The FBI and LPD Converge: Mar-a-Lago and Mark-a-Lago

[XLFD]

Ten days ago, on August 8, the FBI raided Donald Trump's estate at Mar-a-Lago, executed a very broad search warrant that would allow them to look for and seize any record created during Trump's presidency that constituted evidence, contraband, fruit of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of Sect. 793, Sect. 2071, or Sect. 1519 of the US Code.  They would remove many boxes of materials in a search that lasted 9.5 hours and claim that some of the materials were listed as classified or top secret.

The unprecedented raid has the expected support of those who have lined up against the former president over the last six years, and the fully expected outrage from those who have seen the incredible amount of persecution faced by Donald Trump courtesy of the same FBI dealing with Russian connections that never panned out, then saw two totally partisan impeachments over nothing substantive, only speculative.  Those entrenched in either camp will likely not be swayed by the actual facts of this incredible search and seizure when they finally come out, but everyone else should be concerned what this may lead to.  

Earlier today, the magistrate who signed the broad search warrant, who had earlier recused himself from another lawsuit Trump had with Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats, stood in judgment over what part (if any) of the warrant affidavit should be released to the media.  As one might expect from a jurist with conflicting interests, his ruling was to allow the FBI's attorneys to offer the court a redacted affidavit in a week's time, redactions which those attorneys admitted would not reveal much.  The media, Trump, and the general public deserve to see the complete justification for this search and seizure and decide for themselves whether it was warranted or not.

The Mar-a-Lago raid and its issues reminded me of the raid the Ludington Police Department (LPD) conducted against the parent of a middle school student expelled from Ludington Schools for telling a friend that he was likely to be getting an airsoft gun for Christmas.  The investigation led by school officials and the School Resource Officer (SRO) Austin Morris, indicated there never was a threat made or any airsoft gun for that matter, but Principal Mike Hart acting as prosecutor insisted there was to the school board in a letter and the boy was suspended for a year.

Hart's fabrications were bad enough, but SRO Morris' outright falsehoods on a search warrant affidavit amounted to unabashed perjury (full details).  In summary, after interviewing the student and four other witnesses and searching the student's backpack and locker, Morris and school officials wanted to conduct a threat assessment but had no guidelines of how to do so.  Morris would ask to conduct an impromptu search of the student's home after taking the boy home to assess the threat; the father, Mark, knowing his rights and claiming the house was messy, declined. 

Both the school and the RSO wanted that home search, so Austin Morris drafted a search warrant affidavit that would allow him to do just that.  Rather than stick with the facts, Austin Morris seems to have deliberately lied about three different substantive issues on his warrant affidavit in order to get it approved, because what judge would sign off on an intrusive home search over a boy wanting a definitely non-lethal airsoft gun for Christmas.  

He stated that the boy threatened to bring a gun to school, he stated that part of the (non-existent) threat assessment policy was to have police search the student's home.  He stated that the assistant principal had told him that Mark had told her in a phone conversation earlier that day that Mark was a convicted felon and not able to possess a firearm.  Mark denies that ever happened, and the assistant principal refuses to answer the simple question of whether she had such an unlikely convo and passed it along to the SRO.  Marks prior crime was possession of marijuana, committed one year before medical marijuana became legal in Michigan.

The inventions allowed Morris to get a search warrant and effectively make a case against Mark because his grown son had hunting rifles in a safe in his bedroom.  Though the search was illegal due to the rampant perjury on the affidavit and the firearms and ammo that was seized was never shown to be possessed by the student's father, he was prosecuted and put in jail.  SRO Austin Morris should spend at least two days in jail for each day that Mark was, he is the criminal, and yet he is allowed to roam the same halls as your kids, ready to invoke his falsified justice on a whim.  Similar fates should befall those who abused the process to invade Trump's castle and look through his papers, should that be the case.

The Mark-a-Lago incident shows why the search warrant affidavit is crucial in the understanding of what happened at Trump's Florida estate, and whether it was a reasonable suspension of the ex-president's Fourth Amendment rights for the better end of justice-- or whether it was another fishing expedition looking for a crime.  The Fourth Amendment wasn't written for people with nothing to hide any more than the First Amendment was written for people with nothing to say.  Your home and papers should be immune from government intrusion unless there is a very compelling reason. 

[Willy]

Most people think that corruption is more prevalent at the National level. So where do they think the corruptness in Washington comes from? It comes from our home towns and cities of course. This National disgrace is seeded from corrupted political transplants from all across the nation. When the Mississippi begins it's journey to the Gulf of Mexico it starts out as a clear, clean stream and by the time it reaches it's destination it has become a massive flow of polluted sludge water gathered from the heart of America. It's so full of mud, sludge and pollution that one call barely see beneath it's surface. What better place for foulness to reside. Trump helped the entire Country see below the surface and revealed the vast disgusting foulness that runs our Nation. You may not like Trump for what ever reason but without his exposing this blight that is in control of our Country it never would have been revealed.

[XLFD]

I had a negative impression of Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries, he seemed to be violating the standing rule that you don't viscerally attack your fellow Republicans and I voted for Rand Paul, one of his targets.  I tolerated him when he ran and considered the alternative offered by the other major party and voted more against her than for him. 

Once he won it became clear that he was actively disliked and attacked by establishment types of both parties, yet he was able to accomplish quite a lot and fulfill many campaign promises made often by Republicans-- without any results when they won.  I empathized quite a bit with the guy as his term progressed, since I have seen the same unfair attacks by the local establishments when I do my version of mean tweets:  comments at public meetings and Ludington Torch articles critical of policy and policymakers.

Trump has shown that he is a defender of basic human civil rights that his enemies routinely go after, and break when they pursue him, his defenders, and his followers.  He wants the country to succeed.  I have wanted my city to succeed, I will always defend everyone's basic civil rights when the local governments or police agencies try to take them away.  In philosophy, we are brothers in arms, and I have grown to be a loyal supporter of him and everyone else who has the same fight to expose and de-corrupt the Deep State, the Deep County, the Deep City and the Deep Public School.  I just started in politics before him.