{"id":1606191,"date":"2022-08-15T08:01:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T12:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1606191"},"modified":"2022-08-15T08:01:30","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T12:01:30","slug":"records-suggest-a-backbench-bureaucrats-partisan-grievance-spurred-the-fbis-nakedly-political-raid-on-trump-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/records-suggest-a-backbench-bureaucrats-partisan-grievance-spurred-the-fbis-nakedly-political-raid-on-trump-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Records Suggest A Backbench Bureaucrat\u2019s Partisan Grievance Spurred The FBI\u2019s Nakedly Political Raid On Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frecords-suggest-a-backbench-bureaucrats-partisan-grievance-spurred-the-fbis-nakedly-political-raid-on-trump-2%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1606191&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Last week\u2019s raid on Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago home represented the culmination of a criminal investigation pushed by a partisan bureaucrat who called January 6, 2021, the \u201cabsolute worst\u201d day of his life. And while since last Monday, the country has focused on the FBI\u2019s raid of Trump\u2019s personal residence, seeing that as the crossing of the Rubicon, the die was cast this spring when the DOJ went to the grand jury about Trump\u2019s presidential records.<\/p>\n<p>Reporting by the New York Times and Washington Post \u2014 some from months ago \u2014 when pieced together and considered in tandem with past practices related to presidential and other governmental records, reveals this reality. The relevant reporting started no later than February of this year, when the Washington Post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2022\/02\/07\/trump-records-mar-a-lago\/?itid=ap_jacquelinealemany\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">broke<\/a> the news that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) confirmed in a statement, issued by the then-archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero, that in January of 2022 NARA had retrieved from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of presidential records, which according to sources included items such as mementos, gifts, and letters. NARA added that Trump representatives were \u201ccontinuing to search\u201d for additional records.<\/p>\n<p>Months later, in interviewing the then-recently retired Ferriero, the Washington Post detailed the origins of the retrieval of the 15 boxes. At the conclusion of Trump\u2019s presidency, the Post reported, Ferriero \u201cwas told by the White House Office of Records Management about a group of boxes in the White House residence that should go to the Archives.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we were moving materials from the White House just before the inauguration, those boxes hadn\u2019t shown up yet,\u201d Ferriero said. The retired archivist then explained how he remembered \u201cwatching the Trumps leave the White House and getting off in the helicopter that day, and someone carrying a white banker box, and saying to myself, \u2018What the hell\u2019s in that box?\u2019\u201d According to Ferriero, \u201cthat began a whole process of trying to determine whether any records had not been turned over to the Archives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During the spring of 2021, NARA <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2022\/08\/13\/trump-mar-a-lago-search\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reportedly<\/a> \u201cdiscovered some high-profile documents missing, such as correspondence with North Korean\u2019s leader Kim Jong Un, that Trump once described as \u2018love letters,\u2019\u201d the letter President Barack Obama had left for Trump, and a map of Hurricane Dorian that had been altered with a black marker by Trump. And according to Ferriero\u2019s congressional <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/exclusive-informer-told-fbi-what-docs-trump-was-hiding-where-1732283\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">testimony<\/a>, NARA \u201cbegan talking with Trump\u2019s people right after they left office\u201d about \u201cpresidential records.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here, an aside is necessary to understand the concept of \u201cpresidential records\u201d and NARA\u2019s involvement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Presidential Records Act Provides the Backstory<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The Presidential Records Act provides that documents created or received by the president or his immediate staff, such as memos, letters, notes, emails, and other written communications, related to a president\u2019s official duties, constitute \u201cpresidential records\u201d and must be preserved. The act further declares that the United States shall \u201cretain complete ownership, possession, and control of Presidential records.\u201d And at the conclusion of a president\u2019s term in office, the \u201cArchivist of the United States\u201d \u201cassumes responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, \u201cpersonal records\u201d remain the property of the outgoing president and include diaries, journals, or personal notes \u201cnot prepared or utilized for, or circulated or communicated in the course of, transacting Government business.\u201d Likewise, \u201cmaterials relating to private political associations\u201d or \u201crelating exclusively to the President\u2019s own election to the office of the Presidency\u201d and not related to the duties of the president, qualify as personal records and not \u201cPresidential Records.