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Former President Donald Trump's comments at a Nevada rally on Saturday night indicate that he is "guilty," according to one former federal prosecutor.

Making the rounds ahead of the hotly contested midterm elections, Trump spoke at a rally in Minden, Nevada, to help support GOP Senate candidate, Adam Laxalt, and gubernatorial candidate, Joe Lombardo. He discussed numerous things during his speech, notably insisting that investigations should be launched into numerous other former presidents, and Hillary Clinton, for allegedly mishandling documents themselves.

During his speech, Trump made claims about how the late former President George H.W. Bush handled documents after leaving the White House, which were highlighted in a tweet from Howard Mortman, C-SPAN's communications director.

"George H.W. Bush took millions of documents to a former bowling alley and a former Chinese restaurant where they combined them," Trump said. "So they're in a bowling alley slash Chinese restaurant...By contrast, I had a small number of boxes and storage at Mar-A-Lagovery small, relativelyguarded by the great Secret Service. And yet the FBI, with many people, raided my house. It's in violation, by the way, of the Fourth Amendment, and many other things also."

Mortman's tweet was shared by Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor and outspoken critic of the former president, who offered her own take on Trump's claims, based on her own legal experience.

"In my experience as a prosecutor, people say stuff like this when they're guilty & scared," she said.

In early August, Trump's Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago was searched by FBI agents as part of an investigation into the former president's alleged hiding of sensitive, top-secret documents taken after he left the White House last year. The search ultimately yielded numerous boxes full of such material, with agents saying that they were not securely stored. Recent reports also indicate that the Department of Justice (DOJ) believes Trump may be hiding yet more documents.

The former president has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in regard to the documents, and said that any classified documents that he took from the White House when he left last year had been declassified.

During his speech, Trump alleged that other former presidents did not face any investigations for the documents they took from the White House, citing Barack Obama and George W. Bush as more examples.

"Barack Hussein Obama moved more than 20 truckloads, over 33 million pages of documents, both classified and unclassified, to a poorly built and unsafe former furniture store located in a bad neighborhood in Chicago," Trump said. "With no security, by the way."

Trump's specific claim about Obama's documents has not held up to scrutiny, with fact-checking investigations finding that none of the documents were classified and that they were transferred to the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in 2017. Outgoing presidents also routinely request non-classified documents from their time in office, for inclusion in future presidential libraries.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's office for comment.

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Trump Rally Speech Shows He's 'Guilty and Scared': Former Prosecutor - Newsweek

By Bob Hilliard mtrevino@cherryroad.com

Be very careful what you wish for regarding amendments. They can appear ideal and appeal to our desperation, but in reality, mean exactly the opposite. I will illustrate some of those in a later Minute.

You might be shocked.

As we previously said, statecraft is serious business.

Are amendments effective? Lets take just a few examples.

We have federal laws on prayer in public. The First Amendment did not prevent that.

We have federal laws on guns, ammo, and firearm manufacturers.

The Second Amendment did not prevent that.

Our God-given privacy rights have been tossed aside by the federal government.

The Fourth Amendment did not prevent that.

We have federal laws on minimum wage, where to drill or not drill for oil, air bags in cars, and hundreds of other objects.

The Tenth Amendment did not prevent that.

Still think amendments are a good idea? When amendments correct defects in the Constitution, they are clearly a good thing.

The 12th and 13th Amendments, like the 11th Amendment, corrected defects in the Constitution. Section 1 of the 14th Amendment extended Citizenship to the freed slaves and provided constitutional authority for the much needed federal Civil Rights Act of 1866.

In Federalist No. 84 (10th para), Alexander Hamilton warned against adding a Bill of Rights to our Constitution. Under a Constitution of enumerated powers, the government may lawfully do only what the Constitution permits it to do. So why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power

And he was right!!

Why say Congress shall not infringe (2nd Amendment) when there was no power in the Constitution for the federal government to infringe to begin with?

Same holds true for the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 10th Amendments. Can you find others?

See the rest here:
The very idea of amendments Part 2 of 3 Alice Echo News Journal - Alice Echo News-Journal

The courts conservative justices followed a similar course last term in other cases. In Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, the court considered whether recipients of federal funds that discriminate against individuals because of their race, sex or disability must pay damages for any resulting emotional distress. The framework the court established 20 years ago strongly suggested the answer was yes. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, however, supplied the pivotal votes against the plaintiff on the ground that that framework itself was faulty and thus should never be extended. And in Vega v. Tekoh, Kavanaugh took the same approach to the courts well-known Miranda rule the rule requiring police officers to warn suspects in custody before questioning them. He encapsulated his approach to Miranda during the cases oral arguments as follows: Accept it, but dont extend it.

Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, left, and Brett Kavanaugh pictured at the Capitol in Washington.|Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool

This approach is as problematic as it is pithy. In the guise of respecting precedent, the new tactic of barricading precedent actually thwarts it.

