Category Archives: legal stuff

the behan school of economic theory

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Let me admit up front that I understand economic theory about as well as I understand quantum field theory. I have, at best, a vague grasp of some of the concepts. This is one of the reasons I belong to the Brendan Behan School of Economic Theory. It may be simple but I find it easy to understand and support. I advocate:

“…that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.”

That’s a solid foundation; start right there and build on it. We should…no, wait. I meant to write about the debt ceiling bullshit. How’d I get distracted this quickly? Okay, rewind. Hit ‘start’.

I find all of this fuss about the debt ceiling to be simultaneously offensive and boring as fuck. It’s perfectly obvious to everybody that the Republican Party is threatening to fuck up the US economy–and the global economy to some extent–unless President Uncle Joe agrees to their demands. What’s less obvious is the astonishing fact that the GOP can’t even agree amongst themselves what their demands are. They’re basically saying, “We’ll shoot your dog unless you agree to do a thing and we’ll let you know what that thing is after you agree to it.”

I’m hoping President Uncle Joe has a secret plan up his sleeve. Or tucked away in a hidden pocket. Or under his hat. He’s been pretty good at teasing the GOP along, then quietly kicking them in the nuts. So it’s a real possibility that he’s openly cooperating with the House Republicans, knowing they’ll never come up with a workable solution, at which point he can say, “I tried to be reasonable” and then just kick them in the nuts.

Personally, I’d prefer it if he just told them to go fuck themselves. He should just tell the Treasury Department to mint the platinum trillion dollar coin and deposit it in the US’s savings account. This idea has been floating in the econoverse for a few decades. Is it legal? Who knows? Do it anyway. Let the Republicans legally challenge it and take it to SCOTUS. That’ll take some time, during which the debts will be paid by the coin and the global economy will continue to totter on.

“Your Honor, justice DEMANDS that we be allowed to fuck up the world’s economy!”

And what happens if SCOTUS says, “Uncle Joe, my dude, you just can’t mint a coin and spend it like that”? Fine, at that point Uncle Joe should just issue an executive order saying the notion of a debt ceiling violates the 14th Amendment. Let the Republicans legally challenge that and take it to SCOTUS. That’ll take more time, during which the debts will be paid and the global economy will continue to totter on.

And if SCOTUS says, “Sorry Uncle Joe, but dude you’ve interpreted the 14th Amendment incorrectly”? Fine, at that point Uncle Joe should just issue an executive order saying the debt ceiling violates the Contracts Clause of the US Constitution. Let the Republicans legally challenge that as well, and take it to SCOTUS. That’ll take still more time, during which the debts will be paid and the global economy will continue to totter on.

And if SCOTUS says, “Uncle Joe, c’mon, that’s not how the Contracts Clause works”? Fine, at that point Uncle Joe should just issue coupon free bonds. I don’t have a clue what a coupon free bond is, but I’ve heard the idea offered as a wonky solution to the debt ceiling. It might be complete bullshit. I don’t care. Whatever it is, let the GOP legally challenge it and take it to SCOTUS. That’ll once again take more time, during which the debts will be paid and the global economy will yada yada yada.

You get the point. If the GOP keeps fucking with the national debt, POTUSUJ should keep fucking with the GOP. He should keep making the Republican Party AND/OR the Republican Party’s SCOTUS responsible for trying to NOT pay the debt. Keep that stupid shit up until it’s time for the 2024 election. Campaign on the GOP (and the sociopath they choose as their nominee) trying desperately to ruin the US economy.

I’ll admit, that’s a shitty way to govern a nation. But the GOP has been enshittifying the US for decades. They’ve succeeded in making the US a fairly shitty nation. But shitty is as shitty does. It’s time we make the Republican Party eat its own sociopathy.

EDITORIAL NOTE: None of this is well thought out. It’s not really a plan. This is just me on a Saturday morning rant while I’m drinking coffee. You’d have to be an idiot to take me serious when I’m talking about economics.

ADDENDUM: Well, who’d a thunk it? Less than a day later, President Uncle Joe and the Squeaker of the House have reached what they call a ‘tentative’ agreement. It fits nicely inside my earlier comment about POTUSUJ “teasing the GOP along, then quietly kicking them in the nuts” except that it appears Uncle Joe has arranged for the GOP to kick themselves in the nuts.

