Raiding 76-year-old former President Trump’s residence at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach Florida yesterday, the Justice Department refuses to reveal the search warrant ordered by 69-year-old Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland. Reluctance to reveal the contents of the search warrant has left wild speculation centering on Trump’s removal after leaving office Jan. 20, 2021 possible classified documents required under the Federal Records Act. When Trump allowed the National Archives records department to collect 15 boxes of documents Feb. 7, 2022, it looked like concerns over documents was settled but then came Garlands’s Aug. 8 search warrant. “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 said on his TruthSocial network platform.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), fresh off her controversial trip to Asia and Taiwan, said “No one is above the law,” not even past presidents, hinting that the documents seizure this time around might be related to the Jan. 6 House Select Committee or a Washington, D.C. grand jury, investigating Trump’s alleged role in the the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riots that Democrats refer to a coup d’etat or insurrection. Trump was acquitted in the U.S. Senate Feb. 13, 2021 impeachment trial for “incitement of insurrection,” a charge that didn’t stick in the U.S. Senate. Pelosi said today on the NBC’s Today Show that she thought the warrant covered missing documents part of a grand jury investigating whether Trump mishandled classified documents after leaving the White House. Knowing the National Archives returned 15 boxes of documents Feb. 7, the mystery of Garland’s search warrant looms large.
Whatever the grand jury looked into, it was applying Section 2071 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code—makes it a crime if someone who has custody of government documents or records “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsified or destroys” them, referring more to 74-year-old former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham, who, in 2015, paid a tech company to “acid wash” her server, erasing some 33-thousand emails related to her work as Secretary of State. FBI officials, led by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, cleared Hillary of any wrongdoing, never charging her with violation Section 2071 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, requiring her to preserve government records for the National Archives. Yet when it comes to Trump, the DOJ and FBI seem all in on instigating Trump. Some Republicans question the motives for investigating Trump’s White House documents.
Before the contents of Garland’s search warrant are known, the speculation continues on partisan grounds, with Democrats all in on the investigation that does everything possible to prevent Trump from running again for president in 2024. ”When Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of the department [ referring to Garland’s DOJ],” said 57-year-old House Minority Leaders Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Pelosi shot back that she doesn’t think that the House will change hands in the November Midterm elections. “Whatever the leader is saying is probably idle,” Pelosi said, believing Democorats will hold on to the House this fall. New York Times and Washington Post, speculating on the Mar-a-Lago raid, said they thought it had to do with old White House documents removed by Trump, more than the 15 boxes recovered by the National Archives Feb. 7.
Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans in the House Select Committee, led by 56-year-old Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) and 44-year-old Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill,) see their job as preventing Trump from running for president. DOJ and FBI officials were heavily criticized for tilting the election to Trump in 2016 when they kept saying that Hillary was under investigation for erasing her emails. Only 10 days before the Nov. 3, 2016 president election did 61-year-old former FBI Director James Comey say Hillary was cleared. So, DOJ and FBI officials can’t be criticized now because Trump is not an announced candidate yet. But everyone on the House Committee knows that the clock is ticking because speculation centers on Trump announcing a presidential run sometime after the Nov. 3 Midterm elections. Charging Trump with a federal crime before his announcement would put a damper on his plans.
Garland finds himself in the hot seat executing s search warrant, without disclosing the contents, to a former president, something that’s unprecedented in U.S. history. No one can rule out the extreme partisan nature of the DOJ and FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. Trump said the FBI even broke into his safe, an unlikely place to store any missing White House documents. So, the pressure on the DOJ and FBI is going to be enormous to prove they have some kind of probable cause to violate Trump Constitutional rights. You’d think that a grand jury could not possibly justify a search warrant or raid on Trump’s residents without 100% proof of a federal crime. But with the National Archives picking up 15 boxes of White House documents Feb. 7, what could Garland think was missing? Whatever the contents of the search warrant, it won’t change too many minds.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma
