Passports taken in FBI search of Mar-a-Lago returned to Trump

Again, what "dirt" is on a passport?

over-collecting is normal, to some degree, in any search warrant. If it looks like bload stains, they take it even though they know the person uses those closes to slaughter pigs if the investigation is a homicide, for instance. If the lab results turn out to be pigs blood, then the items are returned. But it is normal.

If the passports were in a box not specifically designed or labeled, then they take it and see it might be in there. They simply don't have time to sort with every item on the search warrant because that could take days. They will get in and out as "quickly as possible" although it probably took a good several hours to do a thorough search of a 122-room, 65,000-square-foot mansion.

 

The passports were probably in one of the boxes labeled A-something.

 

When an agent serves a warrant and throws out every observer, he can search for anything he damn well pleases.

 

I agree and it's pretty much what I said. But you are describing a normal search process. I'm suggesting a nefarious search process. AFAIK no other former president or any other federal officer or associate, other than Trump and his associates, have ever been put through such an egregious exaggerated search process. Did Comey show up with three dozen agents, some in armor, to search Hillary's server? No, he just asked for it and said thanks when she gave it to him after scrubbing about half of the data. Every former president has left with boxes of stuff that some might have been incorrectly taken. Usually the Archivist or maybe even a DOJ agent might have given them a phone call or sent a couple of agents to check them out. Did the DOJ show up at the Clinton's with 30 agents to recover the china and silverware they stole from the white house? No, they just politely told them they might have inadvertently taken white house stuff, and the Clintons promptly returned it. This overkill procedure seems to be reserved for Trump and his associates -- makes one wonder why..

The .location of the documents were pretty well known and limited to just a few (though maybe a lot) of the 122 rooms.

 

Who in their right mind store their passports in a storage room?
Oooops, self answering question.

 

Two questions:

1. What are "VW countries"? I'm not familiar with that acronym.

2. Are you thinking that the FBI took the passports to gather information from them? It's my understanding that they confiscate passports as a routine when serving warrants on high profile targets with the means to flee the jurisdiction.

 

You seem fixated on Trump's bullshit about the search.

The resort is equipped with many cameras. Trump was watching the whole thing from his resort in NJ.

He's cranked up the bullshit because a) it serves his purposes to keep his followers angry and b) he's fundraising off of it. I hope you haven't sent him money.

 

Only because the staff sneakily disobeyed the agents' orders to turn the cameras off.

 

I am not fixated on anything. Though I am focused on the very entertaining tap dancing and farting and standing on your heads you folks do spinning that godawful raid.

 

When there is a search through a valid search warrant or voluntarily, there are no observers there, none, zilch, nada, etc by any and all law enforcement agencies in the US. This is to keep the investigative scene secure and protect the chain of evidence.

 

VW means visa waiver countries. These are countries that allow a foreign person to enter the country without a visa if certain conditions are met.

Second, I thnk the passports were located in one of the boxes labeled "a-13" or "a-11" or any other boxes labeled a-something.

 

Proof? Source? Something besides hearsay?

 

You say raid, I (and most people who were never sucked in by the flim flam man you seem to adore) say standard process for executing a valid search warrant.

 

You haven't been reading up on this case? They wanted them to turn off the cameras and they refused.

 

So why would they give them back?

 

Well they did knock on the door at a reasonable hour (9am). Everything else about the "execution of the search warrant", like the number of agents, the arming of some agents, where it was done, the timing of when it was done, coupled with its purpose, etc, had never ever been done before which distinctly makes it non-standard.

 

Again, what is nefarious about the search? Because it was unprecedented? That is not a legal standard by any means.

When it came to HRC and the infamous server, it is somewhat different because we are talking about the digital world, not the physical one. Second, the FBI kept their investigation pretty well silent during the whole time. The reason, HRC did not do with DJT did, to call out the FBI via social media by making all sorts of claims and accusations against the FBI. At that point, the FBI had no choice but to respond with the release of the search warrant. In comparison, HRC did what her lawyers told her to do, be silent as much as possible. And she pretty much did that. I would think it is reasonable that they did sear.

What we do know is the Secretary of State Inspector General's office sharply criticized the use of private servers, but fell short of stating that HRC violated any potential laws. At that time, HRC did not like using two phones, the Blackberry phone for government use and her private phone. It was also no secret in the state department that she used a private email server.