Biden has conceded almost nothing. McCarthy, on the other hand, obtained some small largely symbolic concessions that will make the MAGA wing (can you call it a ‘wing’ when its the majority?) of his party furious, and will likely set the House GOP fighting amongst themselves like rabid wolverines on meth.

confirmed, not convicted

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It’s been nearly 24 hours since eight people (at last count) were murdered while shopping at an outlet mall in Texas. We’re still in that interstitial political period between ‘giving the families of the victims some privacy so they can grieve’ and ‘it’s time to move on and deal with other issues.’ Mass murder has a weird shelf life.

So here’s another issue: today a Manhattan jury will hear the closing arguments in the civil lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll against former president Comrade Donald J. Trump. She’s testified under oath that he raped her in the mid-1990s; he’s posted on social media that she’s lying. Her attorney has brought in supporting witnesses, whose testimony has substantiated Carroll’s claim; his attorney hasn’t offered any affirmative defense.

Remember, this is a civil matter rather than a criminal case. That means the standard of proof is lower. In a criminal case, a jury has to be convinced ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ In a civil case, the jury only has to believe ‘the preponderance of evidence’ favors one side or the other.

Given that the standard of proof is the preponderance of evidence, and that Comrade Trump’s lawyer hasn’t offered any evidence in defense (other than “What? Trump rape? Her? C’mon.”), the verdict seems pretty predictable. Except that juries are, by nature, unpredictable beasts.

If the jury does what any common sense jury would do, Comrade Trump becomes a confirmed rapist. Not a convicted rapist, but a confirmed one. And remember, twenty-six different women have accused Trump of some form of sexual assault. Twenty-six!

Will the Republican Party choose a confirmed rapist to be their nominee for President of the United States? Will they support a man who will very likely be facing even more damning criminal charges? Yep. Almost certainly. That’s the state of the modern GOP.

The next few days will be interesting. We may get a quick verdict’ possibly even today. Almost certainly by tomorrow (this is assuming there are no disruptions in the closing arguments–and that’s NOT a safe assumption).

Regardless of the verdict, Trump is scheduled to hold a ‘town hall’ meeting on CNN on Wednesday night. Will he be there if he’s found liable in the Carroll suit? If he shows up, will CNN ask him about the trial? Will they mention the other 25 women who’ve accused him of sexual assault? Will Comrade Trump, for maybe the first time in his adult life, actually be held accountable for JUST ONE of the countless awful things he’s done?

I don’t know. This is a weird time in history. We can’t rely on anything being ‘normal’ anymore. But…lawdy, we’re close and getting closer.

ADDENDUM: For some reason, the images of Ms. Carroll I see in the news lately make me think of Eowyn in Lord of the Rings.

A sword rang as it was drawn. “Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may.”
“Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!”
Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. “But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am.”

Which also reminds me:

EDITORIAL NOTE: Burn the patriarchal system to the ground. Burn it, pound the ashes into dust, scatter the dust, and salt the fucking earth. Then nuke the site from orbit; you know why.

UPDATE 5/9: Jury has found Trump liable for Sexual Abuse, Forcible Touching, Injury of E. Jean Carroll, Willful and Wanton Negligence, Defamation. False Statements. Malicious Intent, Injury for Defamation, and Acting Maliciously. NOT liable for rape. US$5 million in damages.

truth…matters?

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“The truth matters.” That’s from Justin Nelson, one of the attorneys representing Dominion Voting Systems. “Lies have consequences,” Nelson said. “Today represents a ringing endorsement for truth and for democracy,” according to that same Nelson.

Yeah, that’s mostly bullshit.

Dominion lawyers, cheerfully pocketing cash while democracy dies.

Yes, the truth matters. Can’t find any reason to disagree with that. And yes, lies have consequences. But Dominion’s agreement to settle the case just reinforces the ugly truth that if you can afford the consequence, you get to keep right on lying. That’s the truth that matters.

A ringing endorsement for truth and democracy? Nope. A ringing endorsement for taking the cash and running. A ringing endorsement for selling out democracy. A ringing endorsement for the belief that heavy pockets are more important than representative democracy. A ringing endorsement for the very worst aspects of capitalism.

The ONLY thing that actually happened yesterday was shifting a fuck-ton of money from one corporation to another. That’s it. Fox News may have to fork over a massive amount of cash to Dominion, but they still get to stay in the business of lying and undermining democracy. Dominion gets a big payday. The American people get…well, Fox News.

It’s true that the lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems represented the interests of DVS and not the interest of representative democracy. They had absolutely no legal or ethical obligation to defend the US against growing fascism and the normalization of lying. I wouldn’t be so bitter about this decision if they’d just be honest about it. Admit they settled for a gigantic wad of cash; don’t try to pass this settlement off as an endorsement of democracy. Because that’s as big a lie as any told by Fox News.

