‘DARK TIMES FOR OUR NATION’ … DONALD TRUMP REVEALS BIDEN ADMIN RAID ON HIS FLORIDA ESTATE… TRUMP STATEMENT, 6:51 PM MONDAY NIGHT:
These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate. It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections. Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. They even broke into my safe! What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.
The political persecution of President Donald J. Trump has been going on for years, with the now fully debunked Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and so much more, it just never ends. It is political targeting at the highest level!
Hillary Clinton was allowed to delete and acid wash 33,000 E-mails AFTER they were subpoenaed by Congress. Absolutely nothing has happened to hold her accountable. She even took antique furniture, and other items from the White House.
I stood up to America’s bureaucratic corruption, I restored power to the people, and truly delivered for our Country, like we have never seen before. The establishment hated it. Now, as they watch my endorsed candidates win big victories, and see my dominance in all polls, they are trying to stop me, and the Republican Party, once more. The lawlessness, political persecution, and Witch Hunt must be exposed and stopped.
I will continue to fight for the Great American People!
RAID LAST 9.5 HOURS… FBI BROKE INTO TRUMP’S SAFE… BRIAN ENTIN, NEWSNATION: Per sources: search warrant at Mar-a-Lago was related to retention of classified docs. FBI showed up at 9am and left at 6:30pm. They were in plain clothes — so club staff likely thought they were secret service. That is why it didn’t leak earlier.
FBI did not notify secret service about the raid until right before. 3 Trump lawyers showed up during the raid. Safe referred to in Trump statement was in his office which is the old bridal suite above the ballroom. It is a hotel style safe. FBI broke it open.
FBI only took documents specifically related to search the warrant — they knew what they were looking for. Evidence will initially be taken to South Florida FBI office.
THE WARRANT WAS FOR ‘PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS’ … REMINDER: TRUMP COULD DECLASSIFY ANYTHING HE WANTED… NYT: The search appears to be focused on materials Trump took from the White House.
The search, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation, appeared to be focused on material that Mr. Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence, when he left the White House. Those boxes contained many pages of classified documents, according to a person familiar with their contents.
Mr. Trump delayed returning 15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives for many months, only doing so when there became a threat of action to retrieve them. The case was referred to the Justice Department by the archives early this year. […]
Eric Trump, one of his sons, told Fox News that he was the one who informed his father that the search was taking place, and he said the search warrant was related to presidential documents. […]
The law governing the preservation of White House materials, the Presidential Records Act, lacks teeth, but criminal statutes can come into play, especially in the case of classified material. […]
The question of how Mr. Trump handled classified material is complicated because as president he had the authority to declassify any government information. It is unclear whether Mr. Trump, before leaving office, had declassified materials the archives discovered in the boxes. Under federal law, he no longer maintains the ability to declassify documents after leaving office.
FBI ALSO WENT TO MAR A LAGO IN JUNE… KAITLAN COLLINS: News — In early June, investigators made a rare visit to Mar-a-Lago seeking more info about material taken from the White House. The 4 officials, including Jay Bratt, chief of Counterintelligence & Export Control at DOJ, met w/ two of Trump’s attorneys. Trump stopped by briefly.
Investigators asked to see where docs were stored. Trump’s attorneys took them to a basement room and they looked around before leaving. Days later, Trump’s attorneys got a letter asking them to further secure the room. Aides subsequently added a padlock, I am told.
‘I’VE SEEN ENOUGH’ … HOUSE GOP LEADER KEVIN MCCARTHY: Attorney General Garland: preserve your documents and clear your calendar. (STATEMENT)
RON DESANTIS: The raid of MALis another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves. Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.
KRISTI NOEM:The FBI raid on President Trump’s homeis an unprecedented political weaponization of the Justice Department.They’ve been after President Trump as a candidate, as President, and now as a former President. Using the criminal justice system in this manner is un-American.
‘THAT’S WHAT YOU SEE IN PLACES LIKE NICARAGUA’ … MARCO RUBIO: Biden is playing with fireby using a document dispute to get the @TheJusticeDept to persecute a likely future election opponent Because one day what goes around is going to come around And then we become Nicaragua under Ortega (VIDEO)
‘THIS IS A FREAKING DISGRACE’ … Dan Bongino Goes Ballistic, Calls Trump Raid ‘Third World Bullshit’ Live On Fox News (VIDEO)
RECALL THE MEDIA TEETH GNASHING ABOUT ‘LOCK HER UP’ … MICHAEL TRACEY: “Lock Her Up” was supposed to be such a disturbing, authoritarian mantra because it signaled Trump’s intention to deploy the federal law enforcement apparatus against his political enemies. Which never happened — but the inverse of it may be
BIDEN WHITE HOUSE SWEARS THEY DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT… NYT: President Biden’s top aides found out about the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago from reports on Twitter and had no advance notice, according to a Democratic source familiar with the matter. Senior White House officials saw the news via former President Trump’s statement, released shortly before 7 p.m. Eastern.
