As we previously reported, journalist Paul Sperry was booted off of Twitter after he raised questions about the FBI raid of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Real Clear Investigations has started tweeting additional questions Sperry raises about Friday’s redacted affidavit. They’re likely to get the ban hammer next, if Twitter interprets that as an attempt to evade a suspension.
Sperry has several questions regarding the oddities noted in Sperry’s affidavit.
— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) August 28, 2022
When they refer to what was found in the 15 boxes, they refer to documents with “classification markings.” That leaves open the possibility that they aren’t classified any longer — that they may have been declassified. The affidavit says the documents “appear” to contain National Defense Information, but Sperry asks if they “triaged” the boxes, wouldn’t they know if it did or not?
There’s a line in there about “probable cause to believe evidence of obstruction will be found at the premises.” But as Sperry explains, there’s no heading about that “obstruction” or anything in the unredacted parts that justify this random sentence. The agent behind the affidavit says he believed the storage room and other spaces at Mar-a-Lago weren’t “currently” authorized for storage of classified information. Either they were or they weren’t, didn’t he know? Did they exist in the past or not?
Then in the affidavit, there’s a letter dated June 8 mentioned, from the DOJ to Trump’s counsel, telling the Trump team that they have to keep the documents in the storage room until further notice.
— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) August 28, 2022
So, they seem to think it wasn’t a secure location, but then they tell them to keep the documents there? They don’t take them immediately. They hold off for two months before they raid August 8. They could have taken them all, just like they did the original boxes. It seems that this is a complete sabotage of the claims about urgency.
Of course, they were aware of what was in the file and told Trump’s team to leave it alone. Sperry sees this as a possible attempt to seduce Trump into doing what they told him to. Why didn’t they just have NARA come and pick them up? If the DOJ told them to keep them there and now they turn around and said that’s wrong, then it’s hard to go after Trump for what the DOJ told them to do.
— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) August 28, 2022
Sperry also picked up something else that was interesting — that according to the affidavit there were documents that had FISA markings. This could give credence to reports that the FBI was trying to take documents from Russia.
— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) August 28, 2022
As the Trump legal team also explained, the affidavit raises “more questions than answers” — not explaining the justification for the raid. As they noted, the Presidential Records Act doesn’t provide for any criminal penalty–yet this seems to have been the premise under which the DOJ started this effort against Trump. It seems that the judge might be willing to appoint a special master for the case.
However, this sounds like a fishing expedition. Members of the GOP in Congress should demand answers from FBI and DOJ.