We have heard news this week that the FBI has made a raid on Mar-A-Lago, the resort and hotel complex owned by Donald Trump's management company, and that various papers have been seized.
This follows revelations that in the very last days of the Trump Administration, and possibly unconnected to the insurrection and violence against the Capitol Building, that documents were being shredded and that as many as 15 boxes of documents had been removed either by Trump's own personal staff or on direction of the former President.
Although we do not have exact details of what the FBI were looking for, we can be reasonably sure that this was part of an ongoing crime investigation. Exactly which ongoing crime investigation this was part of, we do not know because there are so many of them. Such is the nature of the man and by extension the administration, which it must be said, was probably run identically to his private operations.
Naturally, the right wing media in the United States (lead by Fox News) has decided to paint this as a witch hunt because that fits the ongoing narrative and means that they can continue to run existing story lines with goodies and baddies. In short, this raid on Mar-A-Lago is good for television as Fox News especially can portray this as their hero being unfairly treated for something that he didn't do.
What I find particularly strange about this is that the narrative seems to want to portray this as though Mr Trump was personally violated and that his own home was raided. This demands that the audience denies what they already know as true. Donald Trump as far as we know, does not actually live at Mar-A-Lago. Mr Trump has an apartment in Trump Tower, New York City. The whole descent of Donald Trump down the escalator to open the 2015 run for the Presidency, was as we were led to believe by the same news media who now want to push a different story, was him coming down from his gold appointed apartment, to speak with the crowds.
Mar-A-Lago, is a resort and hotel, which his management company owns. In all likelihood, the FBI raids on Mar-A-Lago, were not raids upon Mr Trump's home but on a registered address where his business interests are officially domiciled.
I shall not go into the exact wording of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution but the Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. In short, people in the United States have a right to the quiet enjoyment of their personal papers and effects, and the Fourth Amendment says that law enforcement officers need a warrant in order to carry out, said searches and seizures.
I would think it nigh on impossible, that an organisation as high profile as the FBI, would attempt to undertake a raid and search, unless they'd secondly obtained a warrant and firstly been absolutely sure of what they were looking for in the first place. Especially in the case of looking through the papers and effects of the former President of the United States, the FBI would want the process to be absolutely watertight before even attempting such a thing. From what we can gather the FBI removed about a dozen boxes that had been stored in the basement storage area, subject to the documents being held illegally per violations of various laws dealing with the handling of classified material and the Presidential Records Act.
I also think it nigh on impossible that Mr Trump, had he been in Mar-A-Lago, would not want a copy of the search warrant issued with gave authority for the search and seizure of his stuff. The man is as litigious as the sky is blue and would swear an equally blue streak across the sky if he thought that the government had been used without proper authority.
I have no idea what the FBI were looking for. What I do know from my time on the other side, both inside the courts and while being present while police recordings were going on, is that the process for getting a warrant is pretty good and that law enforcement officers need to have an idea of what they expect to find before they get there. The chances of going on a fishing expedition are actually pretty low considering that this is such a high profile case. When you have reports that documents have been removed, and presumably accounts detailing where those things might be, then I would expect that the FBI have acted on what they think is a reasonable suspicion and taken reasonable actions in line with their suspicion.
The difference between this and the Watergate investigation, is that Richard Nixon was still in the White House when that played out. Again, the so-called "smoking gun" was found after a warrant had been obtained and because law enforcement officers acted on what they thought was a reasonable suspicion and took reasonable actions in line with their suspicion. Mr Trump has left the White House and so the difference in that set of mechanics is one of location.
Herein lies the real damage to the civic fabric which is being done here. The really big underlying principle here is that everyone is equal before the law and nobody is above the law. In English Common Law and by extension American Common Law, this principle was tested to the utmost, when in 1649 parliament indicted Charles I for tyranny, held court at Westminster Hall, and found him guilty of said tyranny. If no less than the king himself was not out of reach from the long arm of the law, then a private citizen who is not the monarch nor the head of state, should also be not out of reach from the long arm of the law. By attempting to pull at threads that the media themselves have stitched into the civic fabric, they consciously tear holes in that same fabric. I think that it is fair to say now, that there are some sections of society which aren't connected to others at all.
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