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We Interrupt This Grand Jury Lawsplainer For A Search Warrant Lawsplainer

August 9, 2017 by Ken White

You promised a second chapter of the federal grand jury lawsplainer!

i do what i want

That's fine. Because I want to ask about something else anyway.

You have the attention span of a fruit fly. What is it now?

Did you hear? FBI agents working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller raided the house of Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager!

Yes. That's . . . that's quite a thing, there.

What does it mean? What can we tell from it? What's a search warrant anyway?

Please try to calm down.

Okay, first. Have some skepticism about this story — and about any media story about the federal criminal justice system. Stories about federal criminal justice, even from respected publications, are often wrong in crucial ways — using legal terms they don't understand the wrong way, drawing incorrect conclusions about routine events, and so forth.

But we can believe that about everything else?

Yes, I assume that except for criminal justice and First Amendment law, I'm confident they're perfectly reliable.

Anyway, let's talk about this search warrant.

The Fourth Amendment requires the government to get a search warrant before they search your house, absent an unusual exception like "exigent circumstances." (So, for instance, the cops can run into your house and look around if a guy with a gun just ran in there.)

How do the feds get a search warrant?

In the federal system, federal agents present search warrant applications to United States Magistrate Judges for review. Magistrate Judges aren't nominated by the President and confirmed by Congress like United States District Court judges — they are appointed by other federal judges for set terms, and have a reduced level of authority and responsibility. They do a lot of the unglamorous day-to-day work of the federal judiciary.

The magistrate judge reviews the search warrant application and, almost always, signs the warrant approving it.

What's in a search warrant application?

State warrant applications are sometimes oral. Federal applications are almost always in writing. The bulk of the warrant application is the affidavit — a sworn statement by a federal agent setting forth the facts establishing probable cause. Then there's the draft warrant itself, which must specify the locations to be searched and the particular items to be seized.

So to search my house a federal agent has to show probable cause that I committed a crime?

No. Probable cause to search is different that probable cause to arrest.

To get a federal search warrant, you have to show probable cause that the location you want to search contains evidence of a federal crime — specifically, the items you list as things you want to seize in the search. You don't have to show that the homeowner or other person at the site committed a crime, just that items there are evidence of a crime.

It sounded like you were suggesting that magistrate judges sign off on search warrants no matter what.

Well, I think that magistrates can be a little rubber-stampy at times. But probable cause is a pretty low bar. And federal search warrant applications are generally much better than state search warrant applications, which are often so vague and scattered that you wonder why we bother at all.

Federal courts are somewhat better at policing bad warrants than state courts are. Federal courts, traditionally, have held warrants to a higher standard. And federal prosecutors typically review warrants and edit them before agents present them to magistrate judges, so there's an additional level of review to catch problems. That's why federal search warrant applications in complex cases are commonly dozens or even more than a hundred pages long.

So, for example, here is a warrant affidavit from a federal case involving hacking and extortion. It's neither unusually complicated nor unusually long, but gives you a sense of what a reasonably thorough application can look like.

What kind of problems to the prosecutors reviewing the warrants look for?

Prosecutors trying to assure a good warrant look for attribution — for language explaining how the agent knows what he or she is telling the magistrate. "I want to search the house because the homeowner buried a body in the back yard" is bad attribution; it's a conclusion. "I reviewed a report by FBI Special Agent Rex Strongchin. SA Strongchin wrote that he spoke to Sally Neighbor, who lives next door to the homeowner. Ms. Neighbor told SA Strongchin that on August 1st, whilst up in the middle of the night medicating her asthmatic cat, she looked out the bathroom window and saw the homeowner in his back yard, pushing what appeared to be a body into a hole" is good attribution. It establishes every link in the chain to who knew what and how. That's part of establishing probable cause.

