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08-08-22, a day that will be remembered.  On that date, the Biden Meat Puppet Administration and its handlers took yet another step toward civil war.  That day will not be recalled with the perverse, even evil, delight of D/S/Cs, but because of the unprecedented nature of their desperation, calculation, or both.  That was the day the FBI served a warrant on the home of a former President of the United States, and the likely future Republican candidate for a second presidential term in 2024.  That would be sufficiently unwise and dangerous in and of itself, but the former POTUS was Donald Trump, a man the FBI and his enemies had pursued from the moment he announced his candidacy.  He was in New York City when the warrant was served.

Trump remains the most investigated POTUS in history, and all without result.  Hounded with religious fervor by political enemies with unlimited resources, the enthusiastic, drooling, backing of the media and the full power of the state, they not only found no evidence of wrong doing, the “evidence” they fabricated, and disseminated, has been proved to be a lie, the most vile and destructive political dirty trick in American history, a trick that did, and continues to do, enormous damage to America.  Either Trump is the most brilliant criminal mastermind in history, or he really has done nothing wrong.

As always in such cases, I’m relying on media accounts.  We must therefore, gentle readers, understand the “facts” upon which I must rely are subject to change, and as always, when and if I find I’ve been mistaken in relying on those sources, unlike the media, I’ll make the necessary corrections.  We begin with the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This amendment regulates much of what our police do every day.  “Sources” tell us the raid was the result of a search warrant regarding materials Mr. Trump took from the White House.  Apparently the National Archives thinks some of those documents might–might–be classified materials.  Eric Trump has confirmed this supposed justification for the raid, or at least that is what he and other Trump family members and associates have been told by the FBI, some thirty of whose agents engaged in the pre-dawn raid.

What we do know is the National Archives and Mr. Trump have been talking about these issues for years.  Mr. Trump assigned one attorney to deal with them, and that attorney, reportedly, was shocked by the raid, because they always had a cooperative and friendly relationship with the NA. They had been cooperating with the Archives for years, and there was apparently no point of contention, no refusal by Mr. Trump to cooperate with them. We also know Mr. Trump retains the highest security clearance—all former presidents do–and while President, had the ultimate power of classification and declassification, a power the National Archives lacks.

This search warrant was apparently issued under the auspices of a grand jury.  The normal procedure in such cases would be to first issue a subpoena for any materials it wished to examine.  Only if a subpoena failed would a warrant be required.  The virtually certain problem here is the government had no idea what, if anything, Mr. Trump had that might be classified.  That makes any subpoena, and particularly any warrant, a fishing expedition, and in this case, a blatantly political fishing expedition.  There are other indications, which I’ll explore shortly, this was a fishing expedition.

The purpose of any search warrant is to seize evidence, and if necessary, prevent its destruction.  It is no coincidence Maggie Haberman of The New York Times, on the same day, publicizing a book, pushed an accusation Mr. Trump may have, at some unspecified time, destroyed some unspecified, yet “vital” evidence, and she even provided these photos:

Let us, for the moment, ignore the fact anyone flushing “evidence” down a toilet is not going to allow any of it to remain unflushed.  Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump, he is surely sufficiently intelligent to do that.  Let us also ignore that we have no idea where these toilets might be, or who took these photos or when, and that we know nothing else about any of Haberman’s assertions.  I’m sure Haberman’s “revelations” are merely a coincidence.  After all, she’s a journalist working for the NYT.  She would never collude with the government, be the willing operative of a political party, or tell a lie.  That would be wrong.

As the Fourth Amendment specifies, every sworn affidavit for a warrant must be based on probable cause, and must specifically describe the place to be searched and the things to be seized.  That’s going to be a real problem for the government.  Probable cause is facts and/or circumstances, which would cause a reasonable police officer to believe a crime has been committed and a specific person has committed it.  In other words, no warrant can ever be legitimately sought unless the police, in this case the FBI, know a crime has been committed.  In order to have PC for a warrant, they have to know specific fruits of that crime—evidence—exists, they have to know where it is, and have to be able to explain how they came by that knowledge and to specifically describe the evidence—each and every piece they seek to seize.

Any bets, gentle readers, on whether the search warrant actually, specifically, identifies any fruits of a crime?  Each and every item they seized?

