patrick.net

https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/11/17/the-verdict-is-in-on-the-top-secret-documents-seized-by-the-fbi-from-president-trumps-home-and-sane-people-are-not-surprised-n660319

Here we are, after the midterms, and what does the media who pushed this story as Trump personally endangering nuclear weapons codes and the identities of undercover agents abroad have to say? Oops, would sum it up.

Federal agents and prosecutors have come to believe former president Donald Trump’s motive for allegedly taking and keeping classified documents was largely his ego and a desire to hold on to the materials as trophies or mementos, according to people familiar with the matter.

As part of the investigation, federal authorities reviewed the classified documents that were recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club, looking to see if the types of information contained in them pointed to any kind of pattern or similarities, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

That review has not found any apparent business advantage to the types of classified information in Trump’s possession, these people said. FBI interviews with witnesses so far, they said, also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property, these people said.

…

The people familiar with the matter cautioned that the investigation is ongoing, that no final determinations have been made, and that it is possible additional information could emerge that changes investigators’ understanding of Trump’s motivations. But they said the evidence collected over a period of months indicates the primary explanation for potentially criminal conduct was Trump’s ego and intransigence.

Let’s be serious. The odds of anyone in the FBI, the Department of Justice, or the Office of the Archivist of the United States thinking that President Trump had actual classified documents, much less the identities of covert agents or nuclear weapons codes in his possession, are zero. Sane people don’t believe crap like that. That is jerk-off material for progressive Twitter. The entire purpose of the FBI raid was to attempt to intimidate President Trump as he hinted at a 2024 presidential run in the same way Department of Justice investigations are being used to harass and, in the case of Steve Bannon (Steve Bannon’s Conviction Shows the Biden Justice Department Has Politically Weaponized the Law and Law Enforcement), imprison Trump allies. They also wanted to create a narrative of Trump-is-a-traitor that could be weaponized to offset any campaigning done by Trump in the midterms. Finally, if possible, they wanted to damage him should he opt to run for president. There was never any crime. All that ever existed was a desire for petty vengeance. And that is not going to work out for them the way they thought it would (The Political Persecution of President Trump Is Not Going to Make Trump or His Supporters Go Away or Accept the Outcome).

https://www.independentsentinel.com/the-real-reason-for-the-mar-a-lago-raid/

CNN journalists Zachary Cohen, Jeremy Herb, Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand, and Evan Perez finally reported today that what they were looking for was the missing Russian interference binder.

A binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intel officials.

The missing binder would potentially include the Crossfire Hurricane documents. Crossfire Hurricane is the investigation begun without predicate on Donald Trump, known as Russiagate. They could implicate the DOJ, FBI, and Biden administration, probably Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well. ...

They desperately do not want these documents released to the public, and they are still missing – last seen at the White House during Donald Trump’s final days.

Patrick says

They desperately do not want these documents released to the public, and they are still missing – last seen at the White House during Donald Trump’s final days.

Cool.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/multi-dimensional-wednesday-december

Day before yesterday, I covered the “lost top-secret binder” story. An alert commenter directed me to a supplemental motion filed in a little-reported lawsuit by reporter John Solomon of Just The News. In January 2021, President Trump tasked John with publishing the declassified Crossfire Hurricane binder to the American people. This year John has been suing the Biden Administration as Trump’s “designated representative” trying to get a copy of the binder. I quickly reviewed his supplemental motion during a spare hour.

It was extremely informative.

Our useless corporate media never reported anything about John’s unprecedented lawsuit until a bare mention of the story in CNN’s article on Monday, even though John filed his case back in March. It turned out that, on the fateful evening when copies of the binder were flying all over Washington DC with deep state officials racing to collect them, John Solomon had time to quickly review a mostly-unredacted copy of the binder.

In other words, John Solomon knows what’s in the binder. In John’s supplemental motion, he described the binder’s contents a thousand times better than had CNN:

It is undisputed that the former President had the Crossfire Hurricane binder created and then declassified it to shed light on the intelligence community’s role in advancing one of the most divisive and malicious political dirty tricks in American history; that a physical binder of declassified Crossfire Hurricane records was given to the (just sworn in) Attorney General (Merrick Garland) on January 20, 2021, for specific redactions and public release; and that this binder has not been publicly released, not on the morning of January 20 and not after the Biden Administration took power at noon on that day.

