If you thought the Trump raid was a fiasco......

[zeek]

....Turns out, you were right....

Phil Boas, Arizona Republic
Thu, August 11, 2022 at 2:35 PM
So they did blunder.

The Justice Department and FBI did not understand what they were doing when they ran 30 federal agents and technicians up the gut of Mar-a-Lago Club and into the living quarters of a former president of the United States.

They didn’t understand what was instantly obvious to longtime ABC and CBS newsman Jeff Greenfield – that they had engineered a “100 Megaton event.”

We know they blundered not from Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has gone into seclusion on this issue.

We know it not from FBI Director Christopher Wray, whose only comments were to decry the death threats against his agents.

No, we had to divine that something was wrong when Justice didn’t have the brass to stand up and explain why it demolished 246 years of precedent and allowed government agents to rifle through the drawers of a former American president.

'Manure mongers' speak up about the Trump aid
Instead of its leaders taking the podium, the administration schlepped out a couple of anonymous government employees with shovels and wheelbarrows to clean up the mess.

In the days of horse and buggy, they called these guys “manure mongers.”

Newsweek called them “two senior government officials” with “direct knowledge of the FBI’s deliberations.”

One is “a senior Justice Department official who is a 30-year veteran of the FBI.”

We must assume both sources were speaking on authorization of their superiors, otherwise U.S. intelligence has a very leaky ship – a problem perhaps more serious than Donald Trump’s classified memos.

Anonymous sources offered critical facts
Their interview with veteran Newsweek reporter William M. Arkin, who has long covered national security issues, established some important facts:

1) This was about paper.

The FBI search warrant was meant to recover classified documents. This was not about something more weighty, such as the Jan. 6 investigation, Newsweek reported.

2) They had an inside source.

The two Justice officials said agents had information from an “FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents,” the news magazine reported.

3) There were no politics.

“Both senior government officials say the raid was scheduled with no political motive, the FBI solely intent on recovering highly classified documents that were illegally removed from the White House,” Newsweek reported.

4) The attorney general didn’t know.

“(Merrick) Garland had no prior knowledge of the date and time of the specific raid, nor was he asked to approve it. ‘I know it’s hard for people to believe,’ says the official, ‘but this was a matter for the U.S. Attorney and the FBI,’ ” according to the magazine’s report.

He was briefed regularly on the Records Act investigation, but "had no prior knowledge of the date and time of the specific raid," the official old Newsweek.

5) The FBI director was responsible

Christopher Wray gave the thumbs-up to conduct the raid, the sources told Newsweek..

6) They did not anticipate the blowback.

“‘It is really the best and the worst of the bureaucracy in action,’ the official says. ‘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.’ ”

Despite much speculation: Here's what we know about the Mar-a-Lago raid

The two sources, while defending the court-ordered search, were critical of federal law enforcement.

The raid of the Trump’s home was “deliberately timed to occur when the president was away,” the sources told Newsweek. “FBI decision-makers in Washington and Miami thought that denying the former president a photo opportunity or a platform from which to grandstand (or to attempt to thwart the raid) would lower the profile of the event.”

Instead, the American right erupted.

“What a spectacular backfire,” the Justice official told Newsweek. "...It really is a case of the Bureau misreading the impact."

2 words for this thinking: 'Massive screw-up'
Many legal minds have questioned why the FBI didn’t simply issue a subpoena to force Trump’s hand on classified information instead of raiding his home.

Now we know why they didn’t.

They didn’t think law enforcement searching the home of former president for the first time in U.S. history would be that big a deal.

There are words to describe that kind of thinking: “Massive screw-up.”

More from Boas: FBI raid on Trump's home could tear America apart

Someone in the U.S. administration should be taking scalps at the FBI and Justice Department for running such a highly sensitive and consequential law-enforcement operation without a heads-up to the attorney general and the president of the United States.

The FBI may have had the court authority to do what it did, but that search was an extremely provocative act in a country on the razor’s edge. American polarization is at a high point in our lifetime.

