Feds Took Documents That Were Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege During Trump Raid; Trump Calls for Seized Documents to Be Returned

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By Townhall. . .FBI didn’t leave empty-handed from Trump’s home, but some of the documents might have been declassified, and the attorney-client privilege protected some. At the same time, other records were reportedly covered by executive privilege (via Fox News):

The FBI seized boxes containing records covered by attorney-client privilege and potentially executive privilege during its raid of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News, adding that the Justice Department opposed Trump lawyers’ request for the appointment of an independent, special master to review the records.

Sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News Saturday that the former president’s team was informed that boxes labeled A-14, A-26, A-43, A-13, A-33, and a set of documents—all seen on the final page of the FBI’s property receipt —contained information covered by attorney-client privilege.

The FBI seized classified records from Trump’s Palm Beach home during its unprecedented Monday morning raid, including some marked as top secret. But the former president is disputing the classification, saying the records have been declassified.

[…]

Sources told Fox News that some records could be covered by executive privilege, which gives the president of the United States and other officials within the executive branch the authority to withhold certain sensitive forms of advice and consultation between the president and senior advisors.

(Read more from “Feds Took Documents That Were Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege During Trump Raid” HERE)

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Trump Calls for Seized Documents to Be Returned to Mar-A-Lago

By New York Post. Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for the Justice Department to return the reams of documents FBI agents seized at his Mar-a-Lago resort last week, pointing to a report that said the information was covered by attorney-client or executive privilege.

“Oh great! It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now famous raid of Mar-a-Lago, took boxes of privileged ‘attorney-client’ material, and also ‘executive’ privileged material, which they knowingly should not have taken,” Trump said on his Truth Social site.

“By copy of this TRUTH, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!,” the former president said in the posting.

Fox News reported, citing sources close to the investigation, that team Trump was told that at least five boxes – labeled A-14, A-26, A-43, A-13, A-33, and a set of documents – taken under authority of the search warrant contained information covered by attorney-client or executive privilege​.

The documents were among a cache of materials taken from Trump’s palatial Palm Beach home last Monday, including binders of photos, a handwritten note, a leatherbound box of documents, an “executive grant of clemency” for longtime aide Roger Stone, according to a property list of items released on Friday by the FBI. (Read more from “Trump Calls for Seized Documents to Be Returned to Mar-A-Lago” HERE)

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Brother of Marine Killed in Afghanistan Withdrawal Dies by Suicide During Memorial Service

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The brother of a U.S. Marine who died during last year’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan reportedly committed suicide during his sibling’s recent memorial service.

Dakota Halverson, 28, died on August 9. He was the older brother of Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, 20, from Norco, California, who was one of the 13 military members killed by a suicide bomber outside the Kabul airport on August 26, 2021.

“The older brother of one of the 13 KIA in Kabul recently killed himself at his little brother’s memorial,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) tweeted on Saturday.

“Please pray for his family. There MUST be accountability for this continued carnage,” he added.

The congressman also promoted a GoFundMe fundraiser set up to cover funeral expenses for Halverson. (Read more from “Brother of Marine Killed in Afghanistan Withdrawal Dies by Suicide During Memorial Service” HERE)

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Biden’s CIA Director Employed Chinese Communist Party Members While Heading Elite DC Think Tank

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Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns formerly headed an influential D.C. think tank while it employed undisclosed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members as well as individuals with Chinese government ties, the Daily Caller News Foundation has found.

During Burns’ tenure as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from February 2015 to November 2021, the think tank employed at least 20 policy experts whom the DCNF has identified as CCP members. These CCP members worked at both Carnegie’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and Carnegie-Tsinghua — the Beijing center Burns’ predecessor, Jessica Mathews, launched in 2010 in cooperation with Tsinghua University.

Yet, expert profiles on Carnegie’s website don’t disclose these individuals’ ties to the CCP. The DCNF only discovered their communist ties after analyzing hundreds of Chinese-language, Communist Party branch records and personnel profiles from more than a dozen CCP-linked organizations.

Burns’ tenure at Carnegie coincided with increased alarm from the FBI concerning the CCP conducting “malign influence operations” against key American institutions. In July 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that the CCP seeks to “influence our policymakers” and “manipulate our public opinion” by exploiting the “openness” of our society.

