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Brian Karem’s “Reporter’s Notebook”
Mar-a-Lago raid joins Epstein scandal in the "won't go away" file
Trump's DOJ still doesn't want you or me anywhere near the information Trump had at Mar-a-Lago
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There are no depths to which Donald Trump won’t sink to grab wads of sweaty cash.
A day after the FBI executed a search warrant on his home at Mar-a-Lago, August 8, 2022, the former president sent out emails to his supporters saying the FBI had “raided” his home, “broke into” his safe and possibly planted evidence. Was he upset? Maybe. Was he innocent? Who cares? But he was open about needing money to help battle “the corrupt left,” whatever that means. And so, dear friends and neighbors, the preacher in the big pop-up tent is going to pass around the hat, and if you’d very graciously give everything you have, the billionaire who needs your money would much appreciate it. By the way, would you like a new shirt with Donald’s portrait? He’s got those too.
Few would even have known Trump’s residence in Florida was the subject of a search warrant had he not announced it to the world in order to make some money and stir up the rabble. The FBI has made no public statement about the search warrant and executed it as surreptitiously and professionally as possible. Trump, of course, said his home was under siege and as expected the Trumpers cackled like geese on the pond and threatened violence. Many probably eagerly gave him more money.
Make no mistake, the search of a former president’s home — even though Trump wasn’t there, and had no idea what the FBI did or didn’t do while on site — is unprecedented. Trump was right when he claimed that no president has ever had that happen before — but then again, no president before Donald Trump had ever merited an FBI “raid.”
The search warrant apparently has to do with 15 boxes of material (including some classified material) Trump took with him when he left the White House. Rumors have been heavy about what that information was, and what it would be used for — up to and including sharing it with those who shouldn’t have it. The FBI not only had to provide substantial information that indicated a search was timely and necessary, but an independent judge had to sign off on the search. This is as serious as it gets.
The worst part? Trump did it to himself. The federal government repeatedly asked Trump to turn over the documents they knew he had at Mar-a-Lago. He just wouldn’t do it. He even had an attorney sign a letter saying everything had been turned over, when in fact the material had not.
It is also just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Donald Trump’s alleged crimes — which includes actions taken prior to, during and after the Jan. 6 insurrection. It also includes election activities in Georgia and God only knows what else.
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Trump originally told us the FBI set him up and there was no information of any use in any boxes at Mar-a-Lago at any point in time - though independent sources without classified clearance said Don on at least one occasion pulled out the “classified documents” and showed them around as if they were porno shots taken without permission.
Puff Donny then said the information had been “planted” by the FBI. It was all a hoax, he claimed, perpetrated by the Radical Left. Finally, he said he had the information but it was no longer classified because his Vulcan-like mind meld techniques declassified the documents.
I, and many other reporters, wanted to get to the bottom of it. If the documents existed and were not classified, then we should be able to obtain those documents. Mark Zaid, a Freedom of Information Act attorney for more than 30 years thought I was on to something, so we filed a FOIA request for the information. We eventually had to file suit to obtain it. We got not nothing.
The information is of vital interest to the public. While there are reasonable costs involved in retrieving the information, those should not be exorbitant. It probably would require paying for a thumb drive and having the data downloaded to said drive, but no one need put in time at a copy machine any more.
Still, the government on Friday decided to sneak a quick one in.
It now wants me to pay $50K in a bond just to get expedited service on the suit - something allowed by statute. And, if the court should decide I don’t deserve expedited service, then I forfeit the bond.
That really is a pay-to-play scenario. There’s no guarantee - it’s just that if I even want to step up and challenge Trump I have to pay through the nose.
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Pay the man. Before you leave this world you gotta pay the man” - That’s what David Lindley told us. “Everybody in the whole wide world gotta pay the man.”
“Of the senators in the fancy houses
He’s a friend of Babylon
Got a wife and a dog and a cadillac
And people on the run
Got his ways and means and all he needs
To keep him satisfied
But before he leaves this world
He’s got to pay the man”
Now, apparently, to get any amount of justice, you gotta put $50,000 in a paper bag and pay the DOJ. I guess Tom Homan is running short of cash.
DOJ lawyers’ request for the $50,000 bond came in a Washington federal court filing Friday.
“Never in over thirty years of law practice have I seen the government so blatantly seek to intimidate FOIA requesters by threatening tens of thousands of dollars of fees merely because we sought our statutory legal rights to expedite processing of documents,” Mark Zaid, of the James Madison Project explained. “This case seeks production of the documents retrieved by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago that were said to be classified but President Trump and his allies say are not. One must question what threat we pose by simply requesting expedited processing of these records. Could it be they are actually classified and President Trump did violate the law?”
The justice stifling request come from an executive memorandum Trump issued in March, directing DOJ to ask judges to require financial bonds from those who sue the government and seek relief at the early stages of a case. Hell, all we want is the information Trump says isn’t classified and doesn’t amount to much.
“This is nothing short of a $50,000 shakedown demand merely to expedite release of the ‘definitely not classified’ records that Mr. Trump concealed from the Government at Mar-a-Lago,” attorney Brad Moss said. “This is not 1920s Chicago and Mr. Trump is not Al Capone. We will not accede to this demand and we will contest it vigorously in court.”
U.S. District Judge Loren Alikhan, a Biden appointee, will consider whether to expedite disclosure of the Mar-a-Lago files and how much money, if any, we’ll have to come up with to speed up the request for information.
As of now, Trump hasn’t released anything, but late Friday afternoon he did say he wanted to release all the files on . . . no, not Jeff Epstein.
Wait for it . . . Amelia Earhart.
Well, we can rest easy I suppose. I’m sure Mar-a-Lago and Jeff Epstein files are next.
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