Tag: FBI

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Crime Donald Trump Justice Department

Allies Warn Trump Releasing Surveillance Footage Of FBI Mar-a-Lago Search Could Doom Him

Disgraced former president Donald Trump says he may release surveillance footage of the FBI carrying out a search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, but some of his closest allies are warning him that doing so could backfire badly on him and all but guarantee he spends decades in prison.

CNN reports that the failed, one-term ex-president thinks he can use the footage as “leverage” against the Justice Department:

Some of Trump’s aides and allies have encouraged the former President to make some of the footage available to the public, believing it could send a jolt of energy through the Republican Party’s base. One person familiar with the conversations said there have been discussions about featuring the August footage in campaign-style ads, believing the footage could bolster Trump’s claims of political persecution.

Another person close to Trump said it’s not a matter of if the former President and his team release any of the footage, but when, noting it could be released before he makes a campaign announcement.

Such a move, however, might swing public opinion against Trump, with one adviser to the former president noting it could “backfire by providing people with a visual understanding of the sheer volume of materials that federal agents seized from his oceanfront residence, including classified materials.

“It’s one thing to read a bunch of numbers on an inventory list, it’s another to see law enforcement agents actually carrying a dozen-plus boxes out of President Trump’s home knowing they probably contain sensitive documents. I don’t see how that helps him,” said this person, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity in order the speak candidly.

It’s unclear exactly what such a video would show, but the possibility that FBI agents who carried out the search would be identified is especially troubling for the agency, which has seen a significant uptick in threats against its staff since the Aug. 8 event at Trump’s golf club.

Another negative possibility for Trump: Surveillance video might negate his claims that the FBI set him up by fabricating evidence, CNN notes:

But releasing the tapes could neuter some of the most conspiratorial excuses for the search that MAGA personalities have been circulating in recent days, including the baseless notion that the FBI planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago — a claim the former President himself has repeated and which there is no evidence to support, especially after Trump’s own lawyer signed off on the FBI’s seizure receipts at the end of the search.

Considering the many legal and financial failures Trump has had over the decades, the only safe bet is that whatever decision he makes regarding the footage will come back to bite him squarely on the ass.

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Congress Donald Trump Elections GOP

Liz Cheney Uses Her Concession Speech To Destroy Trump’s Claim The FBI Planted Evidence

As expected, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) was defeated by challenger Harriet Hageman in the GOP primary on Tuesday, but in her concession speech, Cheney made it clear that she plans to do everything in her power to make sure that failed former president Donald Trump is eventually brought low.

Speaking to supporters in Jackson, Wyoming, Cheney noted:

“Our nation is young in the history of mankind, and yet we’re the oldest democracy in the world. Our survival is not guaranteed. History has shown us over and over again how poisonous lies destroyed three nations. Over the last several months, in the January 6 hearings, the American people have watched dozens of Republicans, including the most senior officials working for President Trump in the White House, the Justice Department, and on his campaign—people who served President Trump loyally—testify that they all told him the election was not stolen or rigged and there was no massive fraud. That’s why President Trump and others invent excuses, pretexts for people not to watch the hearings at all. But no citizen of this republic is a bystander. All of us have an obligation to understand what actually happened. We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.”

Cheney then branded Trump as a liar and pointed to his attacks on the FBI agents who were doing their jobs when they served a search warrant on his Mar-a-Lago resort last week:

“To believe Donald Trump’s election lies, you must believe that dozens of federal and state courts who ruled against him, including many judges he appointed, were all corrupted and biased, that all manner of crazy conspiracy theories stole our election from us and that Donald Trump actually remains president today. As of last week, you must also believe that 30 career FBI agents, who have spent their lives working to serve our country, abandoned their honor and their oath and went to Mar-a-Lago, not to perform a lawful search or address a national security threat, but instead with a secret plan to plant fake incriminating documents in the boxes they seized. This is yet another insidious lie.

“Donald Trump knows that voicing these conspiracies will provoke violence and threats of violence. This happened on January 6, and it’s now happening again.”

For the time being, Trump has bested Cheney. But she’s far from finished with him and still has over four months to make his life hell as she continues to serve on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

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Uncategorized

At Least 6 Current Employees May Be Informing On Trump To The FBI: Report

As disgraced former president Donald Trump and his allies continue to demand that the Justice Department release the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant executed by the FBI last week at the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, a new report from The New York Times makes it clear that multiple people in Trump’s orbit are sharing everything they know with federal investigators.

According to The Times:

(Former Deputy White House Counsel Patrick Philbin) is among eight people who currently or used to work for Mr. Trump who have been contacted by the F.B.I. since a grand jury was formed this year. Investigators also interviewed Derek Lyons, a former White House staff secretary.