Among other things, the binder contained embarrassing information about the Bureau’s officials and the government’s conduct in the case. Mr. Solomon saw “lightly redacted” versions of the fourth Crossfire Hurricane FISA warrants, a 2017 FBI 302 interview report with Christopher Steele, several tasking orders related to a second Confidential Human Source named Stefan Halper, and other documents.

For some reason, I expected the government’s arguments against releasing the binder to be stronger than they were. John Solomon’s supplemental motion described the DOJ’s two very weak arguments. First, the government made the dumb retroactive argument that, because Trump sent the binder to DOJ for redaction (as it had asked), the binder somehow magically transformed from a declassified Presidential document into a DOJ “agency record.” Therefore, mused the DOJ, the binder became subject to FOIA laws which, DOJ was sad to say, prevented the vast majority of its contents from ever being released.

Second, apparently influenced by psychedelic mushrooms, the DOJ theorized that Trump’s explicit order for them to lightly redact and then distribute the binder somehow included an implied discretion for the agency, which it utilized to decide instead to heavily redact the binder and then not distribute it.

“Discretion” being the key word: a goofy DOJ euphemism for “disobey a direct order.” Obviously it’s a stretch.

Both arguments are legally horrible. They’re so bad it makes me wonder whether Monday’s limited hangout of the “lost binder” story was the deep state’s way to prepare the narrative battlespace for an expected judicial order in Solomon’s case forcing the government to hand the binder over to the American people — as President Trump originally intended.

I’m not just guessing; the lawsuit’s docket was highly suggestive. In June, the DOJ filed a Motion to Dismiss John’s case, but nothing’s happened with that motion so far and the docket shows lots of subsequent activity in the case. So my take is that the judge must have said something to the lawyers, probably during a hearing, suggesting the case cannot be resolved on dismissal.

On August 18th, John Solomon filed his summary judgment motion, and three weeks after that the DOJ filed its own cross-motion for summary judgment.

To me, the case looks ripe for summary judgment. John Solomon claims to have a legal right as President Trump’s “designated representative” to Trump’s “Presidential record” — the declassified binder. The DOJ raised two dumb legal arguments. Since there aren’t any disputed facts to be tried, the case should be resolved by summary judgment. And the last thing filed related to the competing summary judgment motions was on October 12th.

It’s now December. A decision on the summary judgment orders could literally come any minute now.

So here’s my guess about what’s really going on: The historic “lost DOJ binder” story ran in CNN on Monday because, one way or another, the deep state discovered that federal Judge Leon is about to rule in John Solomon’s favor, forcing the government to cough up the binder like a giant, politically-damaging hairball. So maybe the deep state used CNN trying to create a pretext for corporate media and the social media platforms to blackout any discussion of the binder and lock it down.

There are several other explosive documents pending disclosure soon. The Crossfire Hurricane binder is just one of them.

Please keep your seat belt securely fastened at all times while the ride is in motion.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/breaking-former-brazilian-president-bolsonaros-home-raided-passport/

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/hustling-thursday-february-15-2024

Shellenberger’s story involves that binder I reported on two months ago on December 18th, when CNN had just run a bizarre, hastily-written, long-form story about a missing top-secret intelligence binder — missing for almost three years! — blaming it all on Trump. The binder held a classified report about Crossfire Hurricane — the Russian Collusion hoax leading to Trump’s first impeachment — and according to CNN, to “election interference in 2016.” Whatever’s in it, it is a report that the deep state is desperate to bury in the Oceanic Trench as deeply and as soon as it possibly can.

Back in December, I suggested the surprise SWAT raid on Mar-a-Lago by a swarm of federal agents wasn’t actually about trying to find some vague nuclear-secrets records that Trump hadn’t returned to NARA after being asked nicely.

I suggested the raid was instead intended for one reason only: to find that binder. The NARA business was just a carefully staged predicate.

Two days ago, Jesse Waters covered Shellenger's developing story on Fox...