Considering such warnings, employing CCP members and those with Chinese government ties raises red flags, national security experts said. (Read more from “Biden’s CIA Director Employed Chinese Communist Party Members While Heading Elite DC Think Tank” HERE)

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Trump Records Negotiator Warns of Russiagate Materials Cover-up

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Justice Department officials appear to be maneuvering to block the disclosure of documents from the so-called “Russiagate” controversy, according to a top Pentagon official from the Trump administration.

Kash Patel appeared on Fox News on Sunday and defended former President Donald Trump’s claims that he issued sweeping declassification orders of documents after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago resort and seized more than a dozen boxes of materials in an investigation that could have national security implications.

Patel, who was chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and held other high-ranking positions in the Trump administration, said Trump named him his representative to the National Archives, and they have been locked in a “bureaucratic battle” over documents that were taken to his Florida club.

Because there appears to be an “ongoing” counterintelligence investigation, he argued, “you will never be allowed to see the Russiagate docs or any other docs that President Trump lawfully declassified, and they will hide it from the public,” Patel told Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo. Patel was being interviewed along with Devin Nunes, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who is now the CEO of Trump’s social media company. (Read more from “Trump Records Negotiator Warns of Russiagate Materials Cover-up” HERE)

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Afghanistan Chaos: Report Reveals New Details of Disastrous Withdrawal

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It was the height of the chaotic U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan, and first lady Jill Biden’s office went outside the normal channels and begged veterans groups to help find a way to evacuate people having trouble navigating the process.

So did Vice President Kamala Harris’ office, top Defense Department officials and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, according to a report released Sunday by House Republicans that details the depths of the Biden administration’s failures during the last days of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

The fact that President Biden’s own circle had to go outside his process to get help underscores just how badly the administration planned and executed the U.S. retreat, concludes the report, released by Rep. Michael T. McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“There was a complete lack and failure to plan,” Mr. McCaul told CBS’s “Face the Nation” as he revealed the report. “There were so many mistakes.”

Monday marks one year since Afghanistan’s Western-backed government was toppled by a resurgent Taliban. The Taliban moved on Kabul as U.S. troops were pulling out, rushing to meet Mr. Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline for ending a 20-year, $1 trillion commitment. (Read more from “Afghanistan Chaos: Report Reveals New Details of Disastrous Withdrawal” HERE)

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Warrant Shows DOJ, FBI Waited *Days* To Conduct Mar-A-Lago Raid After Judge Approved; Marjorie Taylor Greene Moves to Impeach AG Merrick Garland Over Trump Raid

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By Breitbart. The warrant that authorized the search of former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago shows it was issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Aug. 5, 2022, at 12:12 p.m.—nearly three full days before the Justice Department and FBI conducted a raid to execute it.

The raid did not occur until the morning of Aug. 8, 2022, when federal agents from the FBI arrived at Mar-a-Lago to execute the search warrant.

The document, obtained and reviewed by Breitbart News, shows that the DOJ and FBI waited several days after Reinhart approved the warrant to conduct the raid, something that severely undercuts the talking points issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland in a public statement on Thursday when he broke his silence to discuss the matter in televised remarks.

Why the authorities waited several days to execute service of the warrant if the matter rose to such a serious national security issue is unclear. If what federal agents intended to obtain from the raid was such a risk to national security, the fact they decided to linger and wait for several days before executing is likely to become a major point of contention as this debate plays out in front of the public. (Read more from “Warrant Shows DOJ, FBI Waited *Days* To Conduct Mar-A-Lago Raid After Judge Approved” HERE)

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Marjorie Taylor Greene Moves to Impeach AG Merrick Garland Over Trump Raid

By Townhall. . .Greene filed a motion to impeach Merrick Garland, which is symbolic but could be the first glimpse of the fight to come when the Republicans regain the majority in the House (via The Hill):

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) announced on Friday that she had filed articles of impeachment against Attorney General Merrick Garland as the FBI’s search of the former president’s Florida residence roils Republicans.

Greene’s resolution claims that the attorney general’s “personal approval to seek a search warrant for the raid on the home of the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, constitutes a blatant attempt to persecute a political opponent.”

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The warrant showed that the FBI secured classified materials that were taken to Mar-a-Lago and suggests the former president is being investigated for possible violations of the Espionage Act.