TOP OBAMA ADVISOR EXPRESSES SHOCK… David Axelrod On Trump Raid:‘This Has Never Been Done In The History Of Our Country’ (VIDEO)
“If you are going to prosecute a former president of the United States, you’d better be pretty darn sure that you have an open-and-shut case. And I’m sure that a lot of discussion among prosecutors took place. I do agree, I would be stunned if anybody in the White House, including the president, knew. I mean, think of all the criticism that the president laid against Donald Trump for his intervening and trying to shape what the Department of Justice did.”
BUT AXELROD INSISTS DOJ IS ABOVE REPROACH… DAVID AXELROD: One thing is very clear. Garland would not have authorized this raid, and no federal judge would have signed off on it, if there weren’t significant evidence to warrant it.
CARTER PAGE WOULD LIKE A WORD… MARY KATHARINE HAM MOCKS AXELROD… MKH: One thing is very clear. The FBI would not have requested surveillance of an American citizen, and FISA would not have authorized it, if there weren’t very significant evidence to warrant it.
FORMER DOJ OFFICIAL: THE DOJ MUST SPEAK… BUT WILL LIKELY LET THE MYSTERY AND LEAKS DO THE TALKING… ROGER SEVERINO: An FBI raid over Presidential Records Act compliance is quite the horse for the DOJ to bet its institutional reputation on.Especially when Hillary admitted to setting up a private e-mail server for government comms and deleted it all, but got away scot free. 1/
Biden must immediately order DOJ to disclose the full warrant application and DOJ must within two weeks indict or publicly close the case. You don’t raid a president’s home to go fishing for evidence, but only to get the final pieces needed to prosecute. /2
But given this DOJ’s abominable track record, it will likely announce nothing for the next year and 1/2 (but will selectively leak) and keep a cloud over Trump that will inflict maximum political damage. /3
TOP DEM ELECTION LAWYER TIPS THE LEFT’S HAND… THIS COULD STOP TRUMP FROM RUNNING AGAIN… MARC ELIAS: The media is missing the really, really big reason why the raid today is a potential blockbuster in American politics. (SCREENGRAB OF 18 US CODE SECTION 2071)
BUT THAT LAW WOULDN’T BAR TRUMP FROM OFFICE… HERE’S HOW THIS DEBATE WAS SETTLED WHEN IT WAS ABOUT HILLARY CLINTON… NY TIMES: If Trump broke a law on the removal of official records, would he be barred from future office?
Specifically, the law in question — Section 2071 of Title 18 of the United States Code — makes it a crime if someone who has custody of government documents or records “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies or destroys” them.
If convicted, defendants can be fined or sentenced to prison for up to three years. In addition, the statute says, if they are currently in a federal office, they “shall forfeit” that office, and they shall “be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.” […]
The law briefly received a close look in 2015, after it came to light that Hillary Clinton, then widely anticipated to be the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, had used a private email server to conduct government business while secretary of state. […]
[S]everal legal scholars […] noted that the Constitution sets eligibility criteria for who can be president, and argued that Supreme Court rulings suggestCongress cannot alter them. The Constitution allows Congress to disqualify people from holding office in impeachment proceedings, but grants no such power for ordinary criminal law.
LATER… ELIAS WALKS IT BACK… MARC ELIAS: Yes, I recognize the legal challenge that application of this law to a president would garner (since qualifications are set in Constitution). But the idea that a candidate would have to litigate this is during a campaign is in my view a “blockbuster in American politics.”
MEANWHILE, THE DOJ HAS REFUSED TO RELEASE RECORDS TRUMP ABSOLUTELY DECLASSIFIED… ‘
A watchdog is suing President Joe Biden’s Justice Department (DOJ) for not releasing records related to the FBI’s defunct probe into ties between Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russian government — even though the former president declassified the records.
Judicial Watch is suing the DOJ to obtain the records, as well as communications between DOJ officials and government employees on the declassification of the records. The lawsuit, which was filed on Aug. 1, comes after the conservative watchdog submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in February.
“The Obama-Biden Administration and Deep State spying on Trump and his associates is the worst government corruption scandal in American history,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said in a statement Monday. “And to make matters worse, the Biden DOJ simply refuses to release smoking gun documents about this corruption that the American people have an absolute right to see!”
Trump issued a memo on Jan. