Yesterday, the FBI raided the home of former President Donald Trump.
There's a lot of speculation on what they were looking for, but it's just that, speculation. That speculation seems to be centered on documents that were improperly taken by the former President, but at least from my prospective that explanation seems excessively limited. It'd have to be further explained by what was removed and why that required a warrant to enter.
I'm not saying that it was improper. Personally, in my view, there seems to be ample evidence to charge Trump with seditious conspiracy at this point.
Something is clearly going on, at any rate.
August 11, 2022
Donald J. Trump appeared for his deposition in New York yesterday and invoked the 5th Amendment for all of the questions. The New York action involves his business affairs, not his presidency.
Trump has repeatedly stated in the past that only the guilty take the 5th Amendment.
Much attention has been paid to the FBI raid on his residence at Mar-a-Lago, with many Republicans wringing their hands over the matter. It's worth noting that the head of the FBI remains a Trump appointee, and this action required a judge in order to take place.
Two notable Republicans who haven't had that reaction are Mitch McConnell, who hasn't said anything, and Chris Christie, a former U.S. Attorney, who said that opening Trump's safe was "fair game".
August 12, 2022
Responding to Trump and his allies complaints about the FBI search warrant, the Justice Department filed a motion to unseal the warrant with the Attorney General, inviting Trump to not oppose it. He has until 3:00 this afternoon to decide if he will oppose it or not, but if he does, it'll look pretty bad to say the least.
Whatever it is seeking, apparently the tip that brought it about came from somebody close to Trump.
August 12, cont:
You know darned well that if President Obama had done this, there'd be cries for his conviction for "treason".
FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home Monday removed 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to be only available in special government facilities, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation agents took around 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Mr. Trump’s ally Roger Stone, a list of items removed from the property shows. Also included in the list was information about the “President of France,” according to the three-page list. The list is contained in a seven-page document that also includes the warrant to search the premises which was granted by a federal magistrate judge in Florida.
Wall Street Journal.
And yet the very same individuals are going to defend Trump on this. There's no doubt.
Apparently, Trump is under investigation for potential violations of the Espionage Act. He certainly hasn't been proven guilty of this. But the fact nonetheless remains that what occurred here is 1) indicative of something, and 2) that something isn't defensible.
August 13, 2022
Donald Trump is now claiming that President Obama kept 33,000,000 pages of documents after he left office, some of which were classified. More specifically, he stated:
President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!
This is false.
At least one news report noting that Republicans are rallying to Trump's defense, again, is good news for the Democrats going into the primaries.
It's often stated that "elections have consequences", which is quite true. But do telling lies, have any?
August 29, 2022
Everyone is now aware of the FBI raid on the former President's Mar-a-Lago home. While the full details of this are very much yet to be revealed, it's clear that he took confidential materials to his Florida golf resort estate and failed to return them when asked. What the situation is beyond that, we really don't know.
It's caused an interesting reaction. Republicans, who earlier wanted to "lock her (Hilary Clinton) up, are now wanting to "defund" the FBI. Clearly there's hypocrisy on both sides here in that Clinton's errors, while much less severe, were real, and these are mind-boggling. A security review is now underway.
Inserted into this, as part of the overall tale of risk, it has developed that a woman presenting herself as one Anna de Rothschild, a member of the famous European banking family, made her way into Mar-a-Lago was in fact Inna Yashchyshyn, an American-born Russian-speaking individual of Ukrainian extraction whose job involves bringing Russian women to the United States so to deliver their infants so that the children can obtain U.S. citizenship. Her tale, replete with multiple passports, etc., is more than a little odd.
That's weird enough, but the rest of it is strange to say the least. Her status was revealed to Mar-a-Lago by music personality Dean Lawrence.
August 30, 2022
Donald Trump demanded that he be installed as President immediately or that a new Presidential election be held.
It's difficult that he actually believes that either demand will be taken seriously, so it has to be assumed that this is merely for attention or red meat for the least politically astute of his followers.
August 31, 2022
Ann Coulter, one of the earliest loud far right voices, and an early fan of Donald Trump who later soured on him, has come out with a blistering article calling him a "grifter" and "done".
September 2, 2022
Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, emailed Wisconsin legislators to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It was already known that she made similar efforts with Arizona.
There are very few jobs in the country where, if your spouse holds them, you ought to curb your political activities, but frankly being a member of the judiciary is one.
September 9, 2022
Ty Cobb, former White House lawyer, came out in an interview calling Donald Trump a "deeply wounded narcissists" and gave a damning series of opinions on Trump's actions. He feels an indictment is likely.
September 30, 2022
Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, appeared in front of the January 6 Committee and reported reiterated her belief that the 2020 election had been stolen, without providing evidence as to why she believes this.
Having recently received two emails on this topic myself, one of which was highly vitriolic, but well written, I think it's safe to assume there's no convincing anyone that the attempted coup was that, at this point, who has set his mind to the opposite.
October 13, 2022
The January 6 Committee has subpoenaed Donald J. Trump.
October 14, 2022
November 12, 2022
Donald Trump has sued over his subpoena to present for a deposition for the January 6 Committee.
This isn't really a surprise. It's in Trump's interest to keep this up in the air until January, in hopes that the Republicans take the House and end the committee's charge.
And while it is still too early to make that call, it at least appears likely that the GOP will take the House back, although by a fairly tiny margin.
November 19, 2022
A special counsel has been named by the Justice Department to investigate the insurrection and Trump as well as the classified material situation involving Mar-a-Lago.
December 19, 2022
The January 6 committee has referred Donald Trump to the U.S. Attorney General on charges of obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and inciting, assisting or providing aid and comfort to an insurrection. It has also referred Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry and Andy Biggs to the ethics committee for failure to honor a subpoena to the committee.
The committee has completed its work and issues its report.
The U.S. Attorney General is unlikely to specifically act on the committee's referral, as it is conducting its own investigation.
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