Boomerang? DOJ admission it over-collected evidence in Trump raid creates new legal drama

Via Just the News

Former top FBI official says search appears to have been overly broad and gives Trump lawyers an avenue for appeal.

Three passports, Privileged documents. A file on a presidential pardon. As evidence surfaces about what FBI agents seized during the raid of former President Donald Trump’s estate in Mar-O-Lago, new questions about the real focus of the investigation and new avenues for legal challenges are bubbling to the surface.

The Justice Department informed Trump’s team Monday that agents gathered the former president’s passports and are obligated to return them, and that officials are also reviewing seized materials that may be covered by various privileges, multiple sources told Just the News.

DOJ has designated a process for separating materials that could be covered by executive privilege or attorney client privilege and hopes to return such memos to Trump within a couple of weeks, the sources said.

“Occasionally a warrant collection can grab things outside the scope authorized by the court and the department is now following a procedure we would for any person affected this way,” one official said Monday night.

Kevin Brock, who served as FBI assistant director for intelligence under former Director Robert Mueller, said the new revelations raise legitimate questions about over-collection of evidence that could lead to significant legal challenges. Trump lawyers are weighing whether to ask a federal court to name a special master to review sensitive documents and protect the president’s 4th amendment, executive and attorney-client privileges.

“Trump’s attorneys could have a runway to argue the scope of the search is overly broad,” Brock told Just the News. “Search warrants normally require a level of specificity that seems to be missing in this warrant. Specificity is important in order to protect 4th Amendment rights from exuberant government overreach designed to find whatever they can.”

Brock said he was particularly troubled FBI agents felt comfortable seizing a record of Trump’s pardon of longtime friend Roger Stone, which the bureau disclosed in court documents. He said it suggested the raid may have something more to do with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot probe, where Stone has been a figure of interest, than an investigation into classified records.

“The president’s authority to grant pardon and clemency is clear but what isn’t clear is why the retention of a clemency order would be considered illegal,” Brock said  “The fact that it is highlighted on the receipt list, and that it has to do with Stone, will likely provide ammunition to Republicans who are asserting that the search was less about a document dispute and more about a hunt for derogatory Jan. 6 information.”

The revelations came on a day when DOJ also opposed requests to unseal the FBI affidavit explaining the motive for the search, arguing such a move could imperil this and other investigations.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, whose conservative watchdog regularly sues the government to release documents and is seeking to compel release of documents in the Trump search, said the government’s first court filings appear to describe an overly broad search that went far beyond classified records.

“They were engaged in a fishing expedition, and the warrant itself wasn’t about classified information, though it mentioned it,” Fitton told Just the News. “It talked about all sort of other documents. It basically gave the FBI carte blanche to anything they wanted from the Trump home.

“And the fact that a judge signed off on it is very troubling,” he added.

Brock agreed that the search warrant included a “stunningly broad scope” of targeted evidence and warned it could have a chilling effect on past and future presidents.

“This apparently makes a novel legal assertion that any presidential record kept by a former president is against the law,” he explained. “You have to wonder what the other living former presidents think about that.  They have the right and, apparently, clear desire to remain silent.”

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Iska Waran
Iska Waran

If those assholes actually bring charges against Trump, all they have to do is make sure the trial is in D.C. A DC jury would convict any republican and acquit any democrat.

KJ
KJ

That’s always been the end goal: to obtain a DC grand jury indictment of Trump, even if it’s completely ludicrous.

If this FBI raid was about seizing documents that name names and show evidence related to the Russia Hoax, Trump should’ve released and published them already, to hell with the consequences. They were going to find something to indict him for, regardless – just like they found something to impeach him for.

Meantime, Hunter weighs and smokes crack, measures his prick, and bangs hookers- many of whom are likely victims of human trafficking – on camera, as well as confesses in writing to acting as The Big Guy’s agent for foreign influence peddling, and no raids, no indictments, nothing.

The US won’t last much longer with these types of people in charge and these types of double standards of justice – but I think that’s the whole point.