Another common problem is specificity in items to be seized. Warrants are supposed to be reasonably particular in describing what can be seized. The Fourth Amendment was actually designed to address the problem of "general warrants" letting officials just toss your house for everything and anything. A good warrant describes, as narrowly and specifically as possible, what can be seized and why those things are evidence of a crime.

Oh. So federal agents only seize what the warrant tells them to seize?

Ha, no.

Even the best-trained and most responsible federal agents — and I mean this with the utmost respect — tend to act like coked-up raccoons when you turn them loose with a search warrant. They seize stuff haphazardly, based on very odd internal definitions of what "evidence" is. This used to drive me absolutely bonkers as a prosecutor, because I would hector them in advance and review the items to be seized with them, and they'd come back with a box of randomly assembled documents as if I'd said "look, just grab everything with a 'q' on it."

Okay. I want to ask more about the search warrant at Manafort's house. The article said the raid was "pre-dawn." Is that unusual?

Well, first of all, take it with a grain of salt. "Pre-dawn raid" is a stock literary phrase, like "wine-dark sea" in Homer. Exercise some skepticism about whether it really was pre-dawn.

Federal search warrants are supposed to be served during "daytime hours," meaning between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. But the magistrate judge can approve other hours. In drug cases, because Drugs Are Bad And Dangerous and Imperil Our Children, it's presumed magistrates can approve nighttime searches. Otherwise, magistrates are supposed to balance the citizen's right to privacy against government need.

Most often the asserted need has to do with perceived physical danger. But assuming that the feds didn't expect Manafort to show up on his porch in a flowered robe and a submachinegun saying "say hello to my little friend," I suspect that the feds told the magistrate that they were afraid that Manafort was imminently going to destroy evidence because he'd been quizzed by the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee. They probably said they believed that based on what he was asked he learned new avenues of investigation and might destroy documents and so an immediate search was necessary. That's exactly the sort of prosecutorial hypothesis that magistrate judges tend to rubberstamp. They might have also offered some hand-wavey stuff about how searching during the day would result in a media shitstorm on the street impeding their investigation and so forth.

So it sounds as if we should read the search warrant affidavit if we want to know what Robert Mueller thinks about this investigation. Since it had to establish probable cause it should have lots of juicy details. Can we get it?

Absent a leak, no.

The search warrant affidavit isn't a publicly available document — at least not at this stage of the case. The agents only leave the warrant itself on the scene. The warrant states the place to be searched, the items that can be seized, and what the items are believed to be evidence of — that is, the specific federal criminal statutes at issue. So Manafort and his lawyers have that information, from which they can glean some information — you can draw conclusions based on what items the prosecutor is looking for and what crimes the prosecutor thinks have been committed. But generally the prosecution doesn't release the search warrant affidavit — the juicy stuff — until discovery in any resulting criminal prosecution.

Occasionally federal agents will accidentally leave the search warrant affidavit on the premises. Once a prosecutor asked me to make my client return the affidavit because it was confidential information. I laughed for a very long time.

What about what the FBI took from his house? Do we know that?

Well, Manafort knows that, obviously. And the FBI also leaves a sort of receipt — a list of the things they took. It tends to be very general, especially with regard to documents, like "one box of documents from hall closet." The federal agents return that to the magistrate judge, but it does not tend to be accessible to the public.

The article asserts that the FBI sized "various records." But be cautious about inferring anything about that. First of all, the only requirement is that there's probable cause to think those records are evidence of a crime, not evidence of a crime by Manafort. Second, as I said, FBI agents tend to be about as selective as a Golden Retriever thrust into a tennis ball pit. Third, law enforcement is not above seizing a bunch of shit just to make it look like their search was successful. In fact, they're not even above faking it. I represented a dude whose house was raided. The investigators tipped off the media to be there. They'd brought about a dozen prefab cardboard boxes to carry out documents they seized. But they found no documents. They didn't want to walk out empty-handed, so they assembled the cardboard boxes inside the house, put on the lids, and solemnly carried the empty boxes out to their raid van. The press obediently printed that many boxes of documents had been seized.

