<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/eric-trump-fbi-found-nothing-in-my-fathers-safe">Eric Trump</a>, son of former President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>, claimed on Tuesday that the dozens of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi">FBI</a> agents who raided his father&#8217;s Florida home refused to give their lawyer a copy of the search warrant, instead allegedly forcing the lawyer to take a look at the warrant from about 10 feet away.
Trump’s Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-details-emerge-about-what-fbi-agents-were-searching-for-in-raid-on-trump-home-report-says">raided</a> by the feds on Monday morning — though news broke about the incident in the evening. Agents <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pence-demands-dojs-continued-partisanship-be-addressed-after-unprecedented-fbi-raid-on-trumps-mar-a-lago">reportedly</a> went into numerous offices, checked safes, and took boxes of documents.
&#8220;There&#8217;s 30 agents there,&#8221; Eric <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11099205/Eric-Trump-reveals-REALLY-happened-FBI-raid.html">told</a> the Daily Mail. “They told our lawyer (Christina Bobb) … you have to leave the property right now. Turn off all security cameras.&#8221;
&#8220;They would not give her the search warrant,&#8221; the businessman alleged. &#8220;So they showed it to her from about 10 feet away. They would not give her a copy of the search warrant.&#8221;
Eric seemed to question to the Daily Mail if the feds indeed had a valid search warrant.
Bobb has spoken out about the raid, too, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11099205/Eric-Trump-reveals-REALLY-happened-FBI-raid.html">telling</a> Real America News on Tuesday that she initially did not receive a physical copy of the warrant and was unable to see what the probable cause was that persuaded a judge to sign off on the warrant.
&#8220;When I arrived and kind of announced myself as the legal representation for President Trump, I asked to see a copy of the warrant,&#8221; she recalled.
&#8220;Initially they refused and said, &#8216;You know, we don&#8217;t have to show it to you,’” Bobb claimed. &#8220;And there was a little bit of an exchange about whether it was appropriate to withhold the warrant when you&#8217;re searching the residence of the former president, who&#8217;s likely to be the Republican nominee in the next election, though they conceded and let me see it.&#8221;
The feds &#8220;did not give me a copy of it right away, but they did let me see it,&#8221; she added.
It&#8217;s unclear if Bobb is currently in possession of a copy of the warrant.
&#8220;It was very, I would say, thin,&#8221; she added. &#8220;And as you can tell from public records, the affidavit, the supporting documentation of what the probable cause was to obtain the warrant has been sealed.&#8221;
Later in the interview, Bobb called the federal raid &#8220;a weird flex.&#8221;
&#8220;This was a completely unnecessary power flex,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It was a weird flex. It&#8217;s quite honestly sad to see what they have done to our country.&#8221;
Even more curious, as highlighted by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-doj-fbi-asked-him-to-put-lock-on-door-leading-to-documents-in-early-june">The Daily Wire</a>, Trump claimed on Wednesday that the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/department-of-justice">Department of Justice</a> and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi">FBI</a> asked the former president&#8217;s legal team in June to put an extra lock on the door to safeguard the classified documents.
That lock was allegedly busted during the raid on Monday.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pence-whos-been-on-the-outs-with-trump-slams-fbi-over-mar-a-lago-raid">Pence, Who’s Been On The Outs With Trump, Slams FBI Over Mar-A-Lago Raid</a>

FRANCE-HISTORY-WWII-DDAY-ANNIVERSARY

Eric Trump Speaks Out About Mar-A-Lago Raid, Claims 30 Agents Refused To Hand Over Warrant

