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Home » This is the leading MAL-raid theory, shared by many

This is the leading MAL-raid theory, shared by many

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “T J Olson” writes:

Federal defense attorney and aggressive Con Law advocate, Robert Barnes, has an unexpected take on the Deep State’s further engagement with ex-Prez Trump.

He believes that it wasn’t egregious overreaching. Instead, he argues that indications support his argument that Trump asked heads of Departments what documents they absolutely would not want to see declassified? (This has been mooted elsewhere.)

And then declassified them and secreted them away as insurance over the Deep State.

Thus, Barnes argues that the MAL raid was an aggressive attempt by the Deep State to regain possession of said documents from Trump and keep their wrongful heinous deeds hidden or simply destroyed outright.

The huge size and strategy of going in — hoping to be secretive and hoping that if discovered, it would redound against Trump, smacks of audacious desperation! In other words, incredibly risky.

Further, he thinks that an overly broad warrant is consistent with his theory.

He adds many details. I have to listen again to his development of his points, from around 20 to 60 minutes mark, in this recent interview hosted by Viva Frei.

I haven’t yet listened, although I plan to do so. Barnes is always interesting although I certainly don’t always agree with him, but I’ve found him to be best on this sort of thing: domestic legal matters of a political nature. What’s more, his explanation is actually one that I’ve seen espoused by quite a few other pundits, although the exact details might differ. In these scenarios, it is usually Russiagate that is the subject of the documents. But the basic idea is that Trump has documents that implicate the intelligence community in wrongdoing and they want to get them back and make sure they stay classified and hidden, as well as to discredit Trump and keep him from being elected again. It makes a lot of sense.

The thing is, just about anyone who’s going to believe that the intelligence community is implicated in wrongdoing towards Trump, based on such documents, almost certainly already knows it. After all, there’s been plenty of other evidence in that vein. And the vast majority of those who don’t realize it by now (or who applaud it) probably will never change their minds, no matter what evidence is presented.

Things have gotten very bad, and although I’ve been cynical about these things for a long time, I’ve only gotten more so. I’m sorry to say that and I hope my increased cynicism is not justified, but I fear it is.

[NOTE: If you want to become even more depressed about the state of the US, please read what Julie Kelly has to say. I believe she is correct.]

Comments

This is the leading MAL-raid theory, shared by many — 44 Comments

  1. It is not easy to avoid becoming cynical and depressed about the state of our republic, nor do recent events augur well for its future. The critical question which remains is what will be the reaction of roughly half the citizenry, should the sensible and rational Julie Kelly be proven prescient, to such an unprecedented and unconstitutional outrage?

  2. Maybe Robert Barnes is right. Personally, I don’t think it needs to be that convoluted. Democrats guffawed at Trump’s 2016 rally chants of “lock her up”. That was all about Hillary’s mishandling of classified data. We already know the FBI is fairly partisan in favor to Hillary. Not only did they hardly investigate her crimes, Comey invented “intent” language into clear statute text that disallowed intent as a defense. And after a few years of pushing a Hillary dossier that was fake yet still made Trump look bad; what would it take for the FBI to take action on an opportunity to make Trump look like a hypocrite and maybe even hoist him upon his own petard?

    As for Trump trying to get dirt to air later? Maybe, but if he did, then when did he plan on airing this? What would be his reasoning for waiting? If Trump is right, and he was already working with the National Archives and the FBI to return this information; then why not move to expose the information before it got back into the archives?

  3. Read Julie Kelly it’s well worth reading
    Neo this does make the most sense of why they did it, and until we, if ever know good as any theory.

  5. Fancy that. Whistleblowers from the FBI! Dollars to donuts Trump knows more about what the FBI is doing than the FBI itself.

  6. Does the DOJ’s real motive matter? They will conceal it as long as possible and when it’s out the MSM will do their bidding and cover the story – with a pillow, until it stops breathing.

    All they have to do is run out the clock until November. If they can’t indict Trump, they will use their “investigation” as fodder to smear all Trump supporters who are running for election. It’s all about the politics of personal destruction, IMO.