Multiple credible sources say that in the run-up to the 2016 election, the CIA asked foreign intelligence agencies — specifically the “Five-Eyes” group of nations — to spy on a list of 26 Trump campaign members. It was a setup, so that the CIA could cleverly evade U.S. laws against domestic spying. Specifically, the CIA asked the other governments’ spooks to try to develop relationships and interactions — called “bumping them” in the spook business — with each of the 26 Trump officials. That gave the FBI a legal predicate to “monitor” the 26 Trump campaign members, since they were interacting with covert foreign intelligence agents, which brought the Trump team within FISA and allowed Obama’s DOJ to wiretap and spy on them.

In the clip, Shellenberger also confirmed he now believes what I speculated about two months ago, which is that the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago to find the missing Crossfire Hurricane Binder, not because the binder implicates President Trump in any crime, but because it implicates U.S. intelligence agencies and agents in crimes. What kinds of crimes? Fantastically awful crimes. The worst imaginable political crimes. Crimes that, if proved, would make Benedict Arnold look like a patriotic, flag-waving nationalist.

I kind of like the way Lara Logan put it. She said it would “dwarf Watergate and every other scandal — combined”...

In yesterday’s clip, Watters reported that Taibbi and Shellenberger claim to have evidence that Joe Biden has been coordinating all the Trump criminal cases as part of the Crossfire Hurricane coverup. I don’t need to tell you how that could affect the Trump prosecutions.

This is all still developing and fascinating and incomprehensible and the implications are staggering if not completely mind-boggling.

https://palexander.substack.com/p/crossfire-hurricane-mike-davisjulie

Crossfire Hurricane: Mike Davis/Julie Kelly punishingly reveals the reason Biden (illegally) raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago is because Trump declassified (via memo on 1/19/2021) and kept his personal copy of his Crossfire Hurricane presidential records. These Crossfire Hurricane records are devastating to Obama, Biden, Hillary, Clapper, Comey, etc. Biden reacted by waiving Trump's executive privilege…Biden had to get any evidence Trump had of the fraud fake Russia Collusion and it is in those Crossfire Hurricane documents…pointing directly at Obama, Hilary, Biden, Clapper et al. ...

‘Again, the reason Biden (illegally) raided Trump is because Trump declassified (via memo on 1/19/2021) and kept his personal copy of his Crossfire Hurricane presidential records. Biden, through his Deputy Counsel White House Jonathan Su, waived Trump’s claim of executive privilege. Biden AG Merrick Garland personally approved the raid. ...

Conspiracy theory? 51 former intel agents, working with the CIA, ran the same play with Hunter’s laptop of Biden’s foreign corruption in 2020. This is a criminal conspiracy. Trump could have publicly disclosed these declassified Crossfire Hurricane records in his civil lawsuit versus Hillary over the Russian-collusion hoax Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, a Democrat operative who bashed Trump on Facebook, was forced to recuse from that case. Six weeks later, Reinhart’s clear bias against Trump (somehow) didn’t matter anymore.

Reinhart approved Biden’s (through Garland and Jay Bratt, now Jack Smith’s counselor) unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful raid on Trump. For presidential records Trump was allowed to have in the Office of the Former President, per the Presidential Records Act.

In other words, Obama and Biden have politicized and weaponized law enforcement and intel agencies to interfere in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections against Trump. Because Obama and Biden know Trump has the goods on their ongoing Russian-collusion criminal conspiracy.

https://palexander.substack.com/p/was-the-raid-on-trumps-mar-a-lago

Judge Aileen Cannon shows some leg & opens this up; what? an 'FBI agent who testified that the General Services Administration (GSA) had been in possession of Trump's boxes in Virginia before ordering Trump's team to come get them.' so the GSA sent the docs to Mar-a-Lago?

Yep. They told Trump to come and get a pallet of boxes that included documents, while in communication with the Biden Regime, and then raided him for possessing those documents they told him to pick up.

https://slaynews.com/news/judge-jack-smith-removes-trump-classified-documents-case-calendar/

The Democrats’ hopes have just been shattered after the judge in President Donald Trump’s classified documents case officially removed the trial from the calendar.