This is how democracy dies. Not in darkness, but right out in broad fucking daylight while corporations smile and shake each other’s hand.

fox news bullshit

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I’m something of a news junkie. Every morning, first thing, I read the news (well, among the first things–I mean, there’s coffee to be made and all that). I want to know what’s happening in the world. And that brings me to Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, who said this:

“If you don’t have facts, you can’t have truth. If you don’t have truth, you can’t have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality. We can’t solve any problems. We have no democracy.”

This is pretty basic stuff. A society ought to be able to trust news journalists to present reliable facts. Beyond that, we ought to be able to trust news commentators to present opinions they actually hold. We should be able to assume that any person employed to present facts or opinions are NOT LYING.

And that brings me to this: tomorrow is the first day of the trial in the defamation lawsuit brought against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is suing Fox News for allowing its commentators to tell lies about them. This is a big deal.

Look, we all know Fox News is bullshit. We all know the evening commentators act as the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. We all know Fox News ‘personalities’ like Maria Bartiromo, Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Piro, and Sean Hannity aren’t journalists; Fox lawyers have admitted as much in court. But this case isn’t really about journalism. It’s about defamation.

Defamation is false information that harms the reputation of a person, business, or organization. Fox News commentators spent a big chunk of time after the 2020 election claiming that Dominion Voting Systems 1) was deeply involved in election fraud, 2) had developed an algorithm that somehow rigged vote counts, 3) was owned by a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections (for socialist dictator Hugo Chávez–seriously, I’m NOT making that up), and also 4) paid kickbacks to government officials.

Guess what? That was all bullshit. Also guess what? The people spreading that bullshit KNEW it was bullshit when they spread it. The judge in the case, Eric M. Davis, in pre-trial hearings, has already stated that those claims were all total bullshit (although, to be fair, he didn’t actually use the term ‘bullshit’). He wrote that it was “crystal clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”

But wait, there’s more. Because it’s all bullshit, Judge Davis has also ruled that Fox News can’t argue their ‘contributors’ were simply covering the news (because bullshit ain’t legit news). He further ruled that Fox can’t argue the bullshit could be considered the First Amendment-protected opinions, because there’s plenty of pre-trial evidence demonstrating the hosts KNEW it was bullshit and they didn’t believe it themselves.

So cased closed, right? Fox News loses, right? Dominion wins, right?

Well, yes and no. The jury will have to listen to all the dreary facts; they’ll have to listen to the Fox News commentators testify under oath that they knew they were lying to their viewers (and reader, that testimony is going to be as sweet as Tupelo honey). And THEN the real meat of the case will be presented.

Just to be clear, let me say this again: there’s NO QUESTION that the Fox News commentators were lying sacks of shit. That’s not even at issue. What’s at issue is this: Damages. The jury has to decide if Fox News, by lying and spreading bullshit about Dominion Voting Systems, caused severe damage to the company’s reputation. IF they find Dominion was damaged, then the jury has to decide whether the damage was the result of actual malice.

Actual malice is a legal term of art. Back in 1964, in the case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, SCOTUS defined actual malice as a statement made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” That matters because this is where it all comes down to money.

There are two types of civil damages: compensatory and punitive. Compensatory damages are intended to help the victim; punitive damages, obviously, are intended to punish the offender.

Assuming the jury finds Fox News liable (which ought to be a safe assumption, but you never know when a jury is involved), they’ll first have to decide how much Fox should pay Dominion to compensate for the damage to their business. Then they’ll have to decide if Fox News should be punished financially for deliberately spreading bullshit to the public, and if so, how much.

And that brings us back once again to Maria Ressa. Because Fox News wasn’t just harming Dominion Voting Systems; they were–and still are–harming representative democracy. They’re harming this entire nation. If you don’t have facts, you can’t have truth. If you don’t have truth, you can’t have trust. If you lack trust and truth and facts, you can’t solve society’s problems and you can’t have representative democracy. If you allow a major media platform to deliberately and knowingly spread lies and bullshit to a wide audience, you shred the fabric of society.

And that’s really hard to mend. Compensation for the damage done isn’t enough; punishment is necessary.

actual conspiracies

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Conspiracy theorists aren’t afraid of hard work.They’ll cheerfully concoct massively complicated theories with multiple interacting elements that require flow charts to understand how and why Hillary Clinton was responsible for the murder-by-plane crash of some obscure businessperson in Arkansas. But one of the many many problems with conspiracy theorists is they prefer fantasy theories that fit their worldview over actual theories that may contradict it.

