Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Home Raided by FBI
Via Fox News.
Former President Trump on Monday said that his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida is “under siege” by a “large group” of FBI agents.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” Trump said. “It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections.”
“Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before,” Trump said, alleging that the FBI agents broke into his safe.
“What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee?” he said. “Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.”
Multiple sources tell Fox News the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago is related to the materials Trump allegedly brought to his private residence after his presidency concluded. That matter was referred to the Justice Department by the National Archives and Records Administration, which said it found classified material in 15 boxes at the residence.
Per the CNN article, he was not home at the time.
Published in General
Except this is why, whenever there’s some mass shooting, we eventually discover that the shooter was “known to the FBI.” And in many cases had already broken laws that should have had him put away much earlier.
My brother, a former police officer, could tell you about their department’s dealings with the FBI. They had a criminal with more than enough evidence to bring in, but the FBI stepped in and told them to leave him alone so they could continue to track him.
Of course, that meant allowing him to continue committing crimes — crimes against law-abiding citizens — while they just sat by and watched.
His department washed their hands of the case and said “We’re out of this. He’s all yours.” They did not want to be blamed for allowing more crimes to be committed.
So the question here is, is it worth it to allow a criminal to keep committing crimes against people just so you can build a bigger case against him?
I say no. It’s immoral.
It would have to be a prosecution for insurrection…which is patently absurd. Not that it would stop Liz Cheney from pushing for it. I’m sure, if they want to they can get a Grand Jury to indict him, and if the case is in DC, then I am sure they can convict him. I am not sure what would happen on appeal. Its not like it would convince me of ever voting for a Democrat again, but depending on the GOP reaction (I suspect they would roll over and give up because most of them just want this Trump nightmare to end and go back to getting rich and never doing anything the voters want them to do), they would lose a ton of voters forever. As it stands this fall I have one person that I going to go vote for (Cassie Garcia running for CD-28 to flip to to R for the first time ever), but after that, and I fully expect to see the by mail ballot cheating in the valley like we saw in 2020 when Vincente Gonzales won by 6,500 votes (the closest election that the district has seen in its history (it was formed in 1920).
My, this is getter sicker and sicker . . .
Got it. Thanks!
This is how peace is achieved.
Or we could just be perpetually-abused chumps.
Again, I’m in the middle here–I don’t think it’s automatically immoral. If there’s an ongoing investigation, I could see that (at times) a prosecutor would determine that bringing a charge too soon would allow the main criminals to get away. Don’t get me wrong–your point is well-taken, and I can see other times where a prosecutor tolerates too much ongoing crime while waiting to land the great white whale. It seems to me a matter of discretion and prudence.
At the risk of sounding like a chump, I’m going to take my tiresome stand for the rule of law.
When the Republicans return to power and are in a position to act, I wholly support prosecuting lawbreakers, investigating the DoJ and other federal agencies, sacking everyone who has misbehaved, and shining a lot of light on Democrat malfeasance. Those are good things.
But we shouldn’t raid homes without just cause. The Constitution didn’t suddenly become something that our side gets to ignore. Quite the opposite: it’s something that our side needs to defend.
If, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe, it had declared that abortion shall be illegal throughout the land, it would have failed in its duty to the Constitution. The goal can’t be to teach the other side a lesson by demonstrating that we can disrespect the Constitution as well as they can. If their transgressions are sufficiently blatant as to even begin to justify that, then they’re sufficiently blatant to be prosecuted within the bounds of the Constitution.
That, in my opinion, is what should happen, and what has to happen.
Although it’s cold comfort if you’re the victim of a crime committed by the guy the FBI allowed to roam free.
My point would be that we have plenty of cause. To name an obvious example, why is Hunter Biden untouchable? Imagine what they’d find in whatever squalid flophouse he currently calls home.
Again, I’m a big fan of legitimate law enforcement. I’m wary of political vendettas, because I think they probably do more harm than good, so I think anything that looks like that should be held to a very high standard of prosecutorial worthiness.
Hunter would seem to qualify. The guy is a freak show of lawlessness, a parody of criminality, fractally felonious.
The problem is that the doddering old man in the White House will almost certainly be implicated, and then we’re back to the appearance of politicized justice. I’m not saying it isn’t justified, only that it’s impossible to prosecute a President without it appearing political to a significant fraction of the country.
The real problem is the corrupt institutions. We need Congress to go in with an axe and start pruning.
PS Last I heard, Hunter’s “squalid flophouse” cost $20K/mo.
Love this phrase. Nicely done.
I’d be happy to see two or three public examples made, and then we could say quietly out of the spotlight, “Do you understand? This can and will continue if you force it.”
I completely sympathize.
But I’ll defend the Constitution without exception. I don’t want my side treating it the way the Democrats do — not even “for a good cause.”
I say too effing bad.
Oh, how indecorous.
(Too effing bad.)