Donald Trump

Eric Trump

Mar-a-Lago

Merrick Garland

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi">FBI</a> used knowledge from an informant to justify its raid on former President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/florida">Florida</a> residence in a warrant application to a federal judge.
An FBI confidential human source informed the bureau of classified documents that the former president was keeping in Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort which he moved into after leaving the White House in 2021. The FBI’s warrant application to search Trump’s residence was based largely off of information fed to the bureau from the source, down to what the documents contained and where they were being kept, two senior government officials told <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-informer-told-fbi-what-docs-trump-was-hiding-where-1732283">Newsweek</a>.
The officials, who were not named, said that the FBI planned the raid to take place while Trump was away from the property. Bureau officials believed that searching Mar-a-Lago when Trump is away would help keep the raid low-profile and avoid unwanted attention in the press. The raid had the opposite effect. The unprecedented FBI raid, the first ever conducted on a former U.S. president, brought down a firestorm of criticism on the FBI, Department of Justice (DOJ), and President Joe Biden.
“What a spectacular backfire,” a DOJ official told Newsweek. The official maintained that the raid was not political persecution, as Trump and others have claimed. The official asserted that the FBI raid was part of “a routine law enforcement action.”
Trump attorney Lindsey Halligan was on scene and described the raid to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-mara-a-lago-fbi-search-lawyer/">CBS News</a>. Dozens of FBI officials, not in uniform to avoid attention, worked with the Secret Service, still responsible for the former president’s security, to gain access to Trump’s residence. Agents paid special attention to a bedroom, a storage area, and an office.
The informant reportedly told the FBI that confidential documents were stored in specific locations around Trump’s residence. The FBI relayed that information in its warrant application to federal magistrate judge, believed to be Bruce Reinhart of Florida. The warrant apparently specified that certain documents were kept in Trump’s safe, however, Eric Trump has <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/eric-trump-safe-breached-fbi-mar-a-lago-search-empty">said</a> that the safe the FBI searched was empty.
The relationship between the raid informant and the FBI is unclear. The FBI’s use of confidential human sources is rife with controversy and critics say that the informants are too often <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/how-the-fbi-conceals-its-payments-to-confidential-sources/">motivated</a> by money rather than public service. Informants can make tens of thousands, or possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars from the FBI during investigations. Confidential human sources may <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kenbensinger/fbi-informant-michigan-double-agent">commit</a> illegal acts themselves in service of the FBI or obtain information through dubious means to push an investigation forward.
Reports say that the FBI agents took away 10-15 boxes away from Trump’s residence, though it is unclear what was contained in those boxes.
The warrant referred to possible violations of the Presidential Records Act, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-search-of-trumps-florida-home-mar-a-lago-is-criticized-by-republicans-11660049490">according to</a> Trump attorney Christina Bobb. The FBI was after classified documents Trump allegedly improperly took from the White House when he vacated in January 2021.
Late last year, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), in charge of preserving government records, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-vs-national-archives-timeline-leading-mar-a-lago-raid">contacted</a> Trump about the records he took. Trump turned over 15 boxes-worth of document to the archives in January. DOJ officials met with Trump in June about additional documents, but talks between the two sides apparently broke down until the FBI raided Trump’s residence on Monday.

Report: Informant Fed FBI Information Used To Get Warrant For Trump Raid

Department of Justice

Florida

Former <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump">President Trump</a> on Wednesday claimed that the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/department-of-justice">Department of Justice</a> (DOJ) and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi">FBI</a> had asked his legal team in early June to put an extra lock on the door to the room where boxes of documents reportedly marked as classified were stored.
Trump contended in a <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/108800239458187823">statement</a> on Truth Social the feds saw the boxes at his home at Mar-a-Lago in Florida two months before Monday&#8217;s dramatic raid. If true, the claim could call into question why the government agents would need to use such heavy-handed tactics to seize documents they knew about.
&#8220;They were shown the secured area, and the boxes themselves,&#8221; Trump wrote. &#8220;Then on Monday, without notification or warning, an army of agents broke into Mar-a-Lago, went to the same storage area, and ripped open the lock that they had asked to be installed. A surprise attack, POLITICS, and all the while our Country is going to HELL!&#8221;
Trump was at his Manhattan home in Trump Tower at the time of the raid. FBI agents reportedly examined all offices and his safe at his Mar-a-Lago private residence before removing the boxes and taking them to their local South Florida FBI field office.
According to Trump’s son Eric, the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi">FBI agents</a> who raided his father’s home broke into a safe only to find it empty. The younger Trump told <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fox-news">Fox News Channel&#8217;s</a> Brian Kilmeade that 30 members of the FBI were involved in the raid, and that it was to find documents that should have gone to the National Archives. It was not known if they retrieved the documents, but whatever they sought was not in the safe, according to the 45th president&#8217;s son.
Trump confirmed that FBI agents broke into his safe in a lengthy statement released after the raid Monday.
“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,&#8221; Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1556777920336728064">said</a>. &#8220;It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024 &#8230; Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.”
“Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level; not seen before,” he continued. “They even broke into my safe! What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.”

US-POLITICS-JUSTICE-FRAUD-TRUMP

Trump Says DOJ, FBI Asked Him To Put Lock On Door Leading To Documents In Early June