We need not look back very far to understand why that is so. During oral argument five years ago in another case involving whether federal officers could be held liable for violating the Fourth Amendment this time for shooting an innocent child just across the U.S.-Mexico border Justice Stephen Breyer explained to the plaintiffs lawyer that the court could not just pronounce which side wins. We [have to] write some words in an opinion, Breyer stressed, establishing a legal rule that will affect other cases too. Justice Samuel Alito underscored the point: We cant just say that on the particular facts here, one party wins. We have to have a rule that can be applied in other cases.

In other words, Supreme Court decisions create legal precedent that necessarily extends beyond particular cases. While lawmakers enacting a statute can effectively pronounce this much and no more perhaps due to horse-trading, political compromise or sheer limits of will the concept of stare decisis requires the court in future cases to extend or distinguish past decisions a principled manner.

Or so we thought. At least some in the courts newly constituted majority seem to have a different conception of the judicial role one which allows them simply to refuse to apply past decisions they do not like.

In fact, we can see from this vantage point one way in which the courts decision overruling Roe was actually doubly disrespectful of stare decisis. Those defending the right to abortion (of whom I was one) argued that the courts prior decisions guaranteeing same-sex couples the right to engage in intimate relations and to marry supported an individual right to obtain an abortion. The conservative majority responded in two ways. It first insisted that it accepted those prior decisions. But, without explaining how they could be harmonized with the originalist legal framework that the court said required Roes reversal, the majority also refused to apply those precedents. In short, the court barricaded off its gay rights decisions.

On one level, many surely welcomed the courts announcement that it intends to preserve those important decisions. But this declaration also seems to confirm that the court is now comfortable deciding cases on the basis of pure power or will, not just traditional judicial reasoning.

That is cause for great concern. A core feature of the rule of law is that judicial decisions must be worth more than their resolutions of specific controversies in the past. Otherwise, the value of precedent threatens to become nothing more than the degree to which the current members of the court thinks a prior decision is correct in other words, a system, to invert John Adams famous phrase, of men, not laws.

The rest is here:
Opinion | The Other Way the Supreme Court is Nullifying Precedent - POLITICO

from the extending-the-constitution-free-zone-across-the-country dept

The Constitution-free zone the area within 100 miles of any border crossing, port of entry, or international airport now apparently covers the entire country in perpetuity.

Border agencies mainly Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have steadily increased the number of device searches they do every year. Sometimes the search is limited to scrolling through an unlocked phone, an act that can be performed by a CBP agent even without reasonable suspicion. Then there are the more invasive searches, where the phone is seized temporarily and hooked up to a device to extract information.

These searches should be covered by the Fourth Amendment, thanks to the Riley decision. But, because they happen near the border (or at an inland international airport), they arent. National/border security concerns are elevated above enshrined rights to allow invasive searches with little more than a bit of suspicion. Within this constitutional carve-out, the CBP operates. And the number of invasive device searches it performs has increased exponentially in recent years.

As concerning as this development is, its even more concerning that the CBP appears to have taken a hands-off approach to preventing abuse of the search process or abusive searches of the data collected from these searches. Despite this program having been in operation since 2007, the CBPs Office of Field Operations (OFO) has done almost nothing to measure the programs effectiveness or ensure searches are handled properly and responsibly. This is from a 2018 Inspector Generals report:

[B]ecause of inadequate supervision to ensure OFO officers properly documented searches, OFO cannot maintain accurate quantitative data or identify and address performance problems related to these searches. In addition, OFO officers did not consistently disconnect electronic devices, specifically cell phones, from networks before searching them because headquarters provided inconsistent guidance to the ports of entry on disabling data connections on electronic devices. OFO also did not adequately manage technology to effectively support search operations and ensure the security of data.

All of that leads us to this: the DHS is basically running a program that allows over 3,000 CBP officers to search a database compiled from data pulled from tens of thousands of devices, all without warrants, reasonable suspicion, or even adequate oversight. Heres Drew Harwell with the details for the Washington Post:

U.S. government officials are adding data from as many as 10,000 electronic devices each year to a massive database theyve compiled from cellphones, iPads and computers seized from travelers at the countrys airports, seaports and border crossings, leaders of Customs and Border Protection told congressional staff in a briefing this summer.

The rapid expansion of the database and the ability of 2,700 CBP officers to access it without a warrant two details not previously known about the database have raised alarms in Congress about what use the government has made of the information, much of which is captured from people not suspected of any crime.

Thats all taken from a briefing delivered to Congress earlier this summer, but only made public after Senator Ron Wyden publicly demanded answers from the CBP. His letter [PDF] exposes the breadth and depth of this previously secret program.

Getting into the database is easy: just be anywhere CBP officers are and carry a device. CBP officers will then misinform you about your rights and their intentions while searching your device, should they choose to go that route. Travelers are provided with some info, but much of it is (apparently deliberately) inaccurate, as Wydens letter points out.

