Regarding the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s (R) Mar-a-Lago home,
some legal experts echoed Pelosi, arguing there had to be sufficient evidence to secure a federal search warrant against a former president.
Sounds nice in theory. In practice, it’s not so true. One has only to look at the falsified “evidence” the FBI used to gin up some FISA warrants applications and con FISA judges into granting them.
It’s hard to believe “some legal experts” are so naïve. In fact, I don’t believe those folks, who are so awesomely intelligent, for whom words are their stock in trade, and who are steeped in the mechanics of our legal system, are naïve. Not at all.
There’s this, too, from Attorney Paul Calli:
A prosecutor “can write anything she wishes to convince the court to sign the warrant,” he explained, “and the judge reviewing it has to assume the prosecutor is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Sadly, that is not always the case, and thus it is really the prosecutor who secretly controls the basis on which a warrant is issued.”
Not entirely. When the judge discovers he cannot trust the agent or prosecutor who’s presenting the material in a warrant application, he doesn’t have to sign off on the warrant. An untrustworthy agent is incapable of demonstrating probable cause. Sadly, those FISA judges, even after openly saying they couldn’t trust the FBI agents, continued issuing their Star Chamber warrants.
Judges, including magistrate judges, can be just as complicit as the agents before them in issuing…unjustified…warrants.