A federal magistrate judge has ordered the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/department-of-justice">Department of Justice</a> (DOJ) to respond to requests to make public the warrant authorizing the FBI’s unprecedented Monday raid of former President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump">Donald Trump’s</a> residence.
Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the DOJ to “file a Response to the Motion to Unseal” the warrant Wednesday following requests made by the Times Union, a news outlet located in Albany, New York, and the conservative legal action group Judicial Watch. Reinhart said the DOJ must respond no later than August 15.
According to Trump attorney Christina Bobb, Reinhart <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/09/judge-mar-a-lago-epstein-00050739">signed off</a> on the warrant application for the FBI raid. Before Reinhart became a judge, he was as a defense attorney and at one time <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/judge-who-repped-epstein-cronies-reportedly-signed-off-on-trump-raid">worked</a> on behalf of several individuals connected to the late sex offender and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
BREAKING: Magistrate Judge Reinhart is asking for DOJ to respond to Judicial Watch&#39;s unsealing request for (what I presume is) the Mar-a-Lago warrant by COB on Aug. 15. <a href="https://t.co/Y4uJV3TGoz">pic.twitter.com/Y4uJV3TGoz</a>
&mdash; Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) <a href="https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1557447820583526402?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2022</a></blockquote>
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The FBI sent roughly two dozen agents and technicians to Mar-a-Lago, Trump&#8217;s Florida resort, on Monday morning to carry out a search warrant reportedly over classified documents the former president improperly took with him from the White House in January 2021.
&#8220;These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,&#8221; Trump said in a <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/news/news-bu8dvmyvvp2342">statement</a> Monday confirming the raid. &#8220;The political persecution of President Donald J. Trump has been going on for years, with the now fully debunked Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and so much more, it just never ends. It is political targeting at the highest level!&#8221;
Trump was in New York at the time of the raid. New York Attorney General Latisha James deposed Trump on Tuesday in connection with her office&#8217;s ongoing civil investigation into his business and tax affairs. Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/10/nyregion/trump-letitia-james-deposition.html">pleaded</a> his Fifth Amendment protections to all of James’ questions but one: confirming his name.
The FBI&#8217;s unprecedented raid against the former U.S. president, who is one of the leading candidates considering challenging President Joe Biden for office in 2024, set off a firestorm of criticism against the DOJ and Biden. The White House claimed ignorance about the raid; Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/white-house-claims-biden-was-not-briefed-on-fbi-raid-at-mar-a-lago/">said</a> the West Wing found out about the raid in the news like the rest of the United States.
Lawmakers and others have called for the DOJ and FBI to explain the raid against Trump, warning about the politicization of the Justice Department and the FBI&#8217;s crumbling reputation among many Americans. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the leading Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called on Christopher Wray to answer questions about the raid quickly and in depth.
&#8220;If the FBI isn’t extraordinarily transparent about its justification for yesterday’s actions and committed to rooting out political bias that has infected their most sensitive investigations, they will have sealed their own fate. The FBI’s mission and the many patriotic agents who work hard to carry it out will be forever overshadowed by the distrust the bureau has sown,&#8221; the Iowa senator said in a <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-fbi-must-immediately-explain-itself-after-years-of-politicization-and-loss-of-public-trust">statement</a>.

Judge Orders DOJ To Respond To Requests For Trump Raid Warrant

Some <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/biden-administration">Biden administration</a> officials in the U.S. Justice Department slammed the FBI&#8217;s raid on Mar-a-Lago this week, saying that the situation backfired big time and the bureau ended up creating the very situation that it sought to avoid.
Newsweek <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-informer-told-fbi-what-docs-trump-was-hiding-where-1732283">reported</a> that the FBI specifically targeted three rooms at former President Donald Trump&#8217;s residence — a bedroom, an office, and a storage room — and that the information used to obtain the warrant &#8220;was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source.&#8221;
The report said that the confidential informant told the bureau what documents were taken and where the documents were located.
The report said that federal officials waited until Trump was out of state to execute the search warrant at the property because they wanted to be as low-key as possible. Agents were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-details-emerge-about-fbi-raid-on-mar-a-lago-what-they-took-from-property-report">reportedly</a> at the property the entire day and were dressed in plain clothes, leading staff to believe that they were U.S. Secret Service agents, which is why news of the executed search warrant did not leak.
&#8220;What a spectacular backfire,&#8221; a DOJ official told the publication. &#8220;I know that there is much speculation out there that this is political persecution, but it is really the best and the worst of the bureaucracy in action. They wanted to punctuate the fact that this was a routine law enforcement action, stripped of any political overtones, and yet [they] got exactly the opposite.&#8221;
Another senior U.S. official told the publication that the FBI &#8220;created the very firestorm they sought to avoid&#8221; by &#8220;ignoring the fallout.&#8221;
The agents rooted through the personal belongings of former first lady Melania Trump as they executed the search warrant.
Lawyers for the Department of Justice present during the raid reportedly informed Trump’s representatives that the search warrant gave them “full access to everything” on site.
Reports have claimed that Trump’s lawyers were not allowed to observe agents searching the property, although this has not yet been confirmed.
Federal agents executed the search warrant because they reportedly believed that Trump withheld turning over all the classified material that he was supposed to send back to the National Archives earlier this year.
Federal prosecutors opened a grand jury <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-open-grand-jury-investigation-into-trump-over-activities-at-his-florida-home-report">investigation</a> back in May into Trump over whether classified material that ended up at his home in Mar-a-Lago was mishandled.
The main purpose of these types of investigations is usually for federal authorities to determine if any classified material was compromised so that intelligence officials can take steps to protect sensitive sources and methods. Prosecutors are seeking to learn every aspect of how the documents were handled from the time the documents left the White House until they were returned to the National Archives.
For prosecutors to be able to prove that a crime was committed, they would need evidence showing that the parties involved in removing the documents from the White House knew that the documents were classified and knew that removing them would violate the law.
“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-fbi-raids-trumps-home-at-mar-a-lago">said</a> in a statement. “After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.”
“They even broke into my safe!” Trump said. “It is political targeting at the highest level!”