What do you think about Robert Mueller ordering the search in the first place? Is it unusual?

Yes, it is.

We know that Mueller has started using a grand jury actively. Generally federal prosecutors tend to issue search warrants at the end of white collar investigations, not at the beginning. Search warrant raids tend to put everyone on high alert and shut people down. Federal prosecutors generally like to use the grand jury to develop witnesses and evidence before that, and subpoenas demanding production of documents are more common in white collar investigations than search warrants.

There are a few reasons Mueller might have gone with the search warrant. He might have genuinely believed that Manafort couldn't be trusted to turn over documents in response to a subpoena. He might have thought that Manafort would hold documents back, or that he was even going to destroy documents. He might even have had some sort of intel suggesting that Manafort was already destroying documents. He might have used the search warrant as a shock-and-awe measure to scare other people in the investigation into cooperating or provoke them into doing dumb things. Whatever else he is, Robert Mueller is very experienced and professional. I'm sure he did it deliberately and with a plan.

Why would he want to provoke people?

Federal grand jury investigations can be like a Game of Thrones plotline. To finish you, federal prosecutors don't necessarily have to prove that you already committed a crime — they can simply play upon your human flaws and get you to finish yourself. High-profile defendants are routinely taken down not based on the initial crime they committed, but by their reckless response to the investigation — they're ended not by the crime, but by the ineffectual coverup. Mueller knows what he's doing, knows that he's dealing with unusually volatile personalities particularly unsuited to patient inaction, and is probably counting on people to react foolishly, self-destructively, and criminally to startling events like a search warrant.

Last 5 posts by Ken White

  • Now Posting At Substack - August 27th, 2020
  • The Fourth of July [rerun] - July 4th, 2020
  • All The President's Lawyers: No Bill Thrill? - September 19th, 2019
  • Over At Crime Story, A Post About the College Bribery Scandal - September 13th, 2019
  • All The President's Lawyers: - September 11th, 2019
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Filed Under: Law Tagged With: Criminal Justice, Lawsplainer

Comments

  1. DP says

    August 9, 2017 at 8:37 am

    "she looked out the bathroom neighbor and saw the homeowner in his back yard. . ." Typo? Hilarious, in any event.

  2. I Was Anonymous says

    August 9, 2017 at 8:51 am

    I loved the "coked-up raccoon" part, as well as "Golden Retriever thrust into a tennis ball pit"

  3. JeffDG says

    August 9, 2017 at 8:51 am

    "Once a prosecutor asked me to make my client return the affidavit because it was confidential information. I laughed for a very long time."

    The laughter just became contagious.

  4. Andrew says

    August 9, 2017 at 9:01 am

    He might have used the search warrant as a shock-and-awe measure to scare other people in the investigation into cooperating or provoke them into doing dumb things.

    Is there any legal limitation here? Do prosecutors have to articulate some reason why a warrant and raid should be used instead of simply asking first, or is "because I felt like it" sufficient?

    In practice, I suppose "he might destroy documents if we asked" would generally suffice, but do prosecutors actually have to make such a claim (or offer evidence to back it up) in order to obtain an ordinary, daytime hours warrant?

  5. z! says

    August 9, 2017 at 9:17 am

    Is it common in circumstances like this to know who requested the search? Seems assumed that Mueller requested it but most of the news stories I've read (except…) don't directly connect the search to him.

    BBC reported-
    "Special counsel Robert Mueller, who heads up the FBI investigation, left Mr Manafort's Alexandria home with "various records", the Washington Post reported."

    Sloppy reporting or do the prosecutors occasionally attend the search?

  6. crh says

    August 9, 2017 at 9:38 am

    z!: The BBC attributes that claim to the Washington Post. What WaPo actually reported is:

    The search warrant was wide-ranging and FBI agents working with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III departed the home with various records.