Republicans, including Greene, have repeatedly accused the Justice Department of going after Trump for political reasons.

(Read more from “Marjorie Taylor Greene Moves to Impeach AG Merrick Garland Over Trump Raid” HERE)

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DOJ Opens Sex Abuse Investigation Into Southern Baptists, Subpoenas Leaders

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The Justice Department has started an investigation into sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention, and the executive committee of the United States’ largest Protestant denomination has received a federal subpoena in connection with the probe, the group said Friday.

A spokesman told The Washington Times the committee’s general counsel acknowledged “the [executive committee] has received a subpoena. No individuals have been subpoenaed at this point. This is an ongoing investigation and we are not commenting on our discussions with the [Justice Department].”

The Baptist group said in a statement Friday it “recently became aware” that the Department of Justice had begun an investigation into the 13.7-million-member church as well as “multiple SBC entities.” . . .

An independent investigation of sexual abuse charges in the Southern Baptist Convention led to the May release of a 400-page report documenting a decades-long coverup of the abuse and related misconduct. (Read more from “DOJ Opens Sex Abuse Investigation Into Southern Baptists, Subpoenas Leaders” HERE)

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Trump Warrant Suggests Espionage Act; Same Law Hillary Clinton Dodged

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The search warrant for the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Monday suggests he is being investigated under the Espionage Act of 1917 — the same law that Hillary Clinton was suspected of violating in 2016.

Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted Thursday that he personally approved the warrant application, which seeks broad discretion to search Trump’s home based on three statutes: 18 U.S.C. section 793, on the mishandling of defense information; 18 U.S.C. section 1519, relating to the destruction of federal documents; and 18 U.S.C. section 2071, which punishes hiding, moving, or destroying federal documents. Section 793 is from the Espionage Act of 1917, passed during the First World War.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was suspected of violating the latter when she used an unsecured private email server in her own home to handle her communications, including emails with classified information, during her time in office.

The relevant part of section 793 punishes “gross negligence” in the handling of defense information, and failure to report the loss or destruction of that information. Clinton was accused of both; her staff even physically destroyed her mobile phones.

Then-FBI Director James Comey, who intervened in the case after then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch was caught meeting with former President Bill Clinton on the tarmac of an airport in Arizona, said that while Hillary Clinton had been “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information, she did not intend to violate the statute. The statute does not, however, include any requirement of intent, leading conservative critics to argue that Comey had been looking to exonerate her. (Read more from “Trump Warrant Suggests Espionage Act; Same Law Hillary Clinton Dodged” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

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Trump Claims ‘Standing Order’ Declassified Records as Soon as They Left Oval Office

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Former President Donald Trump claims a “standing order” allowed him to declassify documents as soon as they left the Oval Office.

A statement from Trump’s office was read by journalist John Solomon on Fox News on Friday evening as the former president faces fallout from an FBI raid of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this week in which agents reportedly seized all sorts of classified materials. The statement was met with intense skepticism from legal experts.

“As we can all relate to, everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time. American presidents are no different. President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents including classified documents from the Oval Office to the residence,” the statement read, according to Solomon’s Just the News website.

“He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified,” the statement added. (Read more from “Trump Claims ‘Standing Order’ Declassified Records as Soon as They Left Oval Office” HERE)

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Has Inflation Peaked? Maybe, but It Could Be ‘Painfully Slow’ to Fall

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The cooler-than-expected July inflation data fueled hopes that consumer prices peaked earlier this summer after a year of relentless increases that crushed Americans, created a political firestorm for President Biden and forced the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates at the fastest pace in decades.

The consumer price index climbed 8.5% in July from the previous year, a bigger drop from the 9.1% recorded in June than economists projected. On a monthly basis, the index did not move at all as decreases in the cost of oil, gasoline and airfares offset increases in food and rent.

When excluding more volatile measurements of food and gasoline, prices jumped 5.9% in July, matching the previous month.

While the slowdown is likely a welcome respite for the Fed as it tries to wrestle inflation under control, experts cautioned that inflation remains painfully high and could be slow to return to pre-pandemic levels around 2%. (Read more from “Has Inflation Peaked? Maybe, but It Could Be ‘Painfully Slow’ to Fall” HERE)

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