The PDF of the unsealed search warrant and attachments is available here.
- The central ethical conflict in this mess is between the danger of criminalizing politics, a warning sign of, as conservative talk show host Mark Levin says, creeping Stalinism, and appropriate revulsion at allowing anyone, including Presidents, ex-Presidents and would-be Presidents, to be “above the law.”
- This inevitably leads to “whataboutism” arguments, and legitimate accusations of double standards. Hillary Clinton committed acts that other, lesser mortals have been prosecuted for, despite James Comey’s typically dishonest statements to the contrary. The Clinton Foundation, which operated–cleverly, creatively and mostly carefully—as a money laundering, pay-to-play and influence peddling operation for the benefit of Clinton family members in perpetual violation of basic non-profit practices and guidelines, mysteriously wound down to nothingness once Hillary had no influence left to peddle and no prospects for regaining any. An FBI raid of Clinton Foundation offices would have almost certainly turned up some fascinating documents, but the Trump Justice Department, which was, as we know, stuffed with Clinton loyalist holdovers, never went that far in its investigation, such as it was. There is a substantial distinction between crowds chanting “Lock her up!” and serious attempts to actually lock her up.
- In the same vein as the old line, “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean everyone isn’t out to get me,” the fact that the raid on Mar-A-Largo (it was a raid—come on, be serious—and it obviously didn’t have to be) was another link in the chain stretching all the way back to 2016 and determined efforts by the Axis of Unethical Conduct to Get Trump! by any means necessary doesn’t mean that there wasn’t finally something of substance to get Trump with. And if Trump indeed really broke laws, shouldn’t he be held accountable like any other American who breaks laws? I mean except for Bill and Hillary Clinton and Joe and Hunter Biden, of course…
- This is ethics zugzwang, and both Trump and the party of Javerts hunting him bear responsibility for the quagmire it has placed the country in. The Democrats have been tipping toward totalitarianism, but Donald Trump has been—no surprise—arrogant, reckless and stupid, stupid, stupid. Keeping classified, secret or whatever the hell they are documents at his Mar-A-Largo home instead of turning them over as the law requires may be the worst example yet. He’s known that he was a target under hyper-scrutiny by powerful people and institutions that want to destroy him for at least seven years. He should have been making certain that his conduct was clean as the proverbial whistle—indeed, as President, former President and supposed exemplar, he should have be that clean anyway. As an American citizen, he should be that clean. Is it really so hard not to violate, appear to violate or seem to violate important laws? For Trump, it apparently is.
- It would have been nice—you know, that “avoid all appearance of impropriety” thingy that government officials are supposed to follow as their ethics north star?—if Merrick Garland didn’t have a bright, shining reason to be biased against Trump (he should have recused himself from the warrant decision) and the magistrate approving the warrant hadn’t been an outspoken Democratic partisan and anti-Trump critic. A neutral magistrate wouldn’t be hard to find.
- The “nuclear documents” scaremongering just doesn’t make sense. Substack pundit Jim Treacher, hardly a Trump acolyte, properly asks,
Nuclear documents? What, like launch codes? Schematics? Locations? What are we talking about here?
What did they think the guy was going to do with this stuff? Is any of it even current? Don’t they change the launch codes every day? And nobody missed these documents for 18 months? What’s the danger here?
I can’t imagine. That doesn’t mean that it should be acceptable for Trump to flout the law and keep documents he shouldn’t have, but still…what’s the big deal that justifies an armed raid? Many have pointed out that the actual search for the documents was delayed: if there was actual danger to “national security” posed by Trump having documents in his possession, then the raid should have taken place the immediately after a warrant had been secured.
- Naturally, Trump is weakening the resolve of rational critics of this partisan hit by making his usual hyperbolic and factually dubious counter-accusations. Shortly before the release of the warrant yesterday, Trump implied that Obama had committed far worse offenses, writing,
“What happened to the 30 million pages of documents taken from the White House to Chicago by Barack Hussein Obama? He refused to give them back! What is going on? This act was strongly at odds with NARA. Will they be breaking into Obama’s ‘mansion’ in Martha’s Vineyard?”
This does not appear to be true.