    I don't know the answer to whether prosecutors ever show up for the search, but regardless I think we can go with "sloppy reporting," in this case, since the BBC is not paraphrasing their stated source accurately.

  7. PrimalLunch says

    August 9, 2017 at 9:57 am

    Brilliant piece, thank you.

  8. Richard says

    August 9, 2017 at 10:02 am

    Thanks Ken! Both enlightening and funny, as usual. I especially liked the part where you invoked the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.

    I hope that the "seized items" receipt leaks; I want to see if there are any ham sandwiches being taken back to the grand jury.

  9. rsteinmetz70112 says

    August 9, 2017 at 10:04 am

    Does anyone know if it was actually a "raid" or if it was really "pre-dawn"? To me a "raid" is more like a SWATING or no knock entry.

    I looked up sunrise on July 26 in Washington DC and it was 6:04 AM. Since daytime is after 6:00 AM as Ken wrote perhaps the Agents merely knocked on his door at precisely 6:00 AM

  10. David Guild says

    August 9, 2017 at 10:57 am

    @rsteinmetz70112 "Raid" is almost certainly a journalistic exaggeration (i.e. lie).

  11. Ken White says

    August 9, 2017 at 11:44 am

    @David:

    I hear that a lot. But the agents show up at your home. They're armed. If you resist, they use force. They often handcuff the residents while they search — or if you're white, they take you outside and sit you down under guard. They take your things by force.

    I'm totally fine with calling that a raid.

  12. geneb says

    August 9, 2017 at 12:37 pm

    "Rex Strongchin" is going to be the name of the next Paladin I roll up. Thanks Ken. :)

  13. Jamie says

    August 9, 2017 at 12:41 pm

    "Federal grand jury investigations can be like a Game of Thrones plotline. To finish you, federal prosecutors don't necessarily have to prove that you already committed a crime — they can simply play upon your human flaws and get you to finish yourself. High-profile defendants are routinely taken down not based on the initial crime they committed, but by their reckless response to the investigation — they're ended not by the crime, but by the ineffectual coverup. Mueller knows what he's doing, knows that he's dealing with unusually volatile personalities particularly unsuited to patient inaction, and is probably counting on people to react foolishly, self-destructively, and criminally to startling events like a search warrant."

    As hypocritical as it might be, I'd love to find a way to change this paradigm, but maybe *after* it gets DJT out of the whitehouse? I've had about enough of this insane posturing with nuclear warheads.

  14. Trent says

    August 9, 2017 at 1:24 pm

    I'd consider anything involving multiple law enforcement personal and them taking things by force to be a raid. You don't have to kick the door in and point guns at people for it to be a raid.

  15. Malakyp says

    August 9, 2017 at 1:25 pm

    Some reports suggests that it was indeed no-knock. If that's true, they must've REALLY thought ol' Paul was flushing the bank account numbers.

  16. Jeremy says

    August 9, 2017 at 1:45 pm

    Typo:
    > "different that probable cause"

    I'll ask a dumb question: is it necessary to be a law enforcement agent to submit an application for a search warrant at every level? While the idea of any random sovereign citizen being able to apply for one gives me pause, knowing that (at the state level) all the ridiculously vague ones currently being rubber-stamped are made by "responsible" cops and ADAs tempers that pause somewhat.

  17. rb says

    August 9, 2017 at 2:43 pm

    Come on Ken, answer the question everyone really wants to know.

    If Sally Neighbor's cat turned out to have worms and not Asthma, would that invalidate the warrant?

  18. Argentina Orange says

    August 9, 2017 at 5:06 pm

    @rb

    If Sally Neighbor's cat turned out to have worms and not Asthma, would that invalidate the warrant?

    No, but Sally Neighbor would be arrested for lying to the FBI.

  19. sinij says

    August 9, 2017 at 7:10 pm

    "Mueller knows what he's doing, knows that he's dealing with unusually volatile personalities particularly unsuited to patient inaction, and is probably counting on people to react foolishly, self-destructively, and criminally to startling events like a search warrant."