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NARA maintained that letters with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and other documents qualified as \u201cpresidential records\u201d that the United States owned. And by working with Trump representatives, NARA arranged to retrieve from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of presidential papers in January of 2022.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Leaks Begin \u2014 And So Does the Witch Hunt<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>As noted above, Ferriero confirmed for the press in February 2022 that the 15 boxes of material had been retrieved by the NARA. Then in a February 10, 2022, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2022\/02\/10\/trump-records-classified\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">article<\/a>, the Post reported two significant leaks: first, that within the material returned to NARA were documents marked as classified, and second, that \u201carchives officials asked the Justice Department to look into the matter\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By March 2022, NARA was reportedly in \u201c\u2018consultation\u2019 with the Justice Department,\u201d and by April 7, 2022, according to leaks to the Post, the DOJ had launched an investigation into Trump related to the 15 boxes of material retrieved by NARA. Another DOJ leaker reportedly told Newsweek that in late April 2022, \u201ca federal grand jury began deliberating whether there was a violation of the Presidential Records Act or whether President Trump unlawfully possessed national security information,\u201d and that \u201cthe grand jury concluded that there had been a violation of the law.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Further <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2022\/05\/12\/mar-a-lago-documents-grand-jury\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">leaks<\/a> revealed that the DOJ by springtime had issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/08\/13\/us\/politics\/trump-classified-material-fbi.html?campaign_id=60&#038;emc=edit_na_20220813&#038;instance_id=0&#038;nl=breaking-news&#038;ref=cta&#038;regi_id=93402780&#038;segment_id=101353&#038;user_id=20a4f201a2fbd13845f9f94d88228e13\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">subpoena<\/a> to Trump purporting to seek \u201cadditional documents that it believed may have been in his possession.\u201d The grand jury reportedly also issued subpoenas to obtain \u201csurveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago, including views from outside the storage room\u201d where Trump has stored documents from his presidency.<\/p>\n<p>According to the New York Times, in response to the grand jury subpoena, a top counterintelligence official for the Justice Department met with Trump\u2019s lawyers on June 3 at Mar-a-Largo and reportedly \u201cleft with additional material marked classified.\u201d Leakers also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/08\/13\/us\/politics\/trump-classified-material-fbi.html?campaign_id=60&#038;emc=edit_na_20220813&#038;instance_id=0&#038;nl=breaking-news&#038;ref=cta&#038;regi_id=93402780&#038;segment_id=101353&#038;user_id=20a4f201a2fbd13845f9f94d88228e13\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claimed<\/a>, in the latest of the ever-changing justifications for the raid, that around the same time as the visit to Trump\u2019s Florida home, one of his lawyers provided a declaration \u201cattesting that all the material marked classified in the boxes had been turned over.\u201d Then, after a \u201cconfidential human source\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/exclusive-informer-told-fbi-what-docs-trump-was-hiding-where-1732283\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reportedly<\/a> told the FBI that Trump continued to hide classified documents, even providing \u201cthe location of those documents,\u201d according to \u201ctwo senior government officials,\u201d the DOJ moved to obtain the search warrant.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><strong>\u2018Classified\u2019 Is a Red Herring<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Shortly after news broke of the raid, and as the public backlash to the apparent political targeting of a former president of the United States began to swell, DOJ leakers took to their PR teams at the New York Times and Washington Post to spin the search as a drastic response to a dire problem: Trump\u2019s supposed possession of documents about nuclear secrets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClassified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump\u2019s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation,\u201d ran the Washington Post\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2022\/08\/11\/garland-trump-mar-a-lago\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lead<\/a> in its coverage of the developing story. The New York Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2022\/08\/12\/us\/trump-news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">repeated<\/a> the storyline, claiming Trump was seeking to \u201cdeflect attention from reports that the classified documents he had kept in his Florida home might have contained materials related to nuclear weapons\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rather than prompt the public\u2019s concern, however, the country, whose memory of the Times and Post\u2019s peddling of the Russia-collusion hoax remained fresh, ridiculed the posited justification \u2014 that Trump had stolen nuclear secrets \u2014 for the raid. The focus of coverage, nonetheless, remained on the supposed \u201cclassified\u201d nature of the materials stored at Mar-a-Lago, especially after the release of the inventory list that documented the seizing of classified documents.