    Alinsky’s Rule 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
    They are trying to create a threat to Trump that may or may not exist. But they’ve even got July Kelly frightened.

    We’re living in dark times

  7. Obama was very intent on packing the DC Circuit with his operatives. Now we see why. The Supreme Court showed its cowardice as Pennsylvania election officials defied Alito’s ruling to separate late mail-in ballots.

    I have seen a comparison of Trump to Shane, the fictional hero who rids the town of evil, then rides off wounded. The hatred is just too intense and sanity is in short supply. I don’t know what will happen. Fortunately, I am old and well armed.

  8. she has seen the Black Hole of DC, the Cabana, the Bastille, and how the machine has treated those who were unfortunate enough to venture into its maw,
    Kristol is targeting Walker, of course you have had the attempted lustrations of greene and boebert and cawthorne and gaetz, only one worked so far,

  9. What the TDS leftist fanatics fail to grasp is that Trump is the only thing between them and reaping the whirlwind they are sowing.

    Effectively make active political disagreement too costly even illegal, effectively remove the ability to vote for the redress of grievance and you ensure that politics by other means will eventuate.

    The flip side to the left’s technological superiority is the vulnerability its inherent dependence requires.

    The flip side to the convenience of urban abundance is the dependence upon “just in time” supply chain delivery and the absolute importation of every necessity.

    They think that it is we who are weak, when it is they who stand upon the narrowest of precipices.

  10. Meh, I find myself saying “anything’s possible” a lot these days but if Trump had these documents would he keep them at his home and bargain with the FIB about their return? Or would he hide them at an undisclosed location and not acknowledge their existence?

  11. Geoffrey … “those urban areas are so unsafe these days … we shouldn’t be sending trucks into them with our stuff … let’s find other, safer places to do business …”

    AMartel … or would Trump have been expecting the FIBbies to “visit”, made copies of the declassified material with appropriate time/date stamping and photo evidence to validate their authenticity, let the FIBbies pick up the originals … then when they start to selectively use them against him while hiding the rest, he produces the copies and tells “the rest of the story” such that neither the media nor the System can ignore or suppress it.

  12. Lelad: Trump apparently intended to release the documents as part of his RICO suit against Hillary and others:

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thecentersquare.com/florida/florida-judge-who-approved-fbi-warrant-for-raid-on-mar-a-lago-was-assigned-to/article_279ac9ac-18e3-11ed-aee1-b366358fef4d.amp.html

    And the judge assigned to that case is the same one who authorized the MAL search. I assume that they will now argue the documents Trump retained can’t be introduced into evidence because they are tied up in Garland’s criminal investigation.

  13. Like the Afghanistan bug-out I doubt there was one mastermind and one masterplan behind the Mar-a-Lago raid. I don’t see that kind of strategy at the White House and with the Democrats these days.

    I suspect the biggest motivation is the midterm elections three months away and the consequent panic to Do Something for 2022 and farther off the Presidential election in 2024. Trump is still a terrible danger.

    Sure, see if Trump is holding incriminating RussiaGate papers or anything that might be held against him. And if Melania has a dominatrix costume in her closet, well, ho-ho-ho! even better.

  14. @Gothamite: As I understand it, Reinhardt was forced to recuse himself from the Trump/Clinton RICO suit. It was apparently because of his ties to Clinton rather than bias against Trump; it doesn’t really help the presence of his signature on the warrant come off any better.

  15. If the dirt is for a lawsuit that is already filed; then Trump’s lawyers’ have copies of the documents. Getting Trump’s files are pointless. If Trump and his lawyers are not idiots; then they’ll have a poison pill for any attempt to raid the legal offices and get the remaining copies. Still, I don’t think believe it is this convoluted. The Russian collusion hoax wasn’t this well thought out.

  16. I wonder if Trump has extry copies of “said documents.” Just wondering. But pay no attention to this comment, Deep Staters!

  18. Tucker has become the present day Rush Limbaugh. His producers must be terrific at finding this stuff. He is also fearless in presenting it. He left DC to avoid harassment of his family. As far as I am concerned he is the only thing on Fox worth watching. I understand a lot of viewers agree.

