To obtain a search warrant, you need two things,” according to Barbara L. McQuade, the former U.S attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. “You have to have conducted a sufficient investigation beforehand to demonstrate probable cause that a specific crime has been committed, and you need to show convincingly that evidence of that crime will be found at the location. These are not blind fishing expeditions.”
Political affiliation, as a matter of Department of Justice policy, cannot have any influence on that process. And even if it could, the present optics are a bit awkward. The current FBI director, Christopher Wray, a longtime Republican, was appointed by Trump; prior to that, in private practice, he defended former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a member of Trump’s transition team, during the so-called “Bridgegate” scandal.
Given the sensitivity of this case, McQuade said, Wray will have almost certainly been briefed in detail and had to have approved the move to obtain a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago. Even then, there was never any guarantee it would be granted.
The warrant was issued by a federal magistrate judge in Florida.
“Even if you don’t believe politics isn’t involved in criminal investigations,” McQuade said, “magistrate judges tend to be especially neutral and detached, because they’re selected by U.S. district court judges – entire benches – and so you end up with people who are really quite moderate.”
Tracy Walder, a former FBI special agent and CIA operative, laughed when asked whether obtaining a search warrant in an investigation into an ordinary American was as simple as just dialing up a judge to railroad a personal enemy.
Walder noted that the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago was executed by the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the Department of Justice. “I was on that squad at the FBI,” Walder said. “I will never forget when I had to go and get a search warrant. My supervisor told me, ‘If you don't get it, don’t bother coming back to the office. Turn in your badge, you're done.’ You need an overabundance of information to obtain one to a point that — I'll be frank — is annoying. I could have a guy on the phone admitting to a crime, and that wouldn’t necessarily be sufficient.”
In Trump’s case, Walder said, the very fact that the FBI felt compelled to seek out a warrant underscores the gravity of what it has determined so far. Unlike wiretaps or surreptitious entries, search warrants become public information, especially when they target public figures; the inevitable fallout from targeting a public figure of this magnitude will have been considered extremely carefully at all levels of law enforcement involved.
Among the documents that Walder believes were stowed improperly at Mar-a-Largo were President's Daily Briefs (PDBs), the top-secret bulletins handed to the commander-in-chief every morning of his administration. These materials can often contain information that would compromise human sources or other mechanisms by which the U.S. intelligence community gathers its intelligence. Trump famously revealed highly classified intelligence related to an ISIS terror plot to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and former Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak while they met with him in the Oval Office in 2017.
Federal investigators, Strzok added, could have found all the probable cause they needed for a search warrant while at Mar-a-Lago at Trump’s invitation.
CNN
reported that on June 3, Jay Bratt, the head of the Counterintelligence and Export Control section at the Justice Department, traveled to the property with three colleagues. They met with two of Trump’s attorneys there, and briefly with Trump himself. The attorneys allowed the investigators access to a basement room where the presidential documents were being kept. Some had Top Secret markings, according to one source interviewed by CNN.
Five days later, at the request of the investigators, Trump’s aides installed a padlock to the door of the storage room.
“They probably saw stuff that Trump should absolutely not be in possession of,” Strzok said. “Subpoenaing it won’t work, because of the chain of custody. And Trump isn’t acting in good faith to just hand the stuff over. The only other option left is to get a warrant.”
@Al-O-Meter
@Bucknutz
@Just Ted
read the above. This isnt some political witch hunt. This is law enforcement doing their jobs. One my favorite parts: Trump famously revealed highly classified intelligence related to an ISIS terror plot to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and former Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak while they met with him in the Oval Office in 2017.
trump has a history that shouldnt be overlooked.
www.npr.org