<\/p>\n<p>Trump and his defenders countered these claims by stressing that as president, he had declassified all of the documents he had removed from the White House \u2014 something within his constitutional authority as the commander-in-chief. However, a close look at the search warrant reveals the \u201cclassification\u201d question is a red herring: None of the three criminal statutes relied upon by the DOJ to justify the search required the material sought to be classified.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Criminal Codes in the Search Warrant Don\u2019t Care About Classification Status<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Specifically, the search warrant specified that the \u201cproperty to be seized\u201d included \u201call physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a7 793, 2017, or 1591.\u201d Material need not be classified to fall within any of those criminal code provisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rather, for instance, under Section 793, also called the Espionage Act, it is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/18\/793\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">crime<\/a> for a person with \u201cunauthorized possession of\u201d documents or information \u201crelating to the national defense,\u201d that the possessor \u201chas reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation,\u201d to \u201cwillfully retain[] the same and fail[] to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it.\u201d Documents and information could be \u201crelated to the national defense\u201d without being \u201cclassified,\u201d and an intelligence community desperate to convict Trump of something could easily frame the material as providing an \u201cadvantage\u201d to a foreign nation. Further, given the Presidential Records Act, Trump arguably has \u201cunauthorized possession\u201d of the material, although if it is a copy the issue is dicier.<\/p>\n<p>The second statute cited, Section 2017, criminalizes the removal, destruction, or concealing of government records, which would include presidential papers, and again that provision of the criminal code does not require the documents to be classified. And the third statute, Section 1591, addresses \u201cObstruction of Justice,\u201d but before moving there, the warrant\u2019s reference to Section 2017, read in light of the leakers\u2019 comments, proves informative to understand the latest targeting of Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Newsweek\u2019s \u201cexclusive\u201d report on the supposed confidential human source that prompted the search of Mar-a-Lago claimed that \u201cthe road to the raid began a year-and-a-half ago, when in the transition from the Trump administration to that of President Joe Biden, there were immediate questions raised by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as to whether the presidential records turned over to the federal agency for historical preservation were complete or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Leakers Gave Away the Game<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The DOJ leaker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/exclusive-informer-told-fbi-what-docs-trump-was-hiding-where-1732283\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reportedly<\/a> told Newsweek that NARA \u201cbelieve[ed] that the former White House was stonewalling and continued to possess unauthorized material\u201d and that the National Archive then, earlier this year, \u201casked the Justice Department to investigate.\u201d The same leaker claimed a grand jury had \u201cconcluded that there had been a violation of the law.\u201d Further, according to Newsweek and its \u201cintelligence source,\u201d \u201cthe affidavit to obtain the search warrant\u201d \u201ccontained abundant and persuasive detail that Trump continued to possess the relevant records in violation of federal law, and that investigators had sufficient information to prove that those records were located at Mar-a-Lago \u2014 including the detail that they were contained in a specific safe in a specific room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Putting aside for a moment the DOJ\u2019s reliance on \u201cObstruction of Justice,\u201d this leak reveals the raid of Mar-a-Lago resulted from the criminal investigation into Trump\u2019s compliance with the Presidential Records Act, prompted by NARA under the leadership of then-Archivist Ferriero. And for three reasons, Americans can safely conclude the DOJ\u2019s launching of a criminal investigation \u2014 and its use of a grand jury \u2014 to target former president Trump was a political witch hunt.<\/p>\n<p>First, NARA handled its discovery of Hillary Clinton\u2019s violation of the equivalent \u201cFederal Records Act\u201d vastly differently. In September of 2015, in response to questions from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, about the former secretary of state\u2019s use of a non-governmental email account, Ferriero informed Grassley of NARA\u2019s normal response to allegations of \u201cunauthorized destruction or removal of federal records.\u201d \u201cNARA will write a letter to the agency asking it to report back to NARA within 30 days and open a case file on the matter.\u201d At that point, NARA and the agency would work together to recover any missing documents or to reconstruct them if needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NARA then <a href=\"https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/files\/press\/press-releases\/2016\/pdf\/nara-response-to-grassley_2015-9-28.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">explained<\/a> that upon learning of Clinton\u2019s use of a non-governmental email account in March 2015, it \u201cimmediately acted In accordance with our regulations by sending a letter to the State Department, setting off the process described above.