- One silver lining in polarizing fiascos like this is that it tempts bad actors and ethics villains into exposing their true nature to all. Thus did once respectable (a long, long time ago) presidential historian Michael Beschloss despicably hint via Twitter that Trump should be executed for those “nuclear documents”…
The man might as well wear giant neon signs on his head flashing “I am an unprincipled hack!,” “I have no professional integrity!” and “I am a trustworthy scholar like Sean Hannity is a trustworthy journalist!” See, the people who watch and believe the network Beschloss sold his soul to “contribute” to still think Trump is in league with Putin, and he has these “nuclear documents,” see, so he’s obviously planning on selling them to Russia, right? The historians association should kick Beschloss out, and might, if 90% of he members weren’t almost as biased as he is. Yes, this is the same guy who went on CNN election night and 2016 and lied (when a Presidential historian makes a ridiculously false statement about Presidential history to cover for his favorite losing candidate, he’s lying) about how Hillary’s loss was in part attributable to the “fact” that it is “very hard” for any party to win the White House three terms in a row. That tweet, however, is even lower on the ethics scale. How despicable for anyone, but for a respected historian, astounding.
- The reporting is confusing and spinning in all directions, but it does appear that a President can declassify any documents he chooses. However, we are told, there is a certain procedure that has to be followed. So this is all going to come down to dotted i’s and crossed t’s and court battles over whether the documents were properly declassified or not? And what: if they were, Trump is as pure as the driven snow, and if not, Rosenberg him? Now the Trump defense is that the documents were “automatically” declassified when they were shipped to Mat-A-Largo. Sounds dodgy, but would any jury convict a former President on the grounds that he misunderstood the right way to declassify documents he had the power to declassify, and so, “Gotcha!”?
I don’t believe it.
- Professor Turley asked five excellent questions after the warrant was released, including the one that exposes the true nature of the raid:
Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the DOJ would have used other less intrusive means if they were possible. Yet, it would seem that such options were not just possible but obvious, including the use of a second subpoena. Moreover, even if a raid was necessary, it is not clear why the DOJ would descend upon Mar-a-Lago with such a massive show of force rather than send a few agents over with the warrant.
Why? Because it was political theater and part of a strategy to remove Trump as threat to win the White House again, that’s why. Duh. And Turley knows this as well as Garland does.
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A new poll from Convention of States and Trafalgar Group claims that the 53.9%, of independents believe Trump’s political enemies are behind the Mar-A-Largo raid. Gee, Independents, ya think? I thought they were smarter than that. 76.7% of Republicans hold the same view, which is similarly surprising.
Meanwhile, about 70% of the Democrats polled said they believed the raid was “the impartial justice system at work.” Are Democrats that gullible, that biased, that dishonest, or that stupid? I only see those four options.
Finally, here is some ethics fodder for debate. If I were Joe Biden, I’d pardon Trump for any crimes real or imagined related to his Presidency, a Nixon pardon encore. Not only is it the right thing to do for the country, it would be politically astute. Trump would try to refuse it, I bet, but he can’t. The most deranged Democrats would be apoplectic,to which the only response can be “Good!” Joe, meanwhile, could salvage some shred of dignity and statesmanship from his debacle of a Presidency.
Discuss.
Ethics Alarms 
Sadly, you aren’t Joe. Whoever is running the country for him won’t even consider the welfare of the country. They destroyed the economy to beat Trump in 2020. They’ve got midterms to withstand here. Teumpbhate us all they have as a distraction.
Ahem…Trump hate is all they have. My phone seems to be channeling Biden’s vocabulary.
“I know Joe Biden, and you’re no Joe Biden! … thank God.”
That’s exactly right. A pardon for Trump would never even cross their minds. They went to all this effort to “get” him, are they going to throw it away for “the good of the country”? Is there really any question that the overwhelming majority of our enormous Federal bureaucracy doesn’t give half a shit about the welfare of the nation?
Biden’s only consequential pardon will be in the early months of 2023, when Hunter is indicted on some tax fraud charges or some equally piss-ant pretense. Joe will pardon him and then resign the presidency, thus avoiding the inevitable retaliatory impeachment proceedings that the newly-Republican-controlled House will no doubt begin immediately.
Then Joe Biden gets to leave office spinning it as a strong, loving patriarch putting his unfortunately snake-bit family above everything else, rather than as a doddering old fool leaving office unable to remember how he got there in the first place, and he’s safely off the table for 2024.