CBP told my office that it provides travelers a tear sheet explaining their rights when it seizes a travelers device and copies their data. However, CBP confirmed to my office during a June 20, 2022 briefing that its officers are only required to provide the tear sheet at some time during the search, not at the beginning. Thus, travelers might not see it until after they are coerced into unlocking their devices.

Moreover, the tear sheet provides misleading information regarding their rights and CBPs authority to search their devices. The tear sheet does not tell travelers that CBP will retain their data for 15 years and that thousands of DHS employees will be able to search through it. In fact, the tear sheet misleadingly suggests that CBP will not retain a copy of travelers data absent probable cause. The tear sheet also states that collection of travelers information is mandatory, but fails to convey that CBP may not arrest an American or prevent them from entering the country if they refuse to tell CBP their password.

The CBP is leveraging the lack of constraints in areas surrounding borders to engage in routine warrantless searches of devices. Then it leverages this lack of informed consent and/or border security mandates to compile a massive database that can retain 15 years of info it then searches seemingly at will. When people are faced with the prospect of not being allowed to move on toward their destination, theyll often comply, especially when they are mislead both by CBP officers assertions and the information sheet full of incorrect information.

Lack of information is the guiding principle for the collection and use of this data. Wydens letter notes the CBP retains no records detailing the number of times it performs these advanced searches that pull all data from devices, nor how often it performs advanced searches in comparison to basic searches, which do not involve the 15-year retention of data. It also has not provided any data on how many devices have had their contents added to this database, nor how often officers access this collection.

The reason for this lack of data is explained later in Wydens letter. The CBP simply does not feel like this is information worth collecting. And it doesnt appear to believe it should be closely monitoring use of this database full of Americans personal information.

CBP confirmed during this briefing that it stores this deeply personal data taken, without a warrant signed by a judge, from Americans phones for 15 years and permits approximately 2,700 DHS personnel to search this data at any time, for any reason. CBP officials also revealed that government personnel querying the data are not prompted to record the purpose of the search, even though auditable records of this sort are an important safeguard against abuse.

Wyden urges the CBP to align itself with Ninth Circuit precedent precedent that only allows forensic examination of travelers phones to search for contraband. This would limit unreasonable searches and force the CBP to perform more direct oversight of the program to ensure rights arent violated.

But until that happens (and it will take the Supreme Court to make it happen), the CBP is going to continue doing what its doing. That its secret dragnet has been exposed wont stop it from adding device contents tens of thousands of times a year. And it will take more than some Congressional heat to force it to collect and retain records on its own actions with the same enthusiasm it collects data from innocent Americans devices. Rather than waiting for the right case to land in the Supreme Court, Congress needs to take action to protect rights at the border and recognize that rights shouldnt be suspended just because of where someone happens to be momentarily located.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, border searches, cbp, device searches, phone searches, ron wyden

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Device Searches Have Created A Massive Database Of American Phone Data CBP Agents Can Search At Will - Techdirt

In the scandal surrounding the classified documents Donald Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago, the former president and his lawyers appear to have everything they want. Team Trump insisted that a Trump-appointed judge assign a special master in the case to review the materials, and she complied. Team Trump asked for a specific judge to fill the role, and the Justice Department complied.

Its against this backdrop that the former president and his defense attorneys still have a problem, not with prosecutors, but with the special master they sought out. NBC News reported:

Donald Trumps attorneys said in a filing Monday night that they dont want to disclose to a court-appointed special master which Mar-a-Lago documents they assert the former president may or may not have declassified. In a four-page letter to the special master, Trumps attorneys pushed back against Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearies apparent proposal that they submit specific information regarding declassification to him in the course of his review.

In other words, the Trump-requested arbiter asked the former president and his lawyers to disclose details about the documents he claims to have declassified. They responded that they dont want to comply.

Why not? Because as Team Trump told Dearie, they dont want to be forced to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment.

Or put another way, Team Trump fears that a criminal indictment against the former president or others in his operation might be on the way, and answering the special masters question might undermine a future legal defense.

The process is off to a great start, isnt it?

Complicating matters, this isnt the only area of concern for the Republican. Dearies draft plan also set a deadline of Oct. 7 for the inspection process, while Team Trump responded that it wants to drag out the process until the end of November.

Whats more, a Politico report added, Trumps team also raised concerns about Dearies request for information about whether any subsequent Fourth Amendment litigation filed by Trump to reclaim the documents should be filed with the magistrate judge who authorized the search in the first place: Bruce Reinhart, who Trump has assailed without basis as biased against him.

With U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, everything was a breeze for the former president. The young, conservative jurist simply ignored potential concerns about her professional reputation and gave Trump, who tapped her for the federal bench two years ago, pretty much everything he wanted.

If the Republican expected his handpicked special master to follow Cannons lead, it appears hes going to be disappointed.

Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics."

Go here to read the rest:
Team Trump pushes back against its own special master in docs case - MSNBC