We are told the warrant and search must be legitimate because a judge signed off on the warrant.  Riiiight.  As regular readers know, I’ve seen many warrants signed by a judge, even though the affidavits had not a shred of probable cause.  Review the Freddie Gray, Trayvon Martin, and Justine Damond cases, to name but a few.  No judge should authorize a warrant without clear and convincing PC, and without the evidence to be seized particularly described, but it happens all the time.  Are we to believe the FBI doesn’t have pet judges in DC, judges who can be depended upon to authorize any warrant?  We know the FBI has lied on affidavits, we just don’t know how many.  Even if a judge is not a corrupt, political hack, they have to rely on the “facts” the FBI agent signing the affidavit swears to be true.  One can also lie on affidavits by not telling the whole truth, by concealing relevant information. We know the FBI has also done this.

We also know the FBI did not examine the things they seized.  They simply grabbed anything they wanted and removed it, saying they would examine it later.  Why is this a problem?  A warrant gives the police the authority to seize only the things specified.  If during a search, they lawfully find items they can identify as evidence of crimes, and they’re not specified on the warrant, they have to go back to the judge and get a warrant for those specific items.  They would, of course, leave officers to safeguard the items until they got the warrant.The police don’t get to simply clean out a house because they have a warrant for specific, limited things.  In order to seize anything, they have to be able to verify, then and there, everything they seize is one of those specific things on the warrant.  They didn’t do that.  A warrant listing “various documents which might be classified” doesn’t pass constitutional requirements.

We also know they brought along a safe cracker who, as breathlessly reported by the media, opened a safe!  A safe where Trump must be hiding evidence of his many, many as yet undiscovered crimes!  That was the implication.  What did they find—cue drum roll—nothing.  The safe was empty.  Care to bet on whether the warrant mentioned anything about a safe? Care to bet on whether the FBI went back to the judge for a warrant to open the safe, because no safe was on the original warrant?  I didn’t think so.

One thing most people don’t know is the return requirement.  Whenever a warrant is issued, the police must, usually within 24 hours, present the issuing judge with the return, which is a document listing each and every item they seized—in detail—or explaining they seized nothing and why.  This is one more check on unlimited police power.  I’d surely love to see that warrant and return.

Any bets on whether we’ll ever see those documents?  I didn’t think so.

There seems no doubt the FBI didn’t verify, much of, if anything, they took, therefore they could not be sure they were seizing only those items specified on the warrant.  Which means: fishing expedition.  Which means: illegal search and seizure.  Which means—in a single tiered, constitution observing system of justice: nothing they seized may be used in court.

There are two virtually certain tracks: (1) The raid was a fishing expedition for anything at all, and particularly anything relating to the January 6 Committee’s show trial and third impeachment attempt. (2) The government hopes to prosecute Trump for somehow mishandling classified materials, which upon conviction, would prevent him from holding any future office.

Prof. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection asserts this is a deliberate provocation. Just as the FBI provoked January 6, they’re trying to provoke a response that would justify an even more brutal crackdown on Americans.  Perhaps a declaration of national emergency would be necessary, a declaration what would allow all manner of electoral mischief in November, or perhaps would justify postponing the mid terms?  Perhaps as long as necessary?  Surely the FBI, surely our government, would never do anything like that?  A growing number of FBI whistleblowers are certain they have, and will.

What’s happening is not hard to understand: D/S/Cs are panicking.  They’re going to lose control of the House, and arguably the Senate in November.  Trump is soundly beating Biden in the polls for 2024.  Biden is certainly not going to be the 2024 nominee; he likely won’t survive his current term–he can no longer put on a coat without help–and there is no one else on the D/S/C side who appears to have a chance to beat Trump.  Liz Cheney has admitted the purpose of her Stalinist “investigation” and public show trial is to keep Trump from ever again becoming president.  They know if he gets a second term, he’s going to clean house, and not just at the DOJ and FBI.  Their positions, power, pensions and wealth are on the line, and they’re going to do whatever they need to do to keep them.  He’s also going to reinstate all our military members who were separate for refusing Covid shots.  They can’t allow a strong military that might threaten China.

If anyone doubts Mr. Trump is going to run, visit this political ad he released hours after the raid:

That’s why they fear him: he keeps his promises, he puts America first, and he’ll see they’re not only thrown out of government, but prosecuted for their very real crimes, and in some cases, that’s going to include treason, which carries the death penalty.

