but we are now officially ending the investigation," said Special Agent Owen Gaffney in a prepared statement. "We discovered that these sensitive documents were, in fact, printouts of emails originally belonging to Hillary Clinton, and we're just not going anywhere near that."

After learning about the abrupt end of the investigation, Trump lashed out on his Truth Social account. "There is a clear double standard of justice in this country, and it's truly a shame," Trump said. "My beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago, was unjustly raided by swarms of corrupt FBI agents, but Crooked Hillary Clinton can illegally store tens of thousands of classified emails and get away with murder — literally — without any consequences. Sad! Stop murdering people, Hillary!"

When pressed for more information as to why the FBI would not be moving forward with the investigation, Agent Gaffney grew visibly nervous. "Look, Hillary Clinton, her family members, her staff, and anyone who works with her are completely innocent, ok? And that goes for President Biden, his son, Hunter, and basically any high-ranking Democrat. Ok? Do you hear me? Just don't make me talk about it! I don't want to die!"

At publishing time, the press was attempting to learn more about the situation, but FBI agents responded by screaming and running for cover anytime the name "Hillary Clinton" was mentioned.

Time will tell if this is true, but Paul Sperry from Real Clear Investigation has always been a reliable source.

https://beckernews.com/new-fbi...-campaign-arm-46839/

The Department of Justice, which has become an arm of the Biden administration’s efforts to prevent Donald Trump for running for presidential re-election in 2024, has impaneled a criminal grand jury to investigate the Save America PAC.

The development has spurred reports that more FBI raids against Donald Trump can now be expected.

“Biden DOJ/FBI planning more raids of Mar-a-Lago and other Trump properties: sources,” investigative journalist Paul Sperry reported.

“Biden DOJ/FBI has impaneled another criminal grand jury to investigate Trump’s Make America Great Committee, parent of the Save America PAC which has been raising small donations in response to the FBI’s raid and latest ‘witch hunt’ targeting Trump,” Sperry also reported on Gettr.

The New York Times reported on the grand jury developments, while framing Donald Trump’s arguments that the 2020 election was ‘rigged’ as if they were a federal crime.

“A federal grand jury in Washington is examining the formation of — and spending by — a fund-raising operation created by Donald J. Trump after his loss in the 2020 election as he was soliciting millions of dollars by baselessly asserting that the results had been marred by widespread voting fraud,” the Times reported.

Much more at the link:

More or less, DC doesn’t have a “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine.

https://www.radford.edu/conten.../utah-v-strieff.html is a fairly balanced article about it, though they include some of Sotomayor’s ravings.

In case anyone is interested.