    If I have a problem with such turn of events, does this make me Trump supporter?

  20. Encinal says

    August 9, 2017 at 8:34 pm

    what appeared to be a body into a hole" is good attribution.

    That still seems a bit conclusory.

    Federal search warrants are supposed to be served during "daytime hours," meaning between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

    Wow, that's quite broad. California seems to consider daylight hours to be be 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Nevada 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

    And the FBI also leaves a sort of receipt — a list of the things they took. It tends to be very general, especially with regard to documents, like "one box of documents from hall closet." The federal agents return that to the magistrate judge, but it does not tend to be accessible to the public.

    This passage is a bit confusing. Saying the FBI "leaves" a list, along with calling it a "receipt", implies that the recipient of the warrant receives it. But saying that they return it to the judge implies that the recipient of the warrant doesn't get to keep it. Are there multiple copies?

    I hear that a lot. But the agents show up at your home. They're armed. If you resist, they use force. They often handcuff the residents while they search — or if you're white, they take you outside and sit you down under guard. They take your things by force.

    If the guns stay in their holsters, I don't it a raid. The fact that there's an ultimate threat of force isn't the same as directly threatening someone.

    I'm totally fine with calling that a raid.

  21. Encinal says

    August 9, 2017 at 8:56 pm

    Update on David Eckhart:
    $1.6 settlement
    http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/16/justice/new-mexico-search-settlement/index.html

    On my previous post, the last line was part of a quote that I forgot to delete.

  22. MelK says

    August 10, 2017 at 12:22 am

    How likely is it that any suitably "coked up raccoon" would NOT interpret

    Indicia of occupancy … including … personal effects

    as license to take pretty much everything written or typed upon and found at the targetted location? "Personal effects" could include furniture, televisions with serial numbers matching warrantee cards, wallets containing drivers licenses, books with book plates or addresses written inside the front cover (or books that might have those….

    There doesn't seem to be a limitation "stop grabbing once you've got convincing evidence of residence".

  23. DaveL says

    August 10, 2017 at 4:57 am

    But we can believe that about everything else?

    Yes, I assume that except for criminal justice and First Amendment law, I'm confident they're perfectly reliable.

    I just died of snark. Then I came back and died again.

  24. GuestPoster says

    August 10, 2017 at 7:27 am

    I appreciate the warrant seeking process as a good and necessary protection against government overreach. But, like most protections, it's rather weak. I do wish that those magistrate courts, along with any other court where the prosecution/law enforcement asks for something, had a mandatory defender whose job was to articulate why the request should NOT be granted. It still wouldn't be perfect, but it would be at least one outside person working for the benefit of the accused, making the judge listen to a second perspective before applying the rubber stamp.

  25. Rick H. says

    August 10, 2017 at 1:34 pm

    GuestPoster @ 7:27 AM:

    I can't imagine how that would work. In a fishing expedition, such a defender would have no more exculpatory information than the cops, prosecutor and judge do. And he/she would be working in concert with them, part of the same legal culture. The "defense" would be just as blind, and hold similar biases.

  26. jaxkayaker says

    August 10, 2017 at 6:35 pm

    The real question on everyone's mind is whether Ms. Neighbor offered to provide oral testimony to SA Strongchin's junior agent.

  27. Jim Simpson says

    August 10, 2017 at 9:19 pm

    It looks to me like Mueller's biggest potential problem is that Trump will fire his ass. His best counter to that possibility might be to gather enough hard evidence fast enough that he can say "Trump is doing a cover-up" if Trump tries to fire Mueller or talks like he's planning it.

    This might be why the Manafort raid is happening unusually early in the process. Mueller wants hard dirt fast and thinks Manafort is the guy to get it from.