Let’s take a very quick look at the arrest last weekend of former FBI big hat, Charles McGonigal (which is a lovely patronymic name, by the way; from the Gaelic Mac Conghaile, meaning the son of Conghaile which basically means ‘brave as a hound’). Your man McGonigal had what appeared to be a stellar FBI career, dealing with counter-espionage primarily. He joined the FBI in 1996 and was initially assigned to the New York Field Office, where he worked on Russian foreign counterintelligence and organized crime matters. When he retired in 2018, he was the Special Agent in Charge of the Counter-intelligence Division for the New York Field Office.

Why was McGonigal arrested? For money laundering and for helping Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska–a close friend and ally of Vlad Putin–dodge US sanctions imposed against him.

Right now, the MAGA crowd likes to depict the FBI as Trump-haters, largely because they searched Mar-a-Lago and found a hoard of classified documents that Trump had illegally taken and refused to release to the National Archives. But back in 2015-2016, when Trump was running for president, Trump supporters celebrated how much the FBI loved him. The New York Field Office in particular (and remember, McGonigal was in charge of a major FBI section of that office) was openly referred to as Trumplandia. It was the NY Field Office that got FBI Director James Comey to inform Congress (and therefore the news media) of the possible existence of new information that might lead to re-opening the closed investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server. Comey’s letter to Congress, which was written even before the FBI obtained a warrant to explore the possible new information, was made public ten days before the 2016 election. It almost certainly influenced the election result in Trump’s favor. And, of course, it turned out there was no new information.

It was McGonigal’s Counter-intelligence unit that handled the investigation of Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. Remember, Trump and most of his presidential campaign’s inner circle–his sons and daughter, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Rick Gates, and others–had major business interests in Russia. Many of them had business dealings with Oleg Deripaska. In fact, in 2016 Deripaska was suing Trump’s campaign manager, Manafort, for US$25 million over a failed business deal in…wait for it…Ukraine. Manafort was instrumental in changing the 2016 Republican Presidential Platform to remove support for supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine. Why was the US giving weapons to Ukraine in 2016? Because in 2014, Russia (on orders from Putin) invaded and “annexed” the Crimean peninsula and a big chunk of eastern Ukraine.

2016 is also apparently the year in which McGonigal began secretly working with/for Deripaska. That same year, his unit investigated allegations that Russia was interfering with the US election process in support of Donald Trump. Although that investigation was later conducted under the aegis of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel, it was McGonigal’s agents who continued to investigate the matter. Mueller’s report concluded the Trump campaign DID welcome Russian interference in the election and they expected to benefit from it, The report also noted that pervasive obstruction of justice by witnesses made it impossible for McGonigal’s agents to obtain sufficient evidence to claim Trump committed a criminal conspiracy. In addition, there was/is a policy against charging a sitting president with a crime. Mueller did, however, note that Trump could be charged with obstruction of justice (or other crimes) after he left office.

“Rabbits are ruining your garden!” shout the crows.

So just to recap. 1) Putin/Russia seizes parts of Ukraine, 2) Russia leans on the Trump campaign to resist helping Ukraine, 3) the campaign complies, 4) Russia interferes with the election to help Trump, 5) the FBI investigation into that interference is conducted by McGonigal, who 6) is secretly being paid by an ally to Trump, and 7) the investigation fails to find any criminality. Also? 8) in 2019, President Trump lifts most of the sanctions against Deripaska.

This is all well documented in several public news sources. This is an actual conspiracy, a broad and wide-ranging criminal conspiracy.

Can we expect Congress to investigate? Nope. They’ll be too busy trying to figure out how Hunter Biden’s laptop was used by Bill Gates to create a secret Satanic community of cannibalistic pedophiles by secretly releasing a phony ‘plague’ manufactured in China by the Deep State Uniparty to weaken the rights of parents to decide which books their children should avoid to keep them from being groomed by drag queens and harvested for the lymph nodes celebrities need to stay young.

Let’s give the next-to-last word to William Gibson:

People find conspiracy theories fantastically comforting not because they’re more frightening than reality, but because they’re less frightening than reality.

We have nothing (aside from dick pics) to fear from Hunter Biden’s laptop. We have a great deal to fear from people willing to undermine democracy in return for wealth and power.

warranted

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This question/comment was made by a senior economist employed by a major economic policy center:

Seems if we had an attorney general who respected the law, he would send the FBI to ALL of Trump’s residences and tear them apart to look for every damn missing document, just like would happen with a drug lord. What happened to no one being above the law?

Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. And it shouldn’t–not to Trump, not to a drug lord. It’s not gonna happen because we DO have an Attorney General who respects the law. It’s not gonna happen because it’s fucking illegal.

I’ve heard similar questions/comments by other folks. Some of those folks are boneheads, some are smart folks, educated folks, folks who follow the news. I blame television. On television, all a detective has to do is say to some flunky, “I know in my gut that this guy did the crime. I just need to find the evidence. Get me a warrant to search his house!” and hey bingo, the detective gets a warrant.

That just ain’t how it works. Law enforcement–and I’m talking about everybody from the FBI down to officers from your local Mayberry police department–can’t just act on a hunch or a gut feeling. This is pretty basic stuff, and it’s right out of the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

No warrants shall issue. What the hell is a warrant, anyway? The term comes from the Old French ‘garant‘ out of the Frankish ‘warand‘ meaning ‘pledge.’ It’s also the root term for ‘guarantee’ and ‘guard’ and ‘warden’. It means a pledge or guarantee that the information written down has been attested or given under oath.

If the State wants to search a place, they first have to swear an oath that they’ve got a legit reason to do that. There’s a process to this search warrant business, and that process always, without fail, begins with the question, Hey, did somebody break the law here? Is it illegal for Comrade Ex-President Donald J. Trump to stuff classified documents down his pants and take them to Trump Tower or one of his many golf resorts? The answer, of course, is yep. Totally illegal. But you have to be specific; you have to be able to point to an actual criminal statute and be able to say to a judge, “That law right here, that’s the law we believe Trump broke IF he walked away with those documents.“

Step two is another question: Did Trump do that? Did he stuff documents down his pants and walk away? This is where shit gets complicated. Obviously, you can’t prove Trump did that without evidence and you can’t get the evidence to show he did that without searching for it. But you can’t search for it until you can convince a judge that (okay, here’s some legal-sounding language) you have sufficient credible information to establish that Trump probably did that.

The judge will expect you to lay out what that information is, how you got that information, why you believe the information is credible, and your qualifications to justify your belief in the credibility of that information. So you tell the judge, “The Archives reports that Trump was supposed to give them all his shit after he left office, but there’s shit they KNOW exists and they don’t have it, so probably Trump does. The Archives haven’t ever lied to us before and we’re seriously experienced and skeptical FBI agents, and we trust them, so there.”

So yeah, you’ve shown that a crime was probably committed and Trump probably committed it. Now comes Step three: finding the damned evidence. Now you have to convince a judge that you’ve got good reason to believe the evidence of that specific crime exists and can be found in these specific locations. In the Mar-a-Lago search, the FBI told the judge, “We got us some witnesses who saw Comrade Donald J. Trump stuff like TWO truckloads of boxes labeled Classified Shit down his pants at the White House, and witnesses who saw those same boxes unloaded from his pants at Mar-a-Lago, and we’ve even got witnesses who saw those boxes in Trump’s basement and in his goddamned office, if you can believe it, where all sorts of loopy people go wandering through.”

The FBI had all that for Mar-a-Lago. So they were able to convince a judge to issue a search warrant and do the search. They apparently don’t have everything they need to get a warrant for Trump Tower or any of Trump’s other golf resorts. Not yet. But we know they’re talking to folks with information about those locations. So they’re working on it.

Why is this search and seizure business so complicated? To protect innocent people. To keep the agents of the State from wandering through anybody’s home or place of business on the off chance that maybe they’ll find something illegal. It’s to stop them from just walking into YOUR home or your office, opening YOUR drawers, snooping through YOUR closets, rummaging around in YOUR kitchen, or trolling through YOUR private stuff on YOUR computer.

The irony, of course, is that if Comrade Trump were ever to have power again, that sleazy motherfucker absolutely WOULD want to be able to do that.

stuff is happening

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Three things, in reverse order.

Third, the FBI seized the cell phone of Congressman Scott Perry. This is what Perry his ownself had to say about it.

“This morning, while traveling with my family, 3 FBI agents visited me and seized my cell phone. They made no attempt to contact my lawyer, who would have made arrangements for them to have my phone if that was their wish.”

Dude, c’mon; the FBI just didn’t want to give you the chance to destroy whatever evidence you probably have stashed on your phone.