Aerial view of Mar-a-Lago, the oceanfront estate of billiona

‘Spectacular Backfire’: Biden Officials Blast FBI’s Raid On Mar-A-Lago As Report Reveals Rat On Inside

Biden Officials Blast FBI’s Raid On Mar-A-Lago As Report Reveals Rat On Inside

Biden Administration

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/florida">Florida</a> judge who reportedly signed off on the warrant permitting the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi">FBI</a> to raid the home of former <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump">President Trump</a> — where they allegedly looked for classified documents —  was far more sympathetic back in the day when tens of thousands of emails of Democrat Lois Lerner, then head of a division of the IRS and harsh critic of conservatives, disappeared.
“There was a year-long Congressional investigation before the IRS finally admitted the 2009 through 2011 Lois Lerner’s emails ‘disappeared,’” Robert Wood noted in<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/11/22/lost-lois-lerner-emails-found-despite-no-backup-claims-irs-has-no-comment/"> Forbes</a>.
“On Friday, the Internal Revenue Service informed Congressional investigators that it could not recover two years of emails from Lois Lerner, the former head of the agency&#8217;s tax-exempt status department,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/06/16/heres-how-the-irs-lost-emails-from-key-witness-lois-lerner/">The Washington Post</a> reported in 2014, adding that Lerner was the focus of the investigation into the IRS forcing additional scrutiny on tax-exempt applications of Tea Party-affiliated organizations. Lerner was a registered Democrat, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/lois-lerner-breaks-silence-irs-scandal-111181">Politico.</a>
Judge Bruce Reinhart was asked about Lerner’s missing emails. He stated, “Let me put it this way: Incompetence doesn’t necessarily lead to criminality.” He suggested the reason for the disappearing emails was “incompetence,” contending, “The IRS has one of the most antiquated computer systems in the world, and the fact that emails could have disappeared without Ms. Lerner knowing about it or Ms. Lerner being involved is entirely credible to me.”
“And I’m sure that will be her explanation, is that she was a very high-level person in the Department,” Reinhart surmised. “When the subpoena came in from Congress, it was delegated down to people who did this for a living; they were instructed to find everything. Information came back up to her that said, ‘This is what we have,’ she reported what she was told, and it turns out to be not to be true, but that’s not a crime. If she didn’t know it wasn’t true, that’s not a crime.”
The host pointed out that an email written by Lerner read, “I was cautioning folks about email and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails — so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails.”
“It could be read one way to say, ‘Destroy what we already have,&#8217; which of course would be criminal, or it could be construed to say, &#8216;Going forward, recognize that Congress could ask for our emails, so be careful what you put in writing,&#8217;” Reinhart argued, concluding, “I think at the end of the day, what originally happened here is probably not a crime, and to the extent that there’s concerns about the non-production of the emails I think she has enough insulation between her and those production issues that barring some other smoking gun I don’t see it.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Watch the mental gymnastics that Bruce Reinhart (judge who signed off on Mar-a-Lago warrant) goes through to defend Lois Lerner deleting two years of emails during the IRS scandal. <a href="https://t.co/AOva9wnVF4">pic.twitter.com/AOva9wnVF4</a>
&mdash; Maze (@mazemoore) <a href="https://twitter.com/mazemoore/status/1557116112898342918?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2022</a></blockquote>
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According to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-lois-lerner-called-republicans-crazies-in-email/">CBS News</a>, in some of Lerner’s emails she had referred to members of the GOP as “crazies” and “a**holes.” In response to the revelations from some of Lerner’s emails, Republican Rep. Dave Camp, who chaired the House Ways and Means Committee, wrote then-Attorney General Eric Holder, “This new evidence clearly demonstrates why Ms. Lerner not only targeted conservatives, but denied such groups their rights to due process and equal protection under the law.”
In 2015, the IRS stated in a <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/276042236/Judicial-Watch-FOIA-Lois-Lerner-IRS-Status-Report-8-24-2015" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-testid="standard-link">court filing</a> Lerner had utilized a personal e-mail using the alias “Toby Miles” to conduct IRS business.

Law.

