Update (0032ET): President Trump has effectively dared the Department of Justice to release the documents related to the Monday raid on Mar-a-Lago.
“Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my home in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents, even though they have been drawn up by radical left Democrats and possible future political opponents, who have a strong and powerful vested interest in attacking me, much as they have done for the last 6 years…” Trump said in a Thursday night post on Truth Social.
“This unprecedented political weaponization of law enforcement is inappropriate and highly unethical. The world is watching as our Country is being brought to a new low, not only on our border, crime, economy, energy, national security, and so much more but also with respect to our sacred elections!” he said in a subsequent post.
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The FBI was looking for ‘classified documents relating to nuclear weapons,’ among other things, during its Monday raid at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, WaPo reports, citing ‘people familiar with the investigation.’
So – we’re to believe that the FBI took several boxes from Trump in June, told him to put a bigger lock, and then two months later realized ‘oh — he might have nuclear secrets‘ – justifying the raid.
The leakers did not offer additional details.
Material about nuclear weapons is especially sensitive and usually restricted to a small number of government officials, experts said. Publicizing details about U.S. weapons could provide an intelligence road map to adversaries seeking to build ways of countering those systems. And other countries might view exposing their nuclear secrets as a threat, experts said.
One former Justice Department official, who in the past oversaw investigations of leaks of classified information, said the type of top-secret information described by the people familiar with the probe would probably cause authorities to try to move as quickly as possible to recover sensitive documents that could cause grave harm to U.S. security. -Washington Post
“If the FBI and the Department of Justice believed there were top secret materials still at Mar-a-Lago, that would lend itself to greater ‘hair-on-fire’ motivation to recover that material as quickly as possible,” said David Laufman, the former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence section.
So we assume the narrative will now be that Trump leaked, or could have leaked, nuclear secrets to Putin – which justified “authorities to try to move as quickly as possible to recover sensitive documents” in the name of national security.
Right…
So hours after Merrick Garland says that DOJ only speaks through its filings in court, they go out and leak this story to the Washington Post. https://t.co/farxNnnCtR
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) August 12, 2022
Attorney General Merrick Garland revealed during a brief Thursday speech that he personally approved the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago and that the DOJ has asked a federal court to unseal the document.
35 min wait for:
1. doj will unseal the warrant and property receipt barring an objection from trump
2. garland personally approved the raid
3. stop being mean to the FBI
4. that's all, folks
— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) August 11, 2022
Trump allies have suggested that the warrant was politically motivated, while Trump himself said on Truth Social on Wednesday that the FBI may have planted evidence.
The search is connected to an investigation on whether Trump unlawfully retained presidential records – including classified materials, following his departure from office in January 2021.
garland will not take any questions but you can learn more when his staff leaks to the new york times and cnn
— Joe Gabriel Simonson (@SaysSimonson) August 11, 2022
Kind of crazy to think that Merrick Garland may have posed less of a threat to the republic as a Supreme Court justice than as an incompetent, vindictive, corrupt AG.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) August 11, 2022
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US Attorney General Merrick Garland will make a statement to the media at 2:30 pm ET on Thursday, following the FBI’s Monday raid on Mar-a-Lago.
Garland has found himself in the crosshairs of conservatives, who claim that the establishment has once again ‘weaponized’ the DOJ against Donald Trump.
Watch live:
Sen. Rand Paul and other conservatives have called for an investigation.
“And if it warrants it, there’s going to have to be a look at whether or not the attorney general has misused his office for political purposes. Have they gone after a political opponent? I mean, this is beyond the pale,” he told Fox News on Wednesday. “No one would have ever imagined before that we would be using or one political party would be using the FBI to attack their political opponents.”
via zerohedge