Henry Kissinger, who served as Richard Nixon’s secretary of state, told a British newspaper recently that today’s America is “infinitely more” divided than the Vietnam era. “The unstated but very real debate in America right now is about whether the basic values of America have been valid.”

Trump was on the ropes. FBI gave him a lifeline
To fail to understand this moment, to return meekly with anonymous sources to admit you screwed up roars incompetence to your fellow Americans and weakness to global adversaries.

“The Trump raid is now a wall-to-wall political disaster for the United States,” wrote Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger, a careful chronicler of American politics.

“Imagine what we would think of the stability of China or Russia if events like this were happening to Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. That is how they see us – destabilized and vulnerable. Our opponents are redoing their global risk-reward ratios.”

Many of us on the right were watching better leaders emerge in the Republican Party who could eventually replace Trump as GOP standard-bearer in 2024.

That’s all over, a Republican strategist who advises a Trump rival told Politico this week. The FBI raid has “completely handed (Trump) a lifeline.”

“Unbelievable,” he said. “It put everybody in the wagon for Trump again. It’s just taken the wind out of everybody’s sails.”

As chaotic as the Trump presidency was, a second Trump term will be nothing like the first, wrote Henninger. “Trump II would be a four-year civil war.”

We are now three days and counting past the raid on Mar-a-Lago and we have still not heard from the president, the attorney general and the FBI director.

And each day the question grows louder.

Is anybody in charge here?

UPDATE: This afternoon, Merrick Garland gave a brief statement affirming no one is above the law and adding, "I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter."

He defended Justice Department employees against recent criticism. "I will not stand by silently while their integrity is unfairly attacked."

He took no questions but said he would provide more information "at the appropriate time" and in "the appropriate way."

For Garland, this was an important step to break the silence and start rebuilding confidence in the Justice Department and the FBI.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic. Email him at [email protected].

[DAB]

Hillary: you're next.

[MadInNc]

[Dan Dlabay]

This just shows that the dems a getting desperate in their effort to take down President Trump.

Trump 2024

[Aerovette]

At the president’s New Jersey golf course, an undocumented immigrant has worked as a maid since 2013. She said she never imagined she “would see such important people close up.”

Just sayin'

This could be the source. Speak up, or back you go.

[Aerovette]

Originally Posted by DAB

Hillary: you're next.

Yeah, Hill? Hey, this is the FBI. I wanted to let you know we are on schedule for our May 15th 2023 raid. Yeah, I wanted to give you and Bill a quick call so we don't barge in while you two are banging a teenager or something. Yeah, yeah, we'll send a reminder and a Google Meets notification. No problem. Have a nice day.


Oh, and one last thing...don't kill the messenger....serious

[Yadkin]

Originally Posted by DAB

Hillary: you're next.

Hell will freeze over first.

[JRD77VET]

The judge that signed the warrant was a lawyer previously defending Jeffrey Epstein and associates.

There are pictures of the judge on what looks to be the "Lolita Express" holding a big bottle of liquor and Ghislaine Maxwell with her shirt open messing with her bra.

Also, the day before the warrant was signed, Trump refused a motion to dismiss the case he filed against Hillary and other of the DNC.

What a coincidence

[Bill]

Originally Posted by DAB

Hillary: you're next.

Originally Posted by Yadkin

Hell will freeze over first.

You read it wrong. Hillary is telling someone else that THEY are next to be raided.

[Torqaholic]

He defended Justice Department employees against recent criticism. "I will not stand by silently while their integrity is unfairly attacked."

Translation, anyone who voiced a critical opinion can expect a visit from one of our 60,000 new IRS agents.

[Mike Mercury]

Originally Posted by Dan Dlabay

This just shows that the dems a getting desperate in their effort to take down President Trump.

Trump 2024

Point.

The dems must be believing that if Trump runs... he will win. So their plan is to ruin him now so he won't get the parties nomination.

[ZipZap]

Originally Posted by JRD77VET

There are pictures of the judge on what looks to be the "Lolita Express" holding a big bottle of liquor and Ghislaine Maxwell with her shirt open messing with her bra.

If that photo is real, and I have serious doubts it is, he's ****ed.

