ChiGoose

If Biden takes classified material to his house and retains it after he has left office and has been told to return it, then yes, I would absolutely support the FBI searching his home.

That is certainly a legal theory, but I haven’t seen it backed up by any authorities anywhere. I don’t believe it is the prevailing belief in the legal community and if Trump is charged and raises this defense, I’m not confident he would be successful.

It is DoJ policy not to comment on ongoing investigations because doing so could damage the person being investigated. Opening an investigation has a lower burden of proof than charging someone. Many (most?) investigations end without a charge. If you’re not going to charge someone with a crime then they have no way to defend themselves against whatever you make public. Trump has the warrant and the receipts. He could make them public but the DoJ cannot because doing so could harm Trump. Garland basically said that Trump had gone public with this so they think it’s ok to unseal the warrant from their end. Of course, Trump still can object to the unsealing if he wants. Basically, the policy of silence exists to protect the person being investigated

Ok, so is the theory that if the president moves classified material somewhere outside of the government, that this act alone serves to declassify the documents? So if Biden is going to McDonald’s with our military secrets in his pocket, they would be declassified if he ate inside but not if he went through the drive through?

It has happened several times in our history. It’s dumb, but people try it.

So it is your contention then, that if Sleepy Joe goes out for an ice cream cone with a list of all of our spies, and leaves the list on the table while he wanders about aimlessly, that the list has therefore been declassified and anybody can read it?

Is there any case law to support that theory?

He does not have a security clearance. President’s don’t get clearances by virtue of the fact that the President decides what is classified. Therefore, there is no clearance retained when they leave office. The current president usually reads ex-presidents into classified materials to get their advice or as a courtesy but as far as I can tell ex-presidents have no authority to demand or declassify classified intelligence. I think the simplest explanation is that, by the end of his administration, his team was staffed with D-listers and they just took a bunch of stuff not necessarily realizing what it was. For whatever reason, Trump was reluctant to give it back and when his team did send the documents, they messed up and didn’t send all of them. The scary situation that I would be worried about if I were in the DoJ would have to do with the Trump family’s close relationship with the Saudis.

Ah, so now we are on the side of "it's totally fine for a private citizen to have classified materials" Are we throwing an "I'm With Her" bumper sticker on the car yet?

There are two groups that would have this information: the DoJ and Trump's team. The warrant and search receipt would tell them exactly what was being looked for and what was seized. The DoJ has been so quiet in it's investigations that nobody knew this search was going to happen, and we didn't know it did actually happen until Trump's team went public. Additionally, many on the Left have been calling out Garland for doing nothing, when it has become quite clear the DoJ has actually been very busy investigating potential crimes surrounding Trump. They've just been very quiet about it. The other side, Trump's team, ran one of the leakiest administrations in history and is centered around someone who would publicly tweet seemingly any thought that popped up into their head. While I cannot say for certain where the leak came from, I don't think it's a slam dunk that it came from the DoJ.

Why are you so certain the leak came from the DoJ?

Why are you so certain the leaks came from the DoJ?

I know it’s pointless to ask you if you understand anything, but the DoJ is not the only organization that knows what the FBI was looking for.

Trump is their GodKing. He is infallible. He cannot do wrong. Therefore, anyone suggesting otherwise is lying.

And here I thought they backed the blue. Maybe they only like the police when the police go after the “right” people.

What part of searching the home of a private citizen who had classified documents is an abuse of power? Was the FBI abusing their power when they investigated Hillary's email server?

That's certainly a defense he could raise should he be charged since there doesn't appear to be a formal presidential declassification procedure, but I do not think it's a slam dunk. We also know there was ongoing back and forth between the FBI and Trump's team about recovering the documents. I think it's a good question to raise why they went this route, but too early to jump to conclusion either way.

I sincerely doubt there will be a civil war, but I do believe we are going to see a marked increase in political violence.

So the DoJ has filed a motion to unseal both the search warrant and the receipt for items seized during the search. Since these were filed with a court, Trump actually can oppose the motion to unseal. I'm not sure if he will or what would happen if he did, but that's why we don't have the documents right now, they need to wait to see if Trump is going to oppose. Of course, Trump's counsel already has copies of these documents, so he could release them if he wanted to without going through the court.

Liberal NIMBYism is so freaking annoying, totally agree with you there. Especially on the homelessness problem since we know how to solve it and homelessness encampments are just reminders that we simply do not care.

I assumed it was about the Cincy shooting but it looks like they have confirmation it's about the search warrant

FYI: Merrick Garland is about to give a statement on the Mar a Lago search so tune in if you'd like

He had a pretty great statement. Complained that the price on his head was too low and insulting.

On the left, it feels like conservatives are the ones waging the culture war. Not denying your point or perspective, just wanted to point out that this feeling goes both ways.

No it's not. It's like the opposite of true. You absolutely *can* execute a search warrant then not charge somebody. The thresholds are different, and also different from securing a guilty verdict should you indict. Here's an example for you: Somebody without security clearance has boxes of classified material in their home. The government asks for it back and they eventually return it. But when the government reviews what was provided, they believe some documents are still missing. So they get a warrant and search the person's home. But they don't find any evidence that the missing documents are there. In that scenario, you're saying it's inappropriate for them to NOT charge the person with a crime?