Judging Freedom - Trump FBI search Update

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

Washington’s Mar-a-Lago Prosecution by Leaks The Justice Department wants the search affidavit secret while details spill to the press. https://www.wsj.com/articles/washingt... #trump #fbiSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, August 24, 2022. It's about 1045 in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. You know, the federal government is the best at leaking information, information that is ordinarily kept secret or information which will either, as we say, pollute the jury pool, cause the public to be predisposed against the person that the government is prosecuting, the public from which the jurors in a case will eventually be chosen or to send a potential defendant on a wild goose chase by leaking damning information about him. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the Department of Justice and former

President Donald Trump. In the past four days, the Department of Justice has leaked to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal that the federal government has, you ready for this, 700 classified documents that were at President Trump's home in Florida. Some of them he returned after the National Archives showed up and insisted on inspecting the property and he let them in. And some of them, about 300, were seized by the federal government. Of this 700, we are told that dozens are marked top secret SAP or SCI. Without getting into the difference between SAP and SCI, they both mean effectively that they are the highest category of government secrets. Even if they're declassified, they are still secret because the government believes that the information contained in there, if revealed to anyone other than persons authorized by law to view it, would cause immediate and irreparable harm to national security.

What could it be? It could be plans for weaponry. It could be names of people cooperating with intelligence agents, people who work for foreign intelligence agents or double agents, information which, if revealed, would result in nullifying the use of the weaponry or the death of these human beings. Whatever it is, it's very highly classified stuff. Look, I'm not in favor of all this classification. I'm in favor of transparency. The government works for us.

We don't work for the government. But the government has written these laws that make it a crime to possess certain documents if you're not authorized to do so. Donald Trump, of course, was authorized to do so. As the president of the United States, he was authorized to see anything and everything. But on January 20th, 2021, at noon, when Trump's term expired and Biden's term began, Trump lost the ability to examine and have and possess and hide those documents. So I think he's in a lot of hot water. You know, at one point he said about Edward Snowden, Snowden should be executed for the secrets he took. In my view, and I think in the view of most of you, Edward Snowden is an American hero. Edward Snowden revealed that the government under George W. Bush was spying on everybody without warrants,

capturing every keystroke on every mobile device and desktop. He then fled to Russia, and the Trump Department of Justice got a grand jury to indict Edward Snowden on the very same charges, the very same law, and the very same sections of the law that the DOJ told a federal judge in Florida it was investigating Trump for. What bitter irony there. So I've said this before, and it gives me no joy to say it, because I have known the president, the former president, as a friend for more than 35 years. A grand jury in Washington, D.C. will soon indict him for violations of the Espionage Act. Now, on Monday, two weeks after the FBI executed a search warrant on his home, during which they acquired these 300 classified documents, at least a dozen or two of which were marked top secret, either SAP or SCI. Oh, by the way, SAP and SCI means the documents can only be stored and examined and read and talked about in a government SCIF. A SCIF is a government room through which Wi-Fi,

through the walls of which Wi-Fi can't go, and from which no mobile phone or copying device can extract information. The most secure type of facility you can imagine. But why Trump has this and what he's doing with it is beyond me. Now, when he filed an application, actually a lawsuit against the federal government on Monday, seeking the appointment of a special master, usually a former judge, not an employee of the government, who looks at documents that have been seized by federal agents and makes a pile. This is personal. This goes back to him. This is attorney-client privilege.

This goes to him or his lawyers. This is executive privilege. It goes back to him. Oh, this could be evidence of crime. This is the FBI gets. The special master would go through everything and do that. But as I said at the time, this past Monday, two weeks after the raid, Trump's lawsuit against the DOJ was too little too late. Because by then the government had already examined everything. Even if they have to return something to him, they already have a copy of it. They already read it. They already know what's in there, whether it's privileged, personal or not. This application should have been filed while the raid was going on, so that if granted

by the judge, the judge would have told the FBI, don't turn those documents and whatever else you took from his house over to the feds. Oh no, turn it over to this special master, and the special master will decide what goes to the feds and what gets returned to Donald Trump. Too little, too late. The document itself that Trump filed, I was critical of it. It read like a political harangue. Candidly, it read like he wrote it and not his lawyers. And they didn't follow the rules. They didn't file the right documents. They made allegations in there that weren't backed up by sworn statements. Well, when the federal judge saw the document, a federal judge that President Trump appointed, a federal judge who was confirmed after the election of 2020, but before Joe Biden was sworn in, a Trump nominee,

she sent it back saying, you know, refile this. Write it in the proper form. I don't take credit, I don't take joy in criticizing Trump's lawyers, but having read thousands of these documents, I can tell when it's in the right form and when it's not. Trump can't tell his lawyers what to do. Trump can't tell his lawyers what to say This will get under the skin Of even federal judges he has appointed And will get him nowhere Under the light

Say whatever he wants outside the courthouse And give all the speeches he wants He can bring his base to their feet But not in a federal courtroom Judge Napolitano For judging freedom.