\u201d Significantly, while noting that the use of the non-government email may result in a separate DOJ investigation, in the case of Clinton, \u201cNARA has not Initiated an \u2018Investigation\u2019 of Secretary Clinton\u2019s email practices; rather, as noted above, we have been communicating with the State Department on this matter, and are deferring to the State Department\u2019s review (and any other agencies conducting Investigations).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, in the case of Trump, NARA referred the matter of documents stamped \u201cclassified\u201d to the DOJ, which promptly opened an investigation into Trump and used a grand jury to subpoena Trump and others.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Numerous public statements by Ferriero, who at the time of the referral to the DOJ served as the country\u2019s archivist, suggest a partisan goal underlying the referral. First was Ferriero\u2019s bizarre overreaction to \u201cwatching the Trumps leaving the White House and getting off in the helicopter\u201d while someone was \u201ccarrying a white banker box.\u201d \u201cWhat the hell\u2019s in that box?,\u201d Ferriero claimed he asked himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Then there was Ferriero\u2019s admission that he decided to retire at the end of April 2020 \u201cbecause he is worried about the political future.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s important to me, that this administration replace me,\u201d Ferriero said, adding, \u201cI\u2019m concerned about what\u2019s going to happen in 2024. I don\u2019t want it left to \u2026 the unknowns of the presidential election.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s quite a strange statement for an archivist to make, suggesting as it does that politics matter in the performance of his role.<\/p>\n<p>Third, Ferriero\u2019s comments during a post-retirement interview discussing Jan. 6, suggest he holds an anti-Trump bias. \u201cOn his office television, David S. Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, had watched outgoing President Donald Trump whip up the right-wing crowd near the White House,\u201d the Post reported. Ferriero said he recalled watching \u201cthis angry mob \u2026 really angry, angry people\u201d and thinking to himself, \u201cif these people realize what\u2019s in this building they\u2019re passing, we\u2019re at risk here.\u201d The former archivist called January 6, 2021, \u201cthe worst day of his tenure as the keeper of the nation\u2019s collective memory,\u201d and \u201cthe worst day of my life\u201d \u2014 \u201cthe absolute worst.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is not merely NARA\u2019s referral to the DOJ and Ferriero\u2019s apparent bias that suggests a political motive, however: It is the reality that even if the documents were classified, Trump has the right to access them and NARA could have worked with the former president to set up a secure location for his presidential papers, which is precisely what Ferriero and the NARA did with Barack Obama.<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, before President Obama left office, he rented a private facility in Hoffman Estates to serve as a storage place for his presidential papers, and by October of 2016, while he was still in office, shipments of artifacts from his presidency began <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/obama-center\/ct-met-obama-archives-20171004-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">arriving<\/a> at the suburban Chicago storage facility. A year later, the Chicago Tribune reported that after the National Archives and Records Administration had worked with the former Democrat president to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/obama-center\/ct-met-obama-archives-20171004-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ship<\/a> his documents to the Chicago suburb, where they were stored and kept secured, Obama decided not to retain a paper archive at his presidential museum, \u201cmeaning they would be shipped back to Washington once a decision [was] made on where to keep them permanently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Obama documents \u2014 both classified and unclassified \u2014 remained in Hoffman Estates well into 2018, as evidenced by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.obama.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/BOF-NARA-LOI.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">letter of intent<\/a> executed between Ferriero on behalf of the National Archives Trust Fund and the Obama Foundation. Among other things, the letter of intent memorialized the Obama Foundation\u2019s agreement to \u201ctransfer up to three million three hundred thousand dollars ($3,300,000) to the National Archives Trust Fund (NATF) to support the move <strong><em>of classified and unclassified Obama Presidential records<\/em><\/strong> and artifacts from Hoffman Estates to NARA-controlled facilities that conform to the agency\u2019s archival storage standards for such records and artifacts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The only difference between the Hoffman Estates\u2019 storage of the Obama presidential records that began in 2016 and the Mar-a-Lago storage of Trump\u2019s presidential records was that the documents were technically within the possession of NARA. But even though the documents were legally the property of NARA, Obama still had the right to access the records, including the classified documents.<\/p>\n<p>So if upon receiving the 15 boxes of documents back from Trump, NARA had legitimate concerns about the security of Mar-a-Lago \u2014 a strange worry to hold given that the Secret Service must safeguard the location to protect Trump and his family \u2014 a bureaucracy committed to the country and safeguarding her artifacts would have worked to arrange for the documents to be preserved under the auspices of NARA control in a location chosen by Trump, as it had done with Obama.