Mutually Assured Destruction worked well during the cold war with the Soviets. It can work again in our own domestic Cold War.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and gentlemen’s agreements are made only among gentlemen.
The Constitution is not a “gentlemen’s agreement.”
You do you. I’ll continue to call for our side to uphold the Constitution.
The Constitution works only if all “sides” agree to be guided by it. In that sense, it is a gentlemen’s agreement.
I’d rather be gracious in victory than attempt to be dignified in defeat. But as you said, you do you.
Matthew is blowing it up!
I disagree with you. This is a place that I think that Mitch McConnell has it right. When one side ignores precedent and acts outside of the norms of acceptable behavior, then the only recourse is to do it right back to them, and then say “are you ready to return to the norms now?”. That was why he was happy to use the Reid Rule to get Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett on the Supreme Court. I suspect he would also be happy to change the rules back if the other side could be trusted not to change them again when it suits them.
Which is the inherent problem here. This isn’t really a rule of law issue. The rule of law would be that justice is blind and equally goes after the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak…but we know that isn’t the case. Perhaps it’s never been the case and we just have been blind to the level of corruption that our legal system and law enforcement have become. The rule of law would have seen Hillary Clinton prosecuted for her mishandling of classified materials, and for bypassing the systems put in place to ensure that corruption isn’t happening. The rule of law would have seen that Crossfire-Hurricane would never have gotten a special name because the accusations were coming from the political opponent. The rule of law would have seen the Clinton campaign taken to task for their attempt to use the FBI and IC to go after their political opponent. The rule of law would have seen the FBI Director resign before attempting to entrap the incoming President. We can go on and on, but the point is made. The rule of law is broken in the US, and it has been for a while, perhaps a very long while. The people that broke it are never going to be punished for their transgressions, and they aren’t all Democrats. Perhaps the next GOP administration should raid the Cheney home in DC (because she hasn’t lived in WY for a long time) and Pelosi’s, and Kinzinger’s as well to discover if there was any collusion in the perversion of congress that the J6 committee is. In a way I’d love to see that happen, but I also, deep down, hope that it never comes to that. It’s just getting harder and harder to see any other way out of this godawful mess.
Respectfully, David, that’s some pretty serious goalpost moving there.
There’s a difference between “respecting precedent” and “defending the Constitution.”
I thought McConnell did exactly the right thing as regards the Supreme Court. And if the Democrats eliminate the legislative filibuster, I’ll support Republicans teaching them a lesson using the newfound power of an unchecked Senate majority.
But staying within the bounds of the Constitution is, in my opinion, the sine qua non of legitimate government. I want Republicans to stay within the bounds of the Constitution.
This is the origin of most No knock Raids. Almost every time I know knock rate has gone South it’s been engaged in this sort of thing so the innocent people die because the government can’t do a good enough job getting the information that needs head Of time.
That is being a Chump. The only thing that will work is to fight fire with fire. Your way is not worked my entire lifetime. Your way is the way the loser. We should Impeach the president and impeach the vice president and impeach judges impeach anybody that we don’t like. If we get the presidency rain weren’t down upon everybody that we can in the Democrat.
No you are not.
You are calling for us to lose.
I don’t get you Henry. You seem to think that it is reasonable for the laws to be prosecuted one sidedly. It is perfectly acceptable to go after trump for the smallest of things but apparently not acceptable to you to go after the Bidens for even bigger things. That is not supporting the Constitution. That is not supporting the rule of law.
I’m more bothered that a Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of Florida apparently acting alone approved a warrant with such obvious serious and historical consequences than I am about who his prior clients were. Magistrate Judges decide litigation discovery disputes and other procedural matters to help lawsuits move along through the courts. [They may have other duties, but I don’t do litigation, so my familiarity with them is limited.] They are to assist the “Article III” judges (those are the judges nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate), and so they are under the authority of the court, not of the Executive (the President). But they are not themselves full Article III judges, which means their authority is limited.
That Magistrate Judges handle discovery disputes and other pre-trial matters means that they are familiar with search warrants. But this warrant request from the FBI should have been raising so many red flags about all the consequences that would flow from it that I would think a Magistrate Judge would want to have some other judicial officers involved before he signed off on it. I have no idea if there are procedures for doing that, but if I were an administrative functionary of the court system, I’d be real nervous about signing off on a search warrant that would be likely to do irreparable damage to the republic.
Visit Mar-a-Lago and get your phone seized:
Trump ally Rep. Scott Perry says the FBI seized his cellphone one day after Mar-a-Lago raid | Fox News
If you think it stops here, you’re a gullible fool.
The Democrats’ Stasi will take down every Republican who dares show independence from the Turtle.
In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if The Turtle was cooperating with them, directing them which Republicans need to be taken out.
Americans, your Government hates you and fears you. Which is why they’re abusing you.
Deleted: Drew in Wisconsin made my point before I did but I didn’t see it before I wrote.