Judge Who Signed Off On FBI Raid Was Far More Sympathetic When Democrat IRS Official’s 30,000 Emails Disappeared

emails

Judge

Lois Lerner

Late-night host Stephen Colbert, who has spent the latter days of his career mocking former President Trump, celebrated the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, saying, “We all got the present we wanted.”
Colbert started by noting the weather in Los Angeles, saying, “It may be hot outside, but in here it’s Christmas.”
“Because yesterday, we all got the present we wanted: FBI agents raided Mar-a-Lago,” he cheered, to audience applause. “Oh, mwah! That is the most beautiful sentence America has ever produced. It’s right up there with ‘We put cheese inside the crust.’”
Then he resorted to a vulgar attack on Trump, “Early Monday morning the FBI executed a search warrant on the former president’s offices and personal quarters. I feel bad for those agents. ‘Sir, I finished searching the cabinet full of empty chicken buckets. Where should I go next? Please don’t say the bathroom. Please don’t say the bathroom. Please don’t say the bathroom.’”
“So we know the raid happened,” he continued. “We still don’t know why the raid happened because we don’t yet know what was in the warrant. Think about that: We’re talking about the former President of the United States of America. The FBI raids his home and all I can think is, which of his crimes they’re investigating, cause he’s done so many. It’s hard.”
Colbert then indulged himself in an attempt at comedy: “At this point he can’t keep track. ‘Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?’ ‘Let’s see, the body’s in my trunk? The meth in the glove compartment? The back seat full of illegal spider monkeys who definitely got into the meth? Oh, it’s the busted tail light? I was kidding about the other stuff.’”
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For Colbert to be lewd, crude and unfunny is nothing new: in 2017, he <a href="https://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2017/05/03/colbert-walks-back-crude-trump-putin-joke-237961">infamously</a> said of President Trump, &#8220;Sir, you attract more skinheads than free Rogaine. You have more people marching against you than cancer. You talk like a sign language gorilla who got hit in the head. In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c*** holster.”
Colbert doesn’t like Republican presidents, period. At the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, at which Colbert delivered an attack so searing on President George W. Bush that even the normal cadre of left-wing institutions like The New York Times and The Washington Post wouldn’t report it. <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/30/206303/-">Excerpts</a> included:
<blockquote>We&#8217;re not so different, he and I. We get it. We&#8217;re not brainiacs on the nerd patrol.
I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message: that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound — with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.</blockquote>

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Colbert Celebrates FBI Raid On Mar-A-Lago: ‘It’s Christmas … We All Got The Present We Wanted’