Now, you may be wondering, “Greg, old sock, just who in the buttered popcorn fuck is this Scott Perry of whom you speak?” Perry is your basic MAGA fuckwit of the Pennsylvania variety. He had a successful military career, then went into business. While a businessman, he was criminally charged with conspiring to falsify state-mandated sewage records (no, I’m NOT making that up). But because he was a white corporate Republican donor, he was “allowed to complete a diversion program” which let him skate without a criminal conviction. I’m not saying his criminal history helped his political career, but PA voters went and made him a Member of Congress anyway. In Congress, he became a big hat in Comrade Trump’s attempts to steal the election. He was instrumental in the attempt to install Jeffrey Clark as Attorney General, and he was a proponent of the Dominion voting machine conspiracy theory. He was also one of the GOP members of Congress who explicitly requested a pardon after the 1/6 coup failed. (SPOILER: he didn’t get one.)

So yeah, the FBI wanted his cell phone and they didn’t want to take the chance that Perry might accidentally drop his phone in a wood chipper. I mean, they almost certainly already know what’s on his phone (that’s how they justify a search warrant), but having the instrument of criminality right in your hands is a LOT more compelling when presented to a jury in a criminal trial. So Perry, who was ignored by Trump during his Pardon-O-Rama, might feel a wee bit less loyal now. I’m sure the 1/6 Committee is anxious to chat with him. So, good times ahead.

Second, today Comrade Trump finally had to testify UNDER OATH during a deposition by the NY Attorney General, who is investigating Trump’s business practices. She’s looking into allegations of fraud. Trump TOOK THE FIFTH and refused to answer questions. Just to be clear, the Fifth Amendment can be invoked when somebody (like Trump) believes a truthful answer would incriminate them. This is a civil matter, not a criminal matter, BUT unlike a criminal case, taking the Fifth in a civil case allows a judge or jury to make the appropriate inference (SPOILER: which is that the motherfucker is guilty). So, more good times ahead.

“Do I have to answer that question? I don’t want to answer that question.”

But first, hey bingo, the FBI’s unannounced warranted search of Mar-a-Lago. Obviously, we don’t know WHY the FBI showed up and went rifling through Trump’s stuff. All we know for certain is that the FBI gave a judge enough information for the judge to believe that a specific crime had taken place, and that evidence of that crime could be found in fairly specific places in Trump’s resort/home. At this point, we don’t know what was in the affidavit supporting the search warrant. And it would be unwise for us to speculate.

LET’S SPECULATE ANYWAY!

If it was small beans–like, say, Trump or his aides had failed to return documents that rightly belonged in the National Archives–it seems likely that Trump or one of his many attorneys would release the search warrant. They have the authority to do that.

They haven’t. Which suggests to me that it’s not small beans. The fact that this happened a couple of days ago, but no reporter seems to have been able to get somebody in the FBI or DOJ to leak even a hint of the underlying crime alleged in the search warrant also, to me, suggests it’s not small beans. There IS, however, some reporting indicating that somebody dropped a dime on Trump–that somebody was aware a serious crime had happened or was about to happen.

It seems improbable (to me, at any rate) that this would be related to Trump’s attempted coup. I mean, we basically know the fact pattern of that crime, and the 1/6 Committee very likely already has all the critical documentary evidence they need. So why would the FBI feel the need to act quickly? And why isn’t Trump releasing the search warrant?

I’m speculating like a motherfucker here, BUT I’m thinking the boxes of documents the FBI seized included stuff that foreign governments would love to get their hands on. And I’m thinking Trump, being Trump, not only took classified shit that didn’t belong to him, that he had no right to take, also couldn’t be bothered to keep that classified shit safe from all the MAGA assholes and foreign visitors who wander around Mar-a-Lago.

And that, oh my droogs, is a BIG fucking crime under Title 18, Chapter 37 of the US Code. And now you’re wondering, “Greg, old sock, what is this Chapter 37 bidness?” I’m about to tell you.

18 U.S. Code Chapter 37 – ESPIONAGE

This isn’t to say Comrade Trump is a spy, or even that he (or somebody near him, like, say Jared Pencilneck) is/was planning to sell classified documents. It just means that Trump possessed classified shit that didn’t belong to him, that he had no right to have in his possession, and that he wasn’t protecting it.

Again, this is just me speculating. And in the interest of honesty, I should also remind you that I also speculated that there was no way in hell that Donald Trump could ever be elected President of the United States. So my speculating record isn’t exactly stellar.

Oh, and stop calling me ‘old sock.’