Mr. Lyons’s last day at the White House was Dec. 18, 2020, meaning he did not know how the last boxes were packed as Mr. Trump prepared to leave. But he had information about paper flow in the White House and how the former president handled material.

The F.B.I. has reached out to about a half-dozen people who currently work for Mr. Trump and who might know what documents he may still have in his possession.

A half-dozen people! That’s a lot of witnesses who could potentially testify against Trump at a trail if the DOJ decides to indict the former president for violating the Espionage Act and obstructing justice. The charges under the Espionage Act carry penalties as high as 10 years for every classified or top secret document that may have been improperly handled.

Meanwhile, Trump’s minions in right-wing media continue to press for the names of who “the informant” might be. But it looks like they (and he) have set their sights too low, as at least six employees are gladly informing on their boss, probably because they know he’s gone too far this time and has to be brought to justice for his crimes.

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Crime Donald Trump

Trump’s Attorney Just Accidentally Destroyed His Claim That The FBI ‘Planted’ Evidence

Ever since the FBI served a search warrant Monday at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, the disgraced, one-term former president (and his surrogates) have been suggesting that FBI agents “planted” incriminating evidence, with Trump posting on Truth Social:

“The FBI and others from the Federal Government would not let anyone, including my lawyers, be anywhere near the areas that were rummaged and otherwise looked at during the raid on Mar-a-Lago. Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, ‘planting.’ Why did they STRONGLY insist on having nobody watching them, everybody out?”

 

But remarks made by Trump’s attorney, Christina Bobb, yesterday completely destroy such claims, according to Igor Derysh of Salon:

Bobb acknowledged on Thursday that while surveillance cameras at Mar-a-Lago were shut off for a “very short period of time” while FBI agents spoke to Trump’s legal team, the former president and his family were able to view the entire raid through surveillance video.

“I think the folks in New York — President Trump and his family — they probably had a better view than I did. Because they had the CCTV, they were able to watch,” Bobb told the right-wing outlet Real America’s Voice.

Bobb said that she was busy speaking with investigators during the search but the Trump family saw “the whole thing.”

“So they actually have a better idea of what took place inside,” Bobb said.

The Trump family saw the whole thing. Kind of hard to “plant” something when you’re being watched on closed-circuit TV.

Eric Trump also confirmed that the family was able to watch as the FBI went about their duties. So that talking point has now been run over with a bulldozer by not one but TWO people who are in a position to know.

Once again, we see that everything Trump and his minions say is a lie. They lie when they’d be better served by the truth. That alone is proof that Donald J. Trump can never again be trusted with America’s secrets.

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Donald Trump Fox News GOP Whining

WATCH: Fox’s Steve Doocy Puts Elise Stefanik On Full Blast For Attacking The FBI

“Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy pushed back hard at Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for her dangerous and hypocritical comments about the FBI on Friday morning, reminding her that the current FBI Director, Christopher Wray, was appointed by none other than disgraced, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump.

Stefanink was asked about the FBI serving a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago earlier this week and replied:

“House Republicans are going to follow the facts and demand accountability and transparenc. The statement by Attorney General Merrick Garland is not nearly enough … this is Joe Biden’s Department of Justice and FBI, targeting his most likely presidential opponent in 2024. It is not news to the American people that President Trump is very likely to run for president. This was incredibly an overreach, it’s un-American, and there’s going to be a lot more questions from the FBI that the American people deserve.”

Doocy countered by reminding Stefanik about Wray’s appointment having been made by Trump:

“Well, of course, the FBI director was appointed by Donald Trump. But Congresswoman, if — and they’re just allegations, and we just have a little taste of the story from The New York Times and The Washington Post — they say, as Peter talked a moment ago, that apparently there was a national security concern about some of the documents, allegedly, at Mar-a-Lago. That they were materials from — they were higher than Top Secret, they were classified higher than that. As you know, they’re called special access programs, and apparently they’re related to nuclear weapons. We don’t know if they’re our weapons, we don’t know if they’re another country’s weapons. But if that is true, and they were just in the basement at Mar-a-Lago, that’s kind of a big deal.”

As you’d expect, the congresswoman, who has long been an eager defending of whatever Trump does, tried to minimize the danger:

“Well certainly, Steve, there’s been a lot of, again, guesses as to, and media reporting. We do not know the facts, which is why it’s important to follow the facts wherever they lead. And that’s why it’s important in our oversight role on the House Intelligence Committee, we continue to see the FBI refuse to answer questions when they create controversies and they overreach, and that should never be the case.”

A quick historical note: In 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing for allegedly passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union.

Is what Trump has done any less serious?