Stephen Colbert

This week, we learned that the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago — some of the biggest news in years. According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/us/politics/trump-fbi-mar-a-lago.html">The New York Times</a>, “Former President Donald J. Trump said on Monday that the F.B.I. had searched his Palm Beach, Florida, home and had broken open a safe — an account signaling a major escalation of the various investigations into the final stages of his presidency.”
Here is the bottom line: The F.B.I. is not trusted by a significant percentage of Americans. A majority of Republicans and Independents do not trust the F.B.I., according to polling data. What the F.B.I. just did requires extraordinary institutional trust. But this is an FBI under the auspices of a current administration raiding the home of the leader of the last administration and the likeliest potential nominee for the opposition come 2024. 
The raid appears to be pretextual — because if you’re going to do something like this, there had damned well better be a crime. The crime can’t be something like “the President of the United States brought stuff with him when he left office.” Bill Clinton brought half the White House with him when he left office, and he was never raided. It can’t be “the President of the United States has a battle with the National Archives over material” — especially if what we are talking about here is not particularly important material. It must be more than that.
Then there’s the problem that the President of the United States has plenary authority to declassify anything he wants while he is in office. So all the other cases being referenced this week with regard to situations in which people have mishandled classified material are referring to people who were not the President of the United States. For example, former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger received a misdemeanor charge in 2015 for stuffing classified documents down his pants, and, in 2016, the F.B.I. investigated Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified documentation. She could not declassify anything; she was the Secretary of State. She was not the President of the United States. And she was never actually raided. Remember, they grabbed Anthony Weiner’s laptop; they went in a variety of directions trying to garner Hillary Clinton’s emails. Despite the fact that <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system">James Comey announced</a> that it was actually “[p]ossible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account” because of her mishandling of the classified documents, her house was never raided. Her offices were never raided by the F.B.I..
And then for several years under President Trump, the F.B.I. actively attempted to undermine the President of the United States on pretextual information provided by the Clinton campaign on the basis of the Steele dossier. James Comey, when he was head of the F.B.I., approached Donald Trump to launder the Steele dossier into the press — knowing that there was nothing in the Steele dossier that had been verified. Comey told him about it simply so that the media could then run with the story that the Steele dossier had been presented to President Trump and, therefore, was newsworthy. That prompted years and years of investigations down rabbit holes that led nowhere with regard to Russiagate. 
Trust in the FBI is at an all time low, and yet it’s the F.B.I. under Christopher Wray — apparently with a warrant that had to be signed off on by the DOJ and Attorney General Merrick Garland — now initiating a raid into the former president of the United States. 
Could there theoretically in some world be a rationale for this sort of activity? Sure, there could. But is that going to have to be a damned extraordinarily solid — bedrock solid — rationale with serious underlying evidence? It had better be – or what we are looking at is a political crisis. When a current administration is investigating former administrations to the point of sending the F.B.I. into their home to pick up documents on the basis of not handing them over to the National Archives — even during negotiating — it looks more like an attempt to take Donald Trump out of the running come 2024 than anything else. Or maybe, nefariously, it’s an attempt to elevate Trump for 2024. We don’t know. But here is what we do know: If there is no extraordinary basis for this raid, then what we are looking at is a crisis in American governance right now. It looks like the intelligence apparatus is being weaponized against the opponents of a political administration. 
And down the road, if this comes to nothing and Donald Trump runs and loses, do you think that there are going to be a lot of people who are going to trust that he actually lost? Again, the trust in our institutions is so low right now, and they’re exacerbating all of the worst possibilities in American politics. 
And I’m amazed to see so many people on the Left today, people highly critical of the cops, are saying things like, well, you know, they wouldn’t do this without a basis. Really? Wouldn’t they? You guys were defunding the police five seconds ago, but now when they’re targeting your political opponents, you’re all in favor of it?
I’m on the conservative side of the aisle, and at the very beginning, I was willing to let the F.B.I. have a lot of rope when it came to, for example, Russiagate. Then it became clearer and clearer that the whole thing was a farce, and my trust in that institution was undermined, just as many Americans’ trust in that institution was undermined. Now, I have some very serious questions as to what the hell they think they’re doing, so they’d better get out there with the evidence and with the warrant. 
The people who are doubtful — the people who think this is a crisis — are not wrong so far until the evidence is shown. No one is taking this one on faith. No one. Christopher Wray of the F.B.I. needs to show us what he’s doing. Merrick Garland needs to show us what he’s doing, considering that he’s spent his presidency going after police departments for no reason, suggesting to go after states if they don’t cram down gender affirming health care (i.e., sex changes on small children). Why exactly would I trust you? 
According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/us/politics/trump-fbi-mar-a-lago.html">The New York Times</a>, “The law governing the preservation of White House materials, the Presidential Records Act, lacks teeth, but criminal statutes can come into play, especially in the case of classified material. Criminal codes, which carry jail time, can be used to prosecute anyone who ‘willfully injures or any depredation against any property of the United States’ and anyone who ‘willfully and unlawfully conceals from those mutilates, obliterates or destroys’ government documents.”
This is amazing. The statute that Hillary Clinton was investigated under did not suggest that she needed to have intent to, for example, give the documents to a foreign adversary. All it suggested was that negligence in the handling of the documents was criminal. But Comey completely rewrote the statute. Why? Because he didn’t want to indict the actual nominee of the Democratic Party at the time. So now there’s somebody just as important as Hillary Clinton was in 2016 — more important because he’s been President of the United States — and they’re trotting out the Presidential Records Act here? 
According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/09/us/politics/national-archives-trump-classified-material.html">The New York Times</a>, “The items in the boxes [seized by the F.B.I.] included “documents, mementos, gifts and letters. The archives do not describe the classified material it found other than to say it was ‘classified national security information.’ The question of how Trump handled sensitive material and documents is complicated because as President, he has the authority to declassify any government information. It is unclear whether Trump, before leaving office, had declassified the materials the archives discovered in the boxes.”
They don’t even know whether he declassified this material, and they’re still raiding him? If that is what this boils down to, some sort of miscommunication in which the F.B.I. goes after the former President of the United States for a raid on his home because there was some miscommunication about the identification of documents, there’s going to be hell to pay. The adjudication of how this is going to work in our politics going forward  — if all of the institutions of our government are mobilized against one side — is going to get really ugly.
This piece is adapted from an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1552-the-fbi-raids-trump">episode</a> of The Ben Shapiro Show.

SHAPIRO: We’re Looking At A Political Crisis

Readers Pass

This week, the FBI raided the Florida home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. They based their raid on the purported rationale that they suspected Trump of having mishandled classified information, taking home materials meant for the National Archives: according to The New York Times, the search “appeared to be focused on material that Mr. Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago…Those boxes contained many pages of classified documents.” Trump quickly responded with outrage: “After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate. Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. They even broke into my safe!”
We have not yet seen the warrant for the raid, the warrant application, or the underlying evidence; presumably, the head of the FBI and the head of the DOJ, Attorney General Merrick Garland, would have had to sign off on the raid. And, to put it mildly, the basis for such a raid – a raid authorized by a current presidential administration on the leader of the prior administration and frontrunner for the nomination in 2024 – seems extraordinarily weak. In 2015, former Clinton national security advisor Sandy Berger only received a misdemeanor charge for stuffing classified documents down his pants; in 2016, the FBI investigated Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified emails but certainly never raided her home or offices, despite finding that it was “possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account,” complete with access to classified information. President Trump, by contrast, was president – which means he had plenary authority to declassify any document. Yet it was Trump who was raided.
If the basis for the raid is anything less than bedrock-solid, therefore, the most serious questions of political legitimacy will be on the table. After all, this amounts to the current administration authorizing a raid on the head of the prior administration; it apparently centers on a matter unrelated to events surrounding January 6 and the aftermath of the 2020 election. It seems, on its face, pretextual. We won’t know whether it is or isn’t until we see the underlying documentation. But without the sort of trust the FBI has failed to cultivate over the past few years, the clamor for such documentation will rightly be deafening.
Suspicions are certainly in order, given the behavior of the FBI over the course of the last few years. The FBI spent years running a deep investigation on Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency, based on speculative nonsense compiled by the Clinton campaign in the form of the so-called Steele Dossier. FBI Director James Comey seemed to launder that nonsense into the press by presenting Trump with the Dossier, despite no evidence that the Dossier had any support whatsoever. There is a reason that as of 2018, just 45 percent of independents and 39 percent of Republicans said they trusted the FBI most or all of the time.
The FBI raid on Trump could easily be yet another inflection point in the complete breakdown of America’s public institutions. Every “I” must be dotted and “t” crossed – and there must be tangible results. Anything less should and will lead to a political crisis of real magnitude.