  19. Actually, Boobah, there is plenty of evidence of Reinhardt’s visceral bias against Trump from his social media postings. Along with his ties to Clinton there is no way he can oversee this case.

    That is, if ethics mean anything. More likely this is why Garland chose to go before this Federal Magistrate rather than a U.S. District Court Judge.

    I wasn’t sure what Barnes meant when he said the raid “wasn’t egregious overreaching.” Of course it was. I do believe that the DoJ/FBI raiders had a “personal interest” in those seized documents. It’s in and of itself illegal to use the classification system to hide illegal activity or merely embarrassing information. Naturally, that happens all the time.

    Obviously Trump should have made this declassified information public as soon as he declassified it. I find it naive in the extreme that Trump and his Chief of Staff Meadows actually expected expected the very people whose “wrongful heinous deeds” are implicated by those documents (if Barnes is right) to actually carry out administration orders to mark them declassified. It doesn’t mean they’re not declassified, as the President is the ultimate declassification authority and no President has to follow a specific process.

    But why let the deep state swamp creatures have any role in the declassification of those documents? I’m amazed at Trump’s lapses in judgement.

    Naturally this raid can serve multiple purposes. They may go the illegal retention of classified information route. A Washington D.C. jury would convict Trump no matter what the law says. And they’re trying to pin some sort of Jan. 6 conspiracy crimes on him. They’re also trying to obstruct Trump’s lawsuit against Clinton and her Russiagate co-conspirators because that would implicate the DoJ/FBI senior leadership; they were clearly knowing, willing participants. And they’re trying to protect themselves from who knows what additional legal consequences as well. The reason they wanted crooked Hillary! and now the Biden crime family is that they’re eyeball deep in the corruption for personal gain. They’re not doing this out of loyalty. Since they have dirt on the Clintons/Bidens that’s their insurance policy.

    P.S. Liz Cheney is going down in flames, so there is good news.

  24. Yes the search warrants were overbroad. Almost all search warrants are overbroad. That was a good thing, or anyway no one cared, when they were directed at drug smugglers, human traffickers and terrorists, but now we notice.

  25. nah. Trump is not subtle. I think if he had documents as Kash Patel implies they would have been released.

  26. Yes, Barnes is often insightful. And often well informed, and more aware than I.

    But the glaring supposition is that the Deep State is very rationally calculating what Trump has done or will do. Not only does Trump’s public negotiator persona project a confusing uncertainty, the Left routinely disparages him as dumb and stupid for it, if not also outright dangerous..

    How does Barnes suppose that the DS suddenly gets a rapier or sniper-like clue? And sets out to prevent Trump’s actual goal from hitting its target “because…they must”?

    That’s a high bar against plausibility. Especially since envy and gullibility and disdain is so evident among the FIB.

    And how does a DS possessed by groupthink suddenly gain independence of mind? At least among its leadership?

    Again, I think the obvious Truth about the functioning of the DS and their motives and goals is most likely. And this, in this case, Barnes is being too cleaver in supposing that they are acting — or trying to act — cleavely.

  27. In fact, what Tucker recounts in the second half (or last third) here suggests that the DS is beset by mass institutional insecurity — because there’s nothing focused or mindful about their acts of aggression against so many slightly dissenting Americans.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74lDvZ1IP

  28. Hope the theory is right. But it has a whiff of the fantastic claims about voting machines, in 2020.

    In that pre-election maneuvers, Trump team seemed to have been caught flat-footed. Hope he learnt from that and out-foxed the deep state.

  29. I think the hiding away part is so not Trump. Had he acquired and declassified incriminating evidence I believe he would have broadcast it immediately.
    President Donald Trump does do sneaky. The very idea of secreting them away as collateral does not scan with Trump. That is a very deep state way to operate.
    The raiders were looking for anything they can use against him, if they also sought to secure something dangerous to themselves then Trump wasn’t aware of what he had. If he knew, we would all know.

