Under irresistible political and media pressure, Attorney General Garland popped out of his gopher hole and held an impromptu press conference on short notice yesterday.
I’m sorry, but Merrick Garland looks and sounds like an old woman. I mean no disrespect to old women by saying that. I’m just saying.
During the presser, he appeared feisty and combative, complained bitterly about unfair criticism of the FBI, admitted that HE PERSONALLY had approved the search, and promised to ask Epstein’s old lawyer to unseal the search warrant and the Raid inventory. Remember that part about the warrant.
Deranged Trump haters thought Garland’s performance was just terrific! He’s so angry! Trump is in for it!
Biden spokeslady Karine Jean-Pierre denied that Joe knew anything about Garland’s presser or the Raid; he’s just learning from the news like everybody else. He might not even be up from his nap time yet.
As I suggested he would, Trump immediately responded to Garland, upping the ante by demanding that HE wants ALL the documents IMMEDIATELY unsealed, even though they were drafted by Swamp Creatures.
It seems similar but there’s a Grand Canyon between what Garland said he would ask Magistrate Reinhart to unseal, and what Trump said HE wants made public. Let me explain.
As I told you yesterday, the process for obtaining a search warrant begins with a substantial affidavit prepared by law enforcement officers. The sworn affidavit describes all the evidence allegedly justifying “probable cause,” and is signed under oath by an investigator on the case. The affidavit is then presented to a judge who is required to accept its contents as true. Obviously the search’s target gets no chance to present competing evidence — they don’t even know it’s happening.
In this case, given the political stakes, it had to be a very substantial affidavit. I’d guess it was easily over a hundred pages long, including exhibits.
Once the judge reviews the affidavit and finds probable cause, the Court issues the search warrant, which sets out the LEGAL parameters for the search; what the agents are allowed to do or not do, take or not take, and so forth. Significantly, the search warrant generally does NOT recapitulate the probable cause predicate or recite any of the facts from the affidavit. It’s usually only a few pages long.
So between the two documents, the search warrant is the least interesting and least informative. The AFFIDAVIT is what you want to see. Garland didn’t mention the affidavit, only the search warrant. So despite the gleeful anticipation of the anti-Trump crowd, Garland’s offer will not result in anybody learning anything useful about the Biden Raid.
You almost never get to see it. The affidavit is the LAST thing that law enforcement usually turns over. They usually claim investigative privilege citing “sources and methods,” and want to wait until the entire investigation and any criminal charges are completely resolved before turning it over.
But in the last case where I did get hold of the search warrant affidavit, after we saw what it said, and after we picked our jaws up from the floor, we immediately filed an emergency motion listing eight pages of incorrect facts or mischaracterized events.
For example, one complex set of events was described in seemingly random order, if you knew the actual dates when things happened. If you didn’t know the background, and read the affidavit carefully, it looked like it was intended to be a timeline. In that order — out of order — a crime looked likely to have been committed. But if you rewrote that section, putting the facts back in true chronological order, it then became crystal clear that NO crime had occurred.
In that case, law enforcement did not even bother to respond to my motion, but instead promptly agreed to return my clients’ seized property, which was what we were asking for in the first place.
So at best, the search warrant affidavit is a one-sided view of the facts, completely favoring law enforcement. But imagine the kind of things an unfairly biased investigator might sneak into an affidavit confident that nobody would ever see it except the judge, who doesn’t know anything about the case, and then it would be sealed up until it was far too late for anybody to do anything about it. The proverbial horse is out of the barn, down the field, and has visited Epstein’s island several times by then.
The two men are miles apart. Trump wants ALL documents, including the affidavit, to be released. Garland is only offering the useless search warrant. Draw your own conclusions.
A Biden Raid roundup; the CDC quietly sneaks massive changes into its covid guidance; DeSantis recruits quality teachers; and a Canadian lawsuit teaches us about covid experts.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
Police are always shucking and jiving - lying and manipulating the system