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>It\u2019s the Grand Jury, Stupid<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>But the presidential records were never the concern; nor were the documents with classified markings, which remained secured along with the Trump family. The goal was always to get Trump, which is why NARA referred the matter to the DOJ, which then used a grand jury to investigate the former president of the United States. And once the grand jury began the case, under the apparent auspices of a violation of the Presidential Records Act \u2014 if the sources are believed \u2014 the DOJ teed up the possibility of an \u201cObstruction of Justice\u201d charge for anything less than full cooperation in the mind of the FBI.<\/p>\n<p>Whether Trump\u2019s lawyer signed a declaration that inaccurately claimed Trump had no documents <em>marked <\/em>as classified is unknown. If so, it would appear an obstruction charge will be forthcoming, but then so will a fight over whether Trump\u2019s lawyer meant Trump had not retained any \u201cclassified\u201d documents since they had all been <a href=\"https:\/\/justthenews.com\/politics-policy\/all-things-trump\/breaking-trump-describes-process-how-he-declassified-documents\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">declassified<\/a> and the marking just not fixed. Or maybe that\u2019s all the declaration stated \u2014 that Trump did not possess any classified documents.<\/p>\n<p>An Espionage Act charge would likewise face a high hurdle given the DOJ would need to establish that Trump had \u201creason to believe\u201d the national defense information \u201ccould be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.\u201d Further, to the extent the Biden administration would seek to charge Trump with mishandling classified material, that theory would fail given Trump\u2019s absolute declassification authority.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That leaves (at least at this point \u2014 the creativity of the deep state remains untapped) Section 2017, which criminalizes the removal, destruction, or concealing of government records. But Trump did not remove the records and likely did not designate the records for shipment by GSA. And even if he did, Section 2017 seeks to protect government property, and if what Trump possessed consisted of mere copies of government records, there <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ProfMJCleveland\/status\/1558294763220115456\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">should be no violation of this criminal provision<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Given these problems with the underlying legal theories, targeting a political enemy and former president of the United States with a search warrant represents an unforgivable lapse in judgment. And as for the claim that the DOJ needed to recover these vital national security documents, the shifting stories spread by leakers suggest this rationale is simply a pretext. <\/p>\n<p>After all, within the course of one week, the justification for the search went from \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2022\/08\/11\/garland-trump-mar-a-lago\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">nuclear secrets<\/a>\u201d to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2022\/08\/12\/us\/trump-news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">classified documents<\/a>, to videos suggesting the documents were not secure, to videos <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/08\/13\/us\/politics\/trump-classified-material-fbi.html?campaign_id=60&#038;emc=edit_na_20220813&#038;instance_id=0&#038;nl=breaking-news&#038;ref=cta&#038;regi_id=93402780&#038;segment_id=101353&#038;user_id=20a4f201a2fbd13845f9f94d88228e13\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">suggesting<\/a> the Trump team was serendipitously moving the documents, to a confidential human source <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/exclusive-informer-told-fbi-what-docs-trump-was-hiding-where-1732283\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claiming<\/a> Trump continued to possess presidential records, to a supposed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/08\/13\/us\/politics\/trump-classified-material-fbi.html?campaign_id=60&#038;emc=edit_na_20220813&#038;instance_id=0&#038;nl=breaking-news&#038;ref=cta&#038;regi_id=93402780&#038;segment_id=101353&#038;user_id=20a4f201a2fbd13845f9f94d88228e13\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lie<\/a> by Trump\u2019s attorney that there were no documents present at Mar-a-Lago marked classified.<\/p>\n<p>No matter the excuse provided for the raid, however, the reality remains that the Biden administration launched an unnecessary grand jury criminal investigation into Trump based on a referral from a partisan archivist. And all Americans of goodwill see the obvious difference in the government\u2019s treatment of Clinton, Obama, and Trump, proving the purpose of the investigation was \u201cto get\u201d Trump and not the documents.\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Margot Cleveland is The Federalist&#8217;s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. <\/p>\n<p>Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize\u2014the law school\u2019s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. <\/p>\n<p>As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week\u2019s raid on Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago home represented the culmination of a criminal investigation pushed by a partisan bureaucrat who called January 6, 2021, the \u201cabsolute worst\u201d day of his<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1606191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1606191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1606191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1606191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1606191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}