HRC was Secretary of State from 2009 to 2012. As early as December 2012, the nonprofit organization called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, CREW, filed a FOIA request because they got wind of the private email server. When that news broke out, Congress began to investigate as well as the FBI in late 2015. And finally, we had the Horowitz report which Criticized Comey and the DOJ for their actions, but again stated no law was violated, just the justification of "firing Comey" sort of thing.

So, the two situations are totally different. And because HRC was using a private server, her subordinates and aides did not preserve the emails in accordance with protocol because they couldn't reasonably determine whether they were personal or government. Since then, and under Trump as part of that law was passed, it closed those loopholes with both electronic and paper, with clearer definitions and increased. penalties.

In contrast, the documents at Mar A Lago were well known only to Trump officials, not the NARA. NARA reasonably knew where they were, but at the same time, were in an unsecured location in a private residence and without the express permission of the NARA. And the irony here is that is what the Presidential Records Act made very clear. The problem I have with Trump is he tried to use the same tactics on the NARA to partially comply hoping the time delays will allow him to get back into office or hoping another big story will come that will give him a leg up in the upcoming 2024 Presideintial Race. The type of legal tactics he is using goes all the way back in the early 1990s when he shafted some 400 small business owners for not paying them properly when their contract and work was completed. Trump even went on TV stating that it is not the contract that decides how much they pay, it is him and him alone. And now, those types of tactics are now biting him in the arse big time.

 

Could easily be a legal standard. Unprecedented says something odd and easily implies nefarious, and would pass the reasonable suspicion criteria for law enforcement. Where there is smell there is a good chance there is rotten fish; where there is smoke there is a reasonable suspicion of fire; where there is a first ever "raid" of this magnitude, for the reported stuff, of a former president (who spent five years battling Democrats and some Republicans who desperately wanted him disposed), there is a good chance of something nefarious going on.

You totally mischaracterize and take out of context the Hillary comparison. The FBI wanted to inspect her less than secure server and data for impropriety. But they did not show up at her door with a search warrant and 30 armed agents. They didn't even get a subpoena. They just politely asked. And when she smashed her cell phones, deleted tens of thousands of emails, and bleach bit wiped her hard drives clean, the FBI said naughty naughty, and have a nice day. The illegality of all of that is possible but dubious. Her illegal action AFAIK was only the mishandling and dissemination of classified documents (and it matters not a whit if the documents are paper or electronic) which Comey himself publicly admitted to (during the same announcement where he said there would be no prosecution of indictment).

 

So, just another fishing expedition looking for anything that might be used to damage Trump. Return stuff you can't use. Democratic party tactics Sam Harris would approve of.

 

Unprecedented is not a legal standard. It can become a legal standard in the future, but not a legal standard now.

This is not about politics. It is about Presidential Records and some very specific classified documents that shouldn't be as reckless as what Trump did. Or in other words, you really can't blame democrats and some republicans if Trump craps in his own pants, can you?

The Hillary comparison I used is the basic facts as presented by the IG of the State Department and Justice Department. It is different from the Trump legal issues on numerous legal fronts. It is why I said there is a difference between the digital world, HRC, and physical documents, the DJT legal problems. And I didn't even go into the Congressional committee hearings and their findings, which pretty much said the same thing. Was it reckless of her? Yes. But the fact that each case is weighed on its own sets of facts and circumstances is just that and that it is really not an accurate comparison on the legal side of things. But inputting politics, where it shouldn't belong in the DOJ and FBI investigations is more a travesty of justice than anything else.

 

Proof? Source?

Got a link?

 

From the little I've read about search warrant practices (not just the FBI, but state and local LE), I think they keep passports until or unless they have reasonable assurance to believe that the target won't flee. I could be wrong, and can't find a link that explains it.

 

Of course it seems non-standard. This is the first time in history that the DOJ has had to execute a search warrant on a former POTUS. The number of agents could simply be what they thought they might need given the size of the premises.

 

It sounds more likely that they just grabbed everything wontonley and without regard for the warrant and what was named on it

 

It's been discussed extensively right here on the forum. I'm sorry but I'm not going to go back and hunt down every detail of the case for you if you're interested you can read up on it