MrLiberty

And truly what would be so bad about the end of the US? Can we honestly say that this can continue? The dissolution of the federal government and the restoration of the sovereign states would be the best thing that could happen. I think we all know what the worst could be.

KJ
KJ

I wasn’t making a judgement call on whether or not the end of the US would be a good or bad thing. I was just making an observation.

Daddy Joe
Daddy Joe

Mr. Liberty, Thank you for re-opening this line of thought. We all need to start asking what life will be like in my state, my locale without the heavy, all-stifling hands of the feds all over our business and lives. For better or for worse it needs a look or we will be blindsided when it starts happening. Chance favors the prepared mind.

TN Patriot
TN Patriot

The central government will not go away with a whimper. There is a reason they have armed up the past 16 years and trained/indoctrinated a lot of local police forces.

The breakup will be much, much uglier than either of my divorces.

Llpoh
Llpoh

Almost any grand jury will indict for anything. They will indict a ham sandwich for stealing mustard.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Please Charge Trump so we can start the show. 50% of people will stop paying 90% of all the taxes collected by our bankrupt government. I hope it happens soon. PLEASE ARREST TRUMP.

morongobill
morongobill

Maybe that is why they are getting the 87k increase at the IRS?

suzanna

Hey Anon,
Do you think the new “shoot to kill” IRS agents are hired to shake
down any deplorable that tries to shave off a sliver of tax liability?

flash
flash

Is over-collected evidence just another euphemism for exaggerated untruth ?

World War Zeke
World War Zeke

No, because it cleverly implies some of what they have is actual evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

Politicians know exactly what they are crafting and that is foremost and always, the manipulation of public perception and trust so that their masters can steal and murder with impunity.

In the shadowy line between DOJ and FBI, you will find judge, jury, and executioner. All sworn to secrecy.

flash
flash

Justice ain’t what the Justice Department actually does.

View post on imgur.com

flash
flash

Oldie, but still true. Justice is blind to career criminals in US government.

Make Mexican Gunrunning Great Again !

View post on imgur.com

the U.S. Justice Department hasn’t made it clear to tell congressional investigators when the Fast and Furious operation began and who authorized it; as a result, this ATF briefing paper’s mention of September 2009 is thus far the earliest we can trace the operation.

The next important event we know of occurred in October 2009 when the ATF’s Phoenix Field Division established a gun-trafficking group called “Group VII.” Group VII began using the strategy of allowing suspects to walk away with illegally purchased guns, according to a report from the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the staff of Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. The report says, “The purpose was to wait and watch, in hope that law enforcement could identify other members of a trafficking network and build a large, complex conspiracy case…. Group VII initially began using the new gunwalking tactics in one of its investigations to further the Department’s strategy. The case was soon renamed ‘Operation Fast and Furious.'”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2011/09/28/fast-and-furious-just-might-be-president-obamas-watergate/?sh=32e15aa1752a

ken31
ken31

Sec State doesn’t have absolute authority over classification of information like the President does.

overthecliff
overthecliff

You have to hand it to the communists. They have created a system that cannot be stopped. .

suzanna

Any group can be stopped, like termites and roaches in Florida.
Tent the dwelling and pump in the pesticide. However this must
be repeated every 7 years (that magic number seven) to rid the
home of the roaches and termites. Probably the varieties of ants,
spiders, and even some wayward little lizards get gone as well.

Aunt Acid
Aunt Acid

Fat Boiz Institute needs to rename the headquarters edifice: Felix Dzerzhinsky complex.

suzanna

I am surprised the FBI didn’t clean the place out in it’s entirety,
documents can be concealed under and in upholstery fabric eg.
Documents can be found taped under drawers, behind framed art,
or in hollow sculptures, in kitchen ware and false canned food fronts.
The list is endless of where evidence can be concealed.

anonymous
anonymous

Smelling Melania’s pussy?

View post on imgur.com

TN Patriot
TN Patriot

You can be sure they have reviewed and probably copied everything that will be returned. Nothing like reviewing attorney-client communication to determine plans or to see if there is some other trail to follow.

VOWG
VOWG

The communist states of america.

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