The biggest tell in all of this is the the lack of POTUS. I dealt with legislative and executive staff at very high levels. There is NFW he was not briefed on this op before it happened.

Hey, BTW, where the **** is Carmello?

Here's another thing...

The POTUS is the Uber OCA. That's "Original Classification Authority" to the uninitiated. He had the authority as POTUS to determine the classification level of any information owned by the USG. This authority rides with the POTUS regardless of whether he was the original creator of the information. In the event any "previously" classified information was located at his FL place, it would be a procedural faux pas at worst, and only if he had not re-marked the information at a level that was storable in FL.

The "archive" angle is only applicable if there was not another copy of the information that was still in possession of the government.

This is the most inept set of administration staff I have ever seen. Will be interested to see the reason (affidavit) that drove the raid; hopefully today.

[Aerovette]

Originally Posted by JRD77VET

The judge that signed the warrant was a lawyer previously defending Jeffrey Epstein and associates.

There are pictures of the judge on what looks to be the "Lolita Express" holding a big bottle of liquor and Ghislaine Maxwell with her shirt open messing with her bra.

Also, the day before the warrant was signed, Trump refused a motion to dismiss the case he filed against Hillary and other of the DNC.

What a coincidence

Fake pic...

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...ixq-story.html

[Strats-N-Vettes]

Originally Posted by Dan Dlabay

This just shows that the dems a getting desperate in their effort to take down President Trump.

Trump 2024

No, see, the media says Trump had classified stuff, even though he says otherwise...so...obviously he's guilty because one media outlet said he had a trove of classified docs and we know trove is punishable by death....because the media says so.
.

[Mike Mercury]

Originally Posted by Strats-N-Vettes

the media says Trump had classified stuff...so...obviously he's guilty because one media outlet said he had a trove of classified docs and we know trove is punishable by death....because the media says so.

the mail-in votes seem to follow what CNN says.

[Strats-N-Vettes]

Originally Posted by Mike Mercury

the mail-in votes seem to follow what CNN says.

What was those results?

like I hafta ask.......

[LATB]

Originally Posted by Mike Mercury

Point.

The dems must be believing that if Trump runs... he will win. So their plan is to ruin him now so he won't get the parties nomination.

This ^^^ is exactly what it's all about.

[SnikPlosskin]

Originally Posted by ZipZap

If that photo is real, and I have serious doubts it is, he's ****ed.

The biggest tell in all of this is the the lack of POTUS. I dealt with legislative and executive staff at very high levels. There is NFW he was not briefed on this op before it happened.

Hey, BTW, where the **** is Carmello?

Here's another thing...

The POTUS is the Uber OCA. That's "Original Classification Authority" to the uninitiated. He had the authority as POTUS to determine the classification level of any information owned by the USG. This authority rides with the POTUS regardless of whether he was the original creator of the information. In the event any "previously" classified information was located at his FL place, it would be a procedural faux pas at worst, and only if he had not re-marked the information at a level that was storable in FL.

The "archive" angle is only applicable if there was not another copy of the information that was still in possession of the government.

This is the most inept set of administration staff I have ever seen. Will be interested to see the reason (affidavit) that drove the raid; hopefully today.

My understanding anything the President wants to declassify first must be briefed by the intelligence agencies and then signed off by someone so “methods and sources” can be redacted.

[Yadkin]

I'm guessing that the FBI-DNC will plant all sorts of evidence in the 15 boxes of nothingness that they stole, from nuke codes to kiddie porn. Then the media will repeat the lies over and over until November 2024.

[ZipZap]

Originally Posted by SnikPlosskin

My understanding anything the President wants to declassify first must be briefed by the intelligence agencies and then signed off by someone so “methods and sources” can be redacted.

That's the procedural part that is required for release. The POTUS alone has the authority surrounding sources, methods, and all other bits, as does the original classification authority (owner) of the information.

The trick was to always refer to some other existing classification guidance and produce what is termed "derivative" classified information. Nobody actually wanted to be the OCA as it was just another layer of bureaucracy you needed to manage.