Ben Shapiro Transcript 1

SHAPIRO: The Day The FBI Raided Donald Trump

Ben Shapiro

Top Democratic congressional leaders had very different reactions to this week&#8217;s bombshell news that FBI agents raided the home of former President Donald Trump in Florida.
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-new-report-sheds-light-on-reason-fbi-raided-trumps-mar-a-lago-home">reported</a> that federal law enforcement officials executed a search warrant at Trump&#8217;s Mar-a-Lago residence because they believed Trump held back turning over all the classified information that was supposed to be sent back to the National Archives earlier this year.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) commented on the matter when she was asked about it during an interview on MSNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Morning Joe&#8221; Tuesday morning.
&#8220;All I know about that is what is in the public domain,&#8221; Pelosi <a href="https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/8922-3">said</a>. &#8220;I was surprised that it flashed on my phone last evening. So I don&#8217;t really have too much to say, except that, to have a visit like that, you need a warrant. To have a warrant, you need justification. And that says that no one is above the law – not even a president or a former president of the United States. But that, all of this will, I&#8217;m sure, be made known to us over time. But I have no knowledge of it.&#8221;
&#8220;I do know that there has been chatter — or more than chatter — about the presidential, president&#8217;s documents and how they must be preserved for history,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;And we&#8217;ll see what the justification was for the raid. I just don&#8217;t know. I think everybody was surprised by it.&#8221;
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) had a very different response to the raid when he was pressed by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.
When asked by Maddow for reaction, Schumer said, &#8220;Well I know nothing about it other than what I’ve read like everybody else, so I think it’s wise for me to withhold comment until we learn more.&#8221;
Maddow then brought up the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gop-leader-kevin-mccarthy-sends-blistering-message-to-bidens-attorney-general-over-fbi-raid">response</a> from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to the raid and asked for Schumer&#8217;s response.
&#8220;I know that you don&#8217;t want to talk about the substance of the matter at Mar-a-Lago —&#8221; Maddow said.
&#8220;No,&#8221; Schumer responded.
&#8220;— but I do want to ask your reaction to what Mr. McCarthy has said,&#8221; Maddow concluded.
&#8220;Look, I think we don&#8217;t, none of us know the facts and any comments are premature,&#8221; Schumer said.
Maddow concluded that it would be &#8220;futile&#8221; for her to keep asking him about the matter because he would not comment on it.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Rachel Maddow finds that <a href="https://twitter.com/SenSchumer?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenSchumer</a> is treading very lightly around the FBI&#39;s execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago today. <a href="https://t.co/GRdJkZnAnq">pic.twitter.com/GRdJkZnAnq</a>
&mdash; Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1556825315808264195?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-new-report-sheds-light-on-reason-fbi-raided-trumps-mar-a-lago-home">New Report Sheds Light On Reason FBI Raided Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Home</a>

Gun Violence Memorial

Pelosi And Schumer Have Very Different Reactions To FBI Raid On Mar-A-Lago

Chuck Schumer

Nancy Pelosi

Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) rooted through the personal belongings of former first lady Melania Trump as they executed a search warrant believed to be connected to classified material that former President Donald Trump was supposed to return to the National Archives earlier this year.
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/08/09/fbi-even-searched-melanias-wardrobe-in-trump-raid/">reported</a> Tuesday afternoon that the agents &#8220;scoured Melania Trump’s wardrobe&#8221; in the Versailles Master Bedroom at the Mar-a-Lago residence.
Lawyers for the Department of Justice present during the raid reportedly informed Trump’s representatives that the search warrant gave them “full access to everything” on site.
Reports have claimed that Trump’s lawyers were not allowed to observe agents searching the property, although this has not yet been confirmed.
Federal agents executed the search warrant because they reportedly believed that Trump held back turning over all the classified information, which included documents marked as “top secret,” that was supposed to be sent back earlier this year.
Federal agents removed more than 10 boxes of material, which is being sorted at a local FBI field office, from the property during the raid.
Agents were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-details-emerge-about-fbi-raid-on-mar-a-lago-what-they-took-from-property-report">reportedly</a> at the property the entire day and were dressed in plain clothes, leading staff to believe that they were U.S. Secret Service agents, which is why news of the executed search warrant did not leak.
Trump’s Secret Service agents were notified about the raid only moments before it occurred. Trump had lawyers present during the raid while he was at his residence in New York City.
Federal prosecutors opened a grand jury <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-open-grand-jury-investigation-into-trump-over-activities-at-his-florida-home-report">investigation</a> back in May into Trump over whether classified material that ended up at his home in Mar-a-Lago was mishandled.
The main purpose of these types of investigations is usually for federal authorities to determine if any classified material was compromised so that intelligence officials can take steps to protect sensitive sources and methods. Prosecutors are seeking to learn every aspect of how the documents were handled from the time the documents left the White House until they were returned to the National Archives.
For prosecutors to be able to prove that a crime was committed, they would need evidence showing that the parties involved in removing the documents from the White House knew that the documents were classified and knew that removing them would violate the law.
“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-fbi-raids-trumps-home-at-mar-a-lago">said</a> in a statement. “After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.”
“They even broke into my safe!” Trump said. “It is political targeting at the highest level!”