  28. ertdfg says

    August 11, 2017 at 11:39 am

    "Yes, I assume that except for criminal justice and First Amendment law, I'm confident they're perfectly reliable."

    Hello, doctor?
    I've gotten a preliminary diagnosis for Gell-Mann Amnesia…

    How bad is that one again?

  29. Cromulent Bloviator says

    August 12, 2017 at 12:13 am

    People keep talking about firing the Special Prosecutor, but that can only be done for cause. If they tried to fire him, he might get an emergency injunction restoring him to the position, especially if they aren't claiming to have evidence of clear misconduct.

    Don't underestimate the privileged access to the system that Mueller has. He's very popular in diverse circles, and has a very long shadow.

  30. Count Zero says

    August 13, 2017 at 12:10 pm

    "coked up raccoons" made me laugh and is not necessarily inappropriate. If I may offer a counterpoint- searches are often kind of a big deal, and since you don't get a "do over," if you leave something behind, there is a tendency to take it all and sort it out later. This is especially true of document heavy searches where it is incredibly difficult to assess the evidentiary value of all items while on scene. I might also add that such searches are usually multi-person events and not all persons will be as acquainted with the case as the prosecutor so again, it is easier to grab it and return it later, rather than leave it and find out it was important later.

    "Pre Dawn raids,"
    One thing to consider is that searches take time. After the search that evidence still has to be taken somewhere and entered into evidence. Things often start early because it's going to be a long day.

    @Andrew
    "Is there any legal limitation here? Do prosecutors have to articulate some reason why a warrant and raid should be used instead of simply asking first, or is "because I felt like it" sufficient?"

    Probable cause to believe there is evidence of a crime at the location is the legal limitation. The government is under no obligation to seek consent, nor should they be.

    @Jamie
    "As hypocritical as it might be, I'd love to find a way to change this paradigm, but maybe *after* it gets DJT out of the whitehouse…"

    May I ask what exactly is wrong with this paradigm? If you are investigating someone, and their attempt to thwart your investigation leads to a criminal act, I'm not seeing why their action is acceptable regardless of the target. Remember, the investigation is predicated on the fact that there is credible information that a crime may have been committed.

    @Jeremy
    While I do not presume to speak for all locations in the United States, I believe Search Warrants must be executed by a peace officer (police) or other duly authorized individual. This is likely due to the fact that a search warrant carries with it the implied use of force to execute said warrant.

    @Sinji
    What is your problem with this turn of events? If Mueller's investigators had probable cause for a search they had probable cause. If the targets of investigation now act self destructively or criminally why is this a problem exactly?

    @Encinal
    ""what appeared to be a body into a hole" is good attribution.
    That still seems a bit conclusory."

    Not if it is a summary of the witness statement which is one of the facts the investigator is relaying to the magistrate. It might be conclusory if the witness said it was a large bulky object and the investigator assumes body, but if the witness reached that conclusion, that is a statement of fact.

    re: inventory
    A receipt is left at the search site. A list of items seized is also submitted to the court. Note that these lists do not have to be identical. If one of the "coked up raccons grabbed a bunch of stuff the government clearly does not want to keep, that stuff might be returned to the owner prior to the search warrant return to the court.

    @Melk
    There doesn't seem to be a limitation "stop grabbing once you've got convincing evidence of residence".

    No one wants to be the one grilled by defense or prosecutor over why they took this but not that. You never know what is going to be argued at any particular stage.

    @GuestPoster
    "I do wish that those magistrate courts, along with any other court where the prosecution/law enforcement asks for something, had a mandatory defender whose job was to articulate why the request should NOT be granted."

    RickH had a pretty good response. This would not work. The standard for a warrant is Probable Cause. A magistrate only has the affidavit in front of them and is supposed to adhere to the "four corners rule" which basically means facts sufficent to establish PC must be within the body of the affidavit. I'm not sure what the mandatory defender is supposed to argue. Can you give an example?