  30. I’m sorry, I don’t buy the story about Trump holding information to release “at the right time.” It sounds like a convenient cover that allows Trump to keep his supporters believing that he has (or had) damning information without the need to actually produce that information. It’s the oldest trick in the showman’s bag, and Trump is nothing if not a showman.

    I’m am also up-to-my-neck tired of these Trump stories driven by leaks. Garland went on about how he was ethically or prudentially bound to silence about the particulars of the MAL raid. All the while, his department is leaking like a screen door on a submarine – all to shape the narrative. Most of the public debate on the issue is based on the narrative driven by unethical leaks from the DOJ that, as we know from previous Trump “scandals,” is likely to bear only a passing resemblence to reality. At least Trump is (now) a private citizen while he plays the leak game. Garland is charged with leading an institution whose credibility is important to all of us. I can’t tell if Garland is a fool or a knave, but it’s one of the two.

    Frankly, though, Garland, Biden, and Trump all deserve each other. The sooner we get them all off of the stage the better off the country will be.

  31. “Garland went on about how he was ethically or prudentially bound to silence about the particulars of the MAL raid.”

    It’s just “Biden”‘s much-vaunted “TRANS-PARENCY” kicking in once again….

    BTW, WRT “ethically” or “prudently”…it’s got to be “ethically”…most certainly “ethically”…
    (Democratic party “ethics”, that is…)

    As for not being certain “if Garland is a fool or a knave”…well, I don’t think that’s too tough a call… (But if one does find it perplexing one could always go ask public school parents—across the nation but Virginia might be a start—for a bit of help …)

  32. “…suggests that the DS is beset by mass institutional insecurity — because there’s nothing focused or mindful about their acts of aggression against so many slightly dissenting Americans.”

    I think “insecurity” is correct; but I don’t believe it’s unfocused or unmindful. To the contrary, in fact.

    It’s the same “insecurity” demonstrated by your typical totalitarian (or wannabee).
    It’s sheer fear—necessarily concealed by an iron fist (and preferably a wide smile); that is, it’s wedded to the belief in—and need for—one’s invincibility.
    We COULD call it “insecurity” combined with the necessity to get rid of anyone who dissents, who is perceived to dissent or who may potentially dissent.
    It is this arbitrariness, which may lead one to—mistakenly—believe that totalitarian behavior is “unfocused” or “undmindful”. In fact, the goal of holding on to power at all costs is ANYTHING BUT arbitrary.

    I realize I tend to get carried away…so here’s the short version:
    For “Biden” (and his ilk), there is no such thing as “SLIGHTLY dissenting”…

  33. “The huge size and strategy of going in — hoping to be secretive and hoping that if discovered, it would redound against Trump…”

    I was wondering why Lockstep Twitter was blaring “The FBI was trying to keep this low-key, but loudmouth Trump blew it up and made a fool of himself”. And this after blaring “show the warrant, Trump, what are you hiding?”

    These unison mobs, when viewed by somebody who is not on social media, are laughable, but I guess they serve some demented purpose, although I’m starting to get the idea that there are a lot of people on Twitter who are not very smart.

  34. but I’ve found him to be best on this sort of thing: domestic legal matters of a political nature

    That is my experience. When it comes down to actual court cases he has a cold eye and is realistic and analytic. OTOH, I find his takes on foreign policy and such more questionable, but worth noticing if only to know such views are out there.

  35. I think that he is going too far. Rather, I would look no further than the Counterintelligence Division at the FBI. THIS IS WHERE Peter Strzok and Kevin Clinesmith worked, where Crossfire Hurricane was hatched and run out of, etc. they worked closely with the Mueller investigation, etc. Then, after Barr took over the DOJ, they started almost to face accountability. Trump tried for the last year in office to declassify what they had done. He failed. His last day in office, he overrode all of their objections, and ordered those documents declassified, subject to normal privacy concerns. It apparently was never done – FBI CD apparently believing that Trump out of office, thanks partially to their hard work, they weren’t bound by his executive order to declassify those documents.