Generally True but technically inaccurate. First, by law, The Atomic Energy Act, certain information can’t be declassified without the consent of DOD and the atomic energy commission. Second, it’s less about having all the i’s dotted and more of a case of creating a record of declassification, it doesn’t happen in pectore, records are created when a piece of information is classified, if you can’t show that the status has changed, it hasn’t changed. Third, the warrant searched for classified information but the laws cited in the warrant don’t; For example https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793 That’s the big scary one, the espionage act (because we can’t be cool like some countries and call it the official secrets act) section F
Other sections have similar wording.
It might have been better for the country in the long run if Nixon had done time.
We’ve been over this before, pardons can be refused, clemency cannot.
Click to access usrep032150.pdf
I remember that now; thanks. Still, this is angels on the head of a pin stuff. A Presidential pardon might be refused by Trump in theory, or as grandstanding, but in reality one would shield him from prosecution and conviction.
Jack, I sent a post with two links, that means moderation.
On it!
WordPress likes you–and why wouldn’t it?—the post made it through without moderation! Please explain your technique to poor mermaidmary.
A discussion of presidential authority to declassify: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/breaking-trump-describes-process-how-he-declassified-documents
It appears to be essentially total and casual.
Interesting article.
Such a pardon, and backing a Church Commission-style probe into FBI/DOJ would be appropriate steps to de-escalate the growing tensions.
But Biden won’t do the former, and his “Resistance!” administration would obstruct the latter – openly – knowing that Garland, like Lynch, Holder, and Reno before him, would not prosecute any contempt of Congress referrals from a GOP House investigating the matter.
We’re going to have to get very close to the precipice before anyone really gets serious about trying to fix things.
Jack wrote:
And if Trump indeed really broke laws, shouldn’t he be held accountable like any other American who breaks laws? I mean except for Bill and Hillary Clinton and Joe and Hunter Biden, of course…
I think most people would agree that if he broke laws that are reliably enforced, he should be held accountable. But if other presidents have had the same conduct ignored by law enforcement, enforcing it on Trump would not be just. I think this is the major complaint conservatives have on the rule of law — it looks like it is one thing for Democrats, and something else for Republicans.
So this is all going to come down to dotted i’s and crossed t’s and court battles over whether the documents were properly declassified or not?
Possibly, but the hilarous breadth of the warrant, basically encompassing any document Trump created or touched during his presidency, gives the game away. As Andy McCarthy said, and I linked in an earlier comment, this “classified document” thing was a pure smokescreen. They know that charging him of something that has been permitted before is a powderkeg that would likely blow up in their faces.
On the other hand, if they locate a document related to the January 6th 2021 riot that appears to implicate Trump in some legally actionable way, they will have achieved their ultimate objective. But even if that’s not there, there is certainly something in those documents, perhaps many somethings, that can be used to taint or damage Trump in the upcoming months via leaks and court filings.
To me, at least, this raid was always likely. Raids give the imprimatur of criminal activity to the subject of them with lasting effect, even if no charges are ever filed. They also provide a trove of information the unscrupulous, of which there appear to be very many in the FBI and DOJ these days, can use not just against their target, but against those in his orbit via media leaks.
In other words, I think the FBI and DOJ, both of whom have come under withering attack (and justifiably so) by Trump and the Republicans, now think they have what they need to fight both. In other words, this was the Deep State’s ultimate act of self-protection. The Democrats would love nothing more than to indict Trump, but I think the DOJ is quite happy to have the ammunition they feel they need even if an indictment is legally or politically unfeasible.
You can expect the leaks to begin next week in defense of their decision to conduct the raid. From there, the sky is the limit.
Let us suppose, for example, there is probable cause that a candidate for political office may have committed some crime in a foreign jurisdiction.
Would it be ethical to contact the authorities of that foreign jurisdiction to take a closer look?
I’d been meaning to write about Clinton’s Emails forever, but I was having a hard time linking them to current events.
This made it easy.
https://humbletalent.substack.com/p/mar-a-raido?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2
I think this is a good time to reiterate that the existence of classified information is entirely due to executive orders, and as such, the President of the United States is the ultimate arbiter of what is and is not classified. If he says (or in this case, said) something is not classified, it’s not classified. Period.
And, not for nothing, I’ve been consistent on this issue when it was Secretary of State Clinton and classified information on her email server in question.
–Dwayne