The move shuts down Special Counsel Jack Smith’s anti-Trump case, ensuring that it will never go to trial before the 2024 election, as the Democrats had hoped.

As Slay News recently reported, Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely postponed the trial after it had emerged that the prosecution had been tampering with evidence.

The trial was scheduled for May 20, and while Democrats may have been hoping the case could get back on track before November, those hopes have now been crushed after it has officially been removed from the calendar.

https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/here-it-comes

Today, Judge Aileen Cannon will ask Special Counsel Jack Smith’s lawyers to do some ‘splainin’ about how come he got to be Special Counsel without being nominated by a president or confirmed by the Senate, which is the lawful procedure. It’s therefore possible that Judge Cannon can determine that Mr. Smith is not operating lawfully. That’s not the only thing that can deflate the so-called Mar-a-Lago Documents case, but it could lead to a determination that this was a malicious political prosecution, with consequences for AG Merrick Garland.

By the way, you know what this case is really about, don’t you? I’ll tell you: the FBI went into Mar-a-Lago looking for Mr. Trump’s binder containing evidence of FBI and DOJ misconduct in the RussiaGate caper. Whether they found it or not, we don’t know, nor do we know if there are other copies of the materials. But you might surmise that a lot of officials in those agencies are a little nervous about their criminal liability, especially with the presidential election poll numbers looking how they do. In other words, the Mar-a-Lago raid was a cover-up operation.

Fair enough. Trump is right, it was clearly political persecution.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/hes-baaack-tuesday-august-13-2024

Finally, yesterday produced a breaking legal story that was so exciting and so encouraging that I’ll screenshot the headline for you, so you can enjoy seeing it as much as I did. Forbes:

Trump Intends To Sue DOJ
Over Mar-A-Lago Search

Boom. Yes! Yesterday, President Trump served the DOJ with a notice of claim —a required pre-suit procedure— saying he intends to sue the Department of Justice for $115 million dollars. Trump’s claims include malicious political prosecution and abuse of process.




Forbes’ article dripped with skepticism, pointing out that, since the DOJ gets 180 days to respond, Trump won’t likely file a suit until after the election. And, if Trump wins, Forbes groused, he might be unlikely to sue an agency he controls.

But to me, on the other hand, an agency Trump controls might also quickly settle with him, or it might not put up much of a defense. Either way, I thought it was telling that Forbes imagined Trump’s successful election. In its own article, NBC’s sub-headline was similarly suggestive:

The former president is seeking monetary damages from the government, which he may soon be
heading, over what his legal filing called a "malicious political prosecution."

Not only that, but Trump’s case has been buoyed by Judge Cannon’s recent decision to dismiss the Mar-a-Lago raid suit, a magnificent setback for the DOJ, which has appealed the decision. Forbes is hoping against hope. It reported that “other courts” rejected the legal grounds on which Judge Cannon relied, but Forbes ignored Supreme Court Justice Thomas’ lengthy concurrence making those exact same legal arguments.

Trump is an expert at making news despite corporate media’s best efforts to ignore him. Trump’s notice of claim joined the other recent signals that, after three difficult weeks of being the media’s human punching bag, Team Trump has quit playing defense. Now, it’s starting its offense.

Onward and upward!

Patrick says

Today, Judge Aileen Cannon will ask Special Counsel Jack Smith’s lawyers to do some ‘splainin’ about how come he got to be Special Counsel without being nominated by a president or confirmed by the Senate, which is the lawful procedure. It’s therefore possible that Judge Cannon can determine that Mr. Smith is not operating lawfully.

Jurisdiction and legitimacy of principles are always litigated extensively before any real lawsuit to establish the genuine identities of all parties, provenances and legal status in the lawsuit. This is usually 'expensive' before trial procedures or discovery even start. It's pretty clear that there are divisions of fake Federal process that are reserved for show trials and selective prosecutions. I guess you could call them Intel Agency Potemkin courts that exist only for appearance of process and optics, with all the judges, prosecutors (or even defense lawyers) pre fabbed for the fakes (Jizzlaine, Sam of FTX etc.)