    Why do I think that the FBI CD is involved here? One reason is the wording of the search warrant – they were looking for documents marked classified or higher. And the most likely source of those would be the documents Trump had ordered declassified, and hadn’t been. Then Trump is supposedly found to have documents marked classified or higher. Could they be those very same documents ordered declassified but weren’t? =Another thing is that the CD is the primary location for handling classified documents in the FBI (the other one is their sister Counterterrorism Division). Theft of nuclear secrets? CD! Etc.

  37. I think there’s a sizable population of people in the middle that don’t really have a solid opinion on Russiagate. I do think those people could be convinced that the government acted egregiously in breaking the law if the right documents are released. Only problem is, that would require the media to cover it accurately and they’ll do no such thing. Granted, seeing them egregiously denying reality may convert some of them.

  38. Sounds right, Bruce.
    It also would seem to explain what never made sense to me: i.e., the DOJ claim—I believe it was a DOJ claim—that they were acting on information from a mole.

    To me that sounded like a cheap excuse, a doubtful justification.
    Like DAMAGE CONTROL.
    A fabrication to get the skeptics off their backs, at least somewhat.
    A false lead to keep the multitudes—analysts, commentators, pundits…and general public—guessing.
    P.T. Barnum stuff. (“This way to the egress…”)

    For what the Democrats want to do to Trump, they don’t need a mole.
    They don’t need anything, really.
    They’ll just do what they do, claim what they claim, manufacture what they manufacture and fabricate what they believe they have to.
    And say they can’t divulge any of it because of “national security”.
    (Ah, the beauty of it….)

    They are driven, full of “terrible intensity”…and will stop at nothing.

  39. “…they were looking for documents marked classified or higher. And the most likely source of those would be the documents Trump had ordered declassified, and hadn’t been.”– Bruce Hayden

    Small quibble. The documents were declassified by President Trump on Jan. 19, 2021. They have never been released.

    I think a potential problem if President Trump took the documents with him is they would not have the proposed redactions insisted on by DOJ and agreed to in that Jan. 19 memorandum.

    Senator’s Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson have made repeated unsuccessful attempts to get DOJ to release the Crossfire Hurricane documents.

    https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/biden-admin-continues-to-conceal-declassified-crossfire-hurricane-records

    No one has produced a document by the President showing that all documents he took to his personal residence were considered declassified. The closest is this statement in an article by John Solomon, “Two former senior aides who worked for Trump in the latter half of his term said they were aware that Trump routinely took documents to the residence rather than return them to the Staff Secretary or the intelligence official who provided them. Asked whether there was a standing order, one former official “I don’t know anyone or anything that disputes that.””

    Solomon concludes his story with this: “Officials said it is likely the FBI will seek to find any officials or witnesses who knew or can confirm there was a “standing order” as described by the Trump statement. But in the end, officials said the president’s declassification powers were sweeping and likely would be viewed as such by the courts.”

  40. The difficulty I have with this notion is that I haven’t seen any record of declassification. Just as a piece of land isn’t really sold in the United States until the transaction has been recorded by the govt(usually a county/parish/borough official) I don’t see how something can be considered declassified until it has been ‘recorded’ somewhere, I don’t know where. Without an official ‘recording’ ex-Presidents would be in court all the time, answering the question “Did you declassify this document?”

    This same question applies to presidential pardons.

  41. Trump will be indicted.

    But I think he should be tried in Omaha instead of DC. Something like 90% of DC voted for Biden.

    What I want to know is if that warrant is considered a general warrant, then the documents could be suppressed at trial. But I doubt I’m right about this.

  42. Bauxite,

    “Frankly, though, Garland, Biden, and Trump all deserve each other. The sooner we get them all off of the stage the better off the country will be.”

    Pathetic try at equivalence. Garland and Biden are hard at work attempting to destroy America and end our liberty. Which BTW, includes your right to life liberty and your pursuit of happiness.

    Whereas Trump for all his personal flaws is fighting to save America. He has few notable allies in that fight.

  43. Cornhead,

    What are odds that the DOJ will allow Trump to be tried outside of DC?

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