TOPSHOT-US-VOTE-TRUMP

FBI Raid On Mar-A-Lago Ensnared More Than Just Former President: Report

Melania Trump

Nearly 8 in 10 Americans believe that there is a two-tiered system of justice in the United States, according to a new poll.
The &#8220;<a href="https://www.thetrafalgargroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/COSA-JusticeSystem-Full-Report-0729.pdf">National Issues Survey</a>&#8221; of more than 1,000 likely 2022 general election voters, conducted between July 24-28 by the Trafalgar Group in partnership with Convention of States Action, found that 79.3% of Americans believe that the United States has a two-tiered justice system, with one set of laws for political insiders and another for average Americans. Notably, large majorities in both parties agreed with the idea.
The survey asked respondents: &#8220;What is your opinion of the current state of the American justice system?&#8221; Nearly 8 in 10 Americans, 79.3%, responded that &#8220;[t]here are two tiers of justice in the American justice system: one set of laws for politicians and Washington D.C. insiders vs. one set of laws for everyday Americans.&#8221; Just 11.6% of respondents answered that &#8220;there is one system of justice with laws applied to all Americans equally.&#8221; Another 9.1% of American were unsure.
Breaking the results down by party, the survey found that strong majorities of both parties, and independents, believed in a two-tiered justice system.
Fully two-thirds of Democrats, 66.7%, said they believed the United States has a two-tiered system of justice; just 17.5% of respondents said they thought there was just one justice system applied equally to all Americans; 9% were not sure. Nearly 9 out of 10 Republicans, 87.8%, said the U.S. has a two-tiered justice system; just 6.9% said there was one justice system applied equally; 5.3% were not sure. Among those who had no party affiliation, more than three quarters, 77.2%, said there was a two-tiered justice system in America; 13.8% said there was one justice system applied equally; 9% were unsure.
“What we’re seeing reflected strongly in these numbers is the sentiment that ‘There is no equal justice in America’ has become an almost universally-held opinion,&#8221; Convention of States President Mark Meckler said in a <a href="https://conventionofstates.com/nearly-80-believe-the-u-s-now-has-two-separate-justice-systems-one-for-dc-insiders-and-one-for-everyday-americans">statement</a> responding to the survey. &#8220;But it’s not just opinion, it’s fact. And it’s a dangerous fact in our Constitutional Republic, one which requires mostly voluntary compliance with the rule of law to succeed. In a system where those in government get away with virtually anything, why should anyone follow the law? Until public servants are once again held accountable for their misdeeds, the distrust of and disdain for government officials will continue to grow in a dangerous manner. Perhaps early Americans had the right idea when they publicly tarred and feathered officials who abused their positions. Fear of getting caught and being held accountable is a necessary component for a successful system of public service.”
The survey comes just one day after the FBI conducted a raid on former President Donald Trump&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-fbi-raids-trumps-home-at-mar-a-lago">Mar-a-Lago</a> estate. The raid prompted backlash from Republicans in Congress, who cited it as evidence of the two-tiered system of justice in America.
&#8220;Our two-tiered justice system is becoming more obvious and outrageous,&#8221; Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) told <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/johnson-questions-detached-biden-admin-after-not-being-notified-fbi-maralago-raid">Fox News</a> in an interview Tuesday.
&#8220;We know for a FACT that Hunter Biden committed a crime by lying about his drug addiction while filing paperwork to purchase a firearm,&#8221; Congressman <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJeffDuncan/status/1556809751341703168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1556809751341703168%7Ctwgr%5E42a12b30422b512403550edde61a04e9453e36f4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2FRepJeffDuncan2Fstatus2F1556809751341703168widget%3DTweet">Jeff Duncan</a> (R-SC) tweeted Monday in response to news of the raid. &#8220;Is he in jail? No. Has there been a special counsel formed to investigate him? No. Why? Two-tiered justice system.&#8221;

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