Old Case Involving Bill Clinton Could Have Major Impact on Mar-a-Lago Raid – Opinion

We’ve seen folks in the media and on the left say all kinds of things about President Donald Trump regarding the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago home.

Merrick Garland, Attorney General of the United States was also seen acting as if the FBI were the victims. Their unprecedented action screams politics. Garland tried to prevent the seal of the warrant’s warrant for raid. He has yet to answer why they raided when they did.

We’ve said there’s a big difference in the way that they’re treating Trump versus the way that they treated Hillary Clinton, who had a whole private server to avoid review, who destroyed emails, and whose people destroyed Blackberrys. Her computer was not accessed. She wasn’t prosecuted despite having classified documents on her server.

But it turns out that there’s another important comparison to show the difference in treatment that’s going on here — a comparison to Bill Clinton.

Clinton recorded audio tapes during his presidency with Taylor Branch, the historian. They were kept for some time in Clinton’s socks drawer.

Branch recorded seventy-nine audiotapes that “preserved not only President Clinton’s thoughts and commentary on contemporaneous events and issues he was facing as president, but, in some instances, recorded actual events such as presidential telephone conversations.

Judicial Watch demanded that the tapes be included in National Archives.

Amy Berman Jackson, U.S. District Judge, ruled that there wasn’t a provision in the Presidential Records Act which would have allowed the National Archives force the National Archives into seizing records of a former President. What’s interesting about the case is what it says in regard to a president’s sweeping power over records.

But Jackson’s ruling — along with the Justice Department’s arguments that preceded it — made some other sweeping declarations that have more direct relevance to the FBI’s decision to seize handwritten notes and files Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago. The most relevant is that a president’s discretion on what are personal vs. official records is far-reaching and solely his, as is his ability to declassify or destroy records at will.

“Under the statutory scheme established by the PRA, the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the President’s term and in his sole discretion,” Jackson wrote in her March 2012 decision, which was never appealed.

“Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records,” she added.

The judge also noted it would be wrong to seize the tapes from Clinton, that it was an “extraordinary request” that was “unfounded, contrary to the PRA’s express terms, and contrary to traditional principles of administrative law. The Court agrees.”

She noted that if the Archives wishes to contest a decision it can be initiated by both the agency and the attorney General under the law. However, this is a civil procedure without any criminal penalties.

As Tom Fitton, who lost that case, notes, in that case, the government was defending the matter that Clinton didn’t have to turn over the tapes.

The government now pursues Trump. Their warrant was too broad to suggest they were allowed to examine and take any document created by Trump during his presidency. The government’s attitude turns on a dime because it’s Trump.

Kevin Brock, former assistant FBI director for intelligence, told Just the News the bureau’s search warrant was overly broad and went beyond what the FBI manual for agents recommended. “Specificity is important in order to protect fourth amendment rights from exuberant government overreach designed to find whatever they can,” he told Just the News.

Brock said that Brock did not think the FBI or DOJ were authorized to criminalize retention of Presidential records.

The warrant “apparently makes a novel legal assertion that any presidential record kept by a former president is against the law,” Brock said. “You have to wonder what the other living former presidents think about that. They have the right and, apparently, clear desire to remain silent.”

Let’s just say that the FBI will have to address a number of legal issues in this case, as well as the questions about politicization.

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