  31. Robert What? says

    August 13, 2017 at 12:53 pm

    Ken,

    We all know that this Trump colluding with the Russians thing is a load of crap. I have to assume that an intelligent guy like Mueller knows it too. So what is he really up to? Is it as mundane a matter of him hating Trump that much? Or is he protecting some people, maybe even himself? And if so, from what?

  32. Richard says

    August 14, 2017 at 7:23 am

    @Robert What?

    From where I sit, it's not obvious that it's a load of crap. There are a lot of interaction points between Trump, the people he surrounds himself, and Russia. Now, most of these people are international businessmen and high-level politicians, and I'll admit that I have absolutely no experience with high-level politics and international business, and consequently I have absolutely no idea how normal it would be that there would be this many interaction points. From ground level, without that experience, it seems there might be something of substance there. Especially since Trump's tweets about Russia and Putin are inconsistent in some places and blatantly contradictory in others.

    Anyway, let's leave aside the possibility that any of this is true. Let's assume, for the sake of your argument, that from Mueller's vantage point, none of the interaction between Trump & Co. and Russia/Putin go meaningfully beyond what would be expected. If I were Mueller, I'd make damned well sure that I documented everything well enough to prove that I did my due diligence. If he comes done one iota too hard on Trump, the right wing will cry conspiracy and call for his head. If he comes down one iota too lightly on Trump, the left wing will cry conspiracy and call for his head.

    So, Mueller needs to be exhaustive enough in his search to show, not just beyond reasonable doubt (because neither side is going to be reasonable about this), but beyond almost any doubt, either that:
    (1) there was no collusion, and there's no possible way that they could have hidden collusion from the forces that were brought to bear in overturning every rock looking for it, or
    (2) there was collusion, and there's no possible way that there was an innocent explanation that was overlooked by the forces that were brought to bear in overturning every rock looking for it.

    I would undoubtedly be a lot less surprised than you if it all ended up being true. However, I can see, from either perspective, the importance of being as thorough as possible in pursuing this investigation, and leaving no doubt to its impartiality, regardless of the eventual conclusion.

  33. Robert What? says

    August 14, 2017 at 1:26 pm

    @Richard,

    Let's say for arguments sake there was collusion between the Russians and Trump. The question then becomes: toward what end? No one seems to be suggesting that the electronic voting system was hacked and Hillary votes were changed to Trump votes. (Or are they suggesting that?)

  34. Richard says

    August 14, 2017 at 5:10 pm

    @Robert What?

    By "toward what end?" do you mean "What did Trump get?" or "What did Russia get?"

    If it's the former, then someone hacked and leaked those DNC emails. And there's simple cash (like that Russian bank thing).

    If the latter, Russia gets influence over the POTUS, which is nothing to sneeze at. Also, Russia is always having trouble with democratic uprisings; discrediting the loudest voice for democracy in the world has to be worth something.

  35. Robert What? says

    August 14, 2017 at 6:52 pm

    @Richard,

    If there was collusion it is clear what the Ruusians would get: influence, as you point out.

    No, I meant what did Trump get? So you are maintaining that if there was collusion, Trump benefited by getting cash? I don't get it: who would pay Trump cash to have Trump get the Russians to hack the DNC servers? And why? I'm totally confused.

  36. Richard says

    August 16, 2017 at 10:16 am

    who would pay Trump cash to have Trump get the Russians to hack the DNC servers?

    I think you're misreading what I said there.

    I'm suggesting these as two different possible benefits Trump could have gotten from Russia:
    1. Russia gives Trump cash (which he can spend towards the effort of becoming President, or not) in exchange for influence if he becomes President, or
    2. Russia leaks DNC e-mails and drags Clinton down a few percentage points, also in exchange for influence.

