A criminal probe “requested by the incumbent president.” The seizure of clothing, medical records, tax records and 500 pages of attorney-client privileged documents not covered by a warrant. The sharing of privileged documents with investigators.
More than simply appointing a special master to referee an evidence dispute, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon exposed this week a Justice Department search of former President Donald Trump’s home that was initiated by his chief Democrat rival, that was carried out so sloppily that it violated the “least intrusive” mandate in the FBI agent’s manual, and that failed to keep legally-protected materials from falling into the hands of investigators.
The problems uncovered so far placed Trump “at risk of suffering injury from the Government’s retention and potential use of privileged materials,” Cannon wrote, adding that a future indictment of the ex-president based on the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago “would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude.”
…But Cannon’s ruling exposed significant failures of the FBI agents at Mar-a-Lago to adhere to strict rules governing collection of evidence. For instance, more than 500 pages of documents protected by attorney-client privilege were collected, along with personal medical and tax records and even an article of clothing.
Such overcollection, Brock told the “Just the News, Not Noise” television show, is completely uncharacteristic for FBI agents who are trained to avoid such mistakes, suggesting the former president got worse treatment than a drug dealer or gang member,
“I don’t care if it was a drug trafficker, or a child exploiter, or whatever, you go into a home, you set up a system where those things that you seize are assiduously documented,” said Brock, who oversaw numerous search warrants in his three decade FBI career. “They’re given a specific tracking number, barcodes, if you will, and each piece is gone through meticulously before you leave the premises to make sure that it’s within the scope of the document.”
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