Consider this from Robert Spenser at Front Page Magazine:

When the FBI raided Donald Trump’s home on Monday, a key aspect of what made the United States of America great and free has been lost, and likely cannot be recovered. … [B]itter political opponents throughout the history of the republic have never before used the government’s own mechanisms of justice to do injustice to their foes. Joe Biden, Merrick Garland and their henchmen have brought America to a new phase of its history, and it is not likely to be one that is marked by respect for the rule of law or defense of the rights of individual citizens. Instead, we are entering an ugly age of authoritarianism, in which the brute force of the state is used to bend the people to the will of the tyrant.

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The FBI that was heavily involved in trying to frame and destroy Trump in the Russian Collusion hoax is now trying once again to destroy him, apparently by claiming that he improperly took classified material from the White House. They never cared when Hillary Clinton misused classified material on a grand scale; what is the difference? …
***

Merrick Garland recently signaled that something like this was in the offing, when he emphasized that no one was above the law and anyone could be prosecuted. No one is above that law, that is, except Hillary Clinton, and Hunter Biden, and all the FBI officials who have been implicated in the Russian Collusion hoax, and all the other Leftists who have escaped and will continue to escape prosecution because they hold what the elites consider to be acceptable political opinions.
***

The lesson is clear: in America today, in the corrupt kleptocracy of Joe Biden, you have to have the right opinions. Then all doors will open for you and you can even break laws with impunity, and have no fear of prosecution. But if you dare to dissent from the opinions of the elites, prepare to be hounded by the new super-IRS and the weaponized FBI, and you’ll face raids, and prison, and who knows what else is coming.

When you’ve lost Cuomo…

Final Thoughts:  I will, of course, continue to report on new developments, and correct, if necessary, anything I’ve gotten wrong.  I’ll continue to cover these events in the Second Civil War series—the SMM SCW archive is here–because these government actions have the very real potential to spark that conflict.

D/S/Cs, as Kurt Schlichter has so wisely noted, aren’t going to like living under the new rules they’ve so gleefully implemented.  The government has established the new precedent: former presidents and all other former politicians are fair game for orange jumpsuits.  We’ve avoided that kind of banana republic, communist tactic because we know it’s the surest sign of the death of the rule of law and common sense.  Our republic has been pushed off the cliff. There’s no putting this genie back in the bottle.  Let’s go Brandon!  The old rule, more or less informal, is the DOJ would do nothing to affect an imminent election.  That one’s in the Haberman toilet.

 It is possible Mr. Trump has committed actual crimes.  If so, Government is going to have to be able to show why what he has done did not lead to charges against people like Hillary Clinton and others, who we know have committed actual crimes relating to classified documents, and of course, other offenses.  And if they try, who is going to believe them, other than Liz Cheney.

Americans would not go to war because they think Donald Trump some sort of God.  Politician worship is the defining characteristic of the D/S/C Party, not Republicans, not Normal Americans.  They know there is only one God, and He isn’t a politician, and surely not a D/S/C.  If they go to war, they’ll go to war in response to the unconstitutional depredations of America’s internal enemies.  Not white supremacists, not Normal Americans falsely branded as racists, but politicians and bureaucrats who ignore the Constitution, who think themselves above the law, and who, through the unlawful force of arms, seek to seize the liberties of free women and men.

Of course they had no advance notice or knowledge; that would be wrong…

Americans are enraged not because the DOJ and FBI—does anyone doubt the White House knew about this, even when they deny it?—for the first time in history, raided the home of a former POTUS, and the man almost certain to be the next Republican nominee for President in 2024.  They did it just before the mid term elections, elections they are almost certain to badly lose.  Should they actually arrest Trump, and should they convict him before a DC kangaroo court with a jury that cannot be anything other than biased, and worse, should they put him in prison, what greater provocation would be necessary?

Because government would never persecute people who haven’t broken the law…

Actually, should they do that we can expect them, beginning with nearly 90,000 new IRS agents, a doubling of the size of that abusive and unaccountable agency, to embark on a campaign of repression previously seen only in communist dictatorships.  Show them the man, they’ll find—or simply make up–the crime.  A trial would merely be dotting the “I”s and crossing the “T”s for a two-tiered system of justice.

What indeed?

Normal Americans don’t want a civil war, but if it’s forced on them, they’ll take up the gauntlet, and they’ll adopt the new rules.  A desperate, corrupt government, bent on seizing eternal power, may give them no choice.

POST PUBLICATION UPDATE:  It seems it wasn’t a DC judge that signed off on the warrant.  It was a Florida judge with an “interesting” background:

This just gets better and better.