  37. Robert What? says

    August 16, 2017 at 3:55 pm

    @Richard,

    #1 is a new one to me. I don't recall ever hearing that. Sounds like the makings of a real fishing expedition. Which apparently is what Mueller is on. I guess the Russians could have handed Trump bundles of cash at any time. But so could they have done to Hillary. In fact via the Clinton Foundation, Hillary was the champion of pay for play. But as we all know, it's different when the Democrats do it.

    #2 is an interesting one. The DNC "hack" was almost certainly a leak. Or maybe through Hillary's notoriously insecure servers. In any case, Assange said the Russians had nothing to do with it. And at this point I would believe him over all the intelligence agencies combined. But on the flip side, whoever did leak or hack it did the American public an enormous favor by showing the utter corruption and malfeasance at the highest levels of the DNC and the previous administration. I think that is what it is really about: keeping focus off the contents of the emails.

  38. Dion Starfire says

    September 4, 2017 at 9:50 pm

    The sample search warrant includes monitors and keyboards (among many other things) in the list of digital devices to be seized as possibly storing stuff mentioned earlier in the warrant.

    Why do they need these input-only and output-only devices?

    The only plausible explanation I can come up with is the fairly recent trend for some keyboards and monitors to contain built-in usb hubs which could hold flash drives or other data storage devices, and it seems like they've been seizing everything computer related (i.e. any electronic device found in the general vicinity of a computer) long before the invention of USB.

  39. Anonymous patient guy says

    November 4, 2017 at 9:10 pm

    Robert What?

    Your last comment spurred me at first to attempt to correct all the misapprehensions it contains, but as I read it again I realize that would be impossible, as your base reality is too distorted for truth to make any difference to your belief system. But I'm going to take it on regardless just because I'm persistent that way.

    Regarding (1) It is commonly believed that Trump acquired loans from Russian sources over the past couple of decades, beginning after it became impossible for him to acquire loans from western banks because of his repeated bankruptcy filings. He has sold real estate to Russian oligarchs for greatly inflated prices, thus transferring funds from Russia to the US. AKA money laundering. If Russia maintains proof of Trump's money laundering, they now effectively control the President of the USA, not a good thing.

    Regarding the Clinton Foundation, people who might have been said to have "paid to play" often had their requests (which were public and not unusual) politely declined by staff. Funds donated to the Clinton Foundation are public, and are dispersed just as publicly, and not to the Clintons. Also, Ms Clinton is not President, so who cares?

    Regarding (2) we have no reason to suspect that DNC emails were leaked as opposed to stolen. In fact law enforcement and counter intelligence agencies have universally told us they were hacked, by Russian agencies.

    Hillary's servers are the only servers not known to have been hacked, they were quite secure and physically guarded by the Secret Service. Her emails have all been made public, except for those deemed not of public interest, like arranging for lunch, or to see a grandkid. Those are the famous 30,000 missing emails, which aren't missing at all, just irrelevant to legal processes.

    Assange is almost certainly a Russian agent, taking his word for anything is absurd. Look where his most famous leaker, Ed Snowden, wound up, in Moscow. Wikileaks accepted data without regard to the source, they wouldn't really know if emails came from a Russian agent or from a Republican who got hired by the DNC.

    If there existed evidence of Democratic corruption do you not imagine the current administration would have locked up everyone they could catch? The reason President Trump can't arrest Ms Clinton is because she hasn't committed any crimes.

    There is no evidence or information that shows any corruption or illegality on the part of any Democratic organization, so your rant about Democratic corruption is merely your rant. You should learn about critical thought, assembling facts from public documents, and logic.

Trackbacks

  1. No-knock raids like the one against Paul Manafort are more common than you think | Later On says:
    August 10, 2017 at 11:42 am

    […] These tweets are technically true, provided you limit your pool of “targets” to people like Manafort. But again, that paints a misleading picture of how these tactics are used. They aren’t typically used against people like Manafort, and for most people against whom they are used, the target isn’t given a chance to cooperate. As for judges, I’ll let former federal prosecutor Ken White at Popehat elaborate: […]

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