Array
A court has announced that at least some of the affidavit the FBI used to insist on a public raid of President Donald Trump’s home in Florida will be made public, but those details remain yet to be seen.
What is obvious, however, according to constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, is that Merrick Garland, Joe Biden’s attorney general, repeatedly has missed opportunities to earn the public trust on the dispute.
In fact, Garland’s recent news conference about the issue « had all of the substance of a Hallmark care that read, ‘Trust us, we’re the government.' »
The raid, just a few weeks ago, apparently was over some documentation that Trump moved with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago when he finished his first term.
Garland approved the raid, and boxes of documents were taken.
In court, where the dispute likely will end up, there’s already a precedent established in a case involving Bill Clinton that a president can declassify a document without following all the procedures others must use, and if it’s in his possession, it’s presumed to be his property.
Turley explained the DOJ could have worked with Trump on the issue.
« It is unclear why Garland opted for a search warrant rather than a second subpoena like one used in June to seize boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s team claims to have communications from the FBI reflecting that they cooperated with the search, then followed the FBI’s request to reinforce security on a storage room.
