The Trump Campaign Makes Political Gambit By Claiming An "Assassination" Plot -- And Special Counsel Jack Smith Takes The Bait

Will this be his path to the Eleventh Circuit to Seek Recusal of the Florida Judge That All His Fanboys In The Media Have Been Urging Him to Find?

The Judge in the Florida documents case last week continued to issue Orders authorizing the public filing of motions that have been pending for some time. Under a protective order sought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, these motions have certain information redacted that is not yet meant to be part of the public record. So for many weeks the process happening behind closed doors is that the parties have been exchanging suggested redacted versions of these motions until all sides are satisfied. At that point the Judge issues and Order for the motions to be filed on the public docket.

So, it is important to understand that while the Defense Motion to Suppress evidence taken during the Mar A Lago search is stamped as having been filed May 21, 2024, it was actually filed under seal with the Court on February 22, 2024. So everything that follows below was known between the parties and to the Court for about 3 months. Which makes the fact that the SCO was blindsided by the events of Wed. through Friday even more hilarious.

I want to make one point here right at the start, and will call out any comments that engage in bad faith arguments to the contrary: The following are different questions with different responses:

1. Whether the DOJ and FBI were justified in resorting to use of a court issued search warrant in what was an ongoing dispute between FPOTUS Trump and the Biden Administration over the return of documents taken to MAL at the end of the Trump Administration. [Note that I didn’t say “who” took them to MAL. That has turned out to be an interesting question.]

2. Whether in planning to conduct the court-approved search the FBI should have taken more care in drafting the planning documents on the subject of the application of the long-standing DOJ/FBI policy regarding authorized use of deadly force.

I was involved in very public spats on “X” with regard to the second issue, and many less-than-knowledgable “pundits” attacked my points as if I was defending the DOJ/FBI as to the firs issue. At no point have I EVER said that use of a search warrant for former President Trump’s residence at MAL was justified. In fact, in the days after some of the paperwork was released I pointed to problems that I thought could lead to a suppression of the search. I did an almost 2 hours Spaces in the days after the search with Margot Cleveland of The Federalists when we discussed problems with the search and its unprecedented nature.

When the motion to suppress was released this past week, the early reporting talked about “Use of Deadly Force” being authorized in the “warrant.” I pointed out that wasn’t true because nothing in any of the paperwork for seeking a “warrant” deals with use of force. The only issues in a warrant that speak to the manner in which a warrant shall be served concern “No Knock” (not employed here) and time of day for serving which is normally between 6:00 am and 10:00 pm. Night-time service requires express court approval on the face of the warrant itself.

Later it was obvious that the references to the “warrant” were made by a pundit who didn’t understand the document being referred to. It was actually the FBI 888, the “Operations Plan” document created internally at the FBI ahead of conducting a search. The Ops Plan contained the references the “Use of Force” policy — as do all FBI 888 Ops Plans since the language is part of the macro into which operational information is typed. .

It is also worth remembering that at the time of the search Jack Smith had not yet been named Special Counsel — FPOTUS Trump had not announced yet that he was running again in 2024, and the investigation of both the documents case and the January 6 case were in the hands of Biden DOJ appointees.

In the Motion to Suppress, the defense took what is standard language in an FBI created document used in planning to conduct a search and fashioned it into a political narrative that advanced its quite accurate claims about the documents case being an unprecedented effort to go after FPOTUS Trump in order to keep him off the 2024 ballot.

The story quickly advanced into the political bloodlines of the campaign when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green made the public claim that the FBI planning document was actually an operational effort by the DOJ/FBI to take the opportunity to assassinate FPOTUS Trump if one presented itself.

But let’s look at the politics and how Jack Smith is now engaged in an operation to throw gas on the fire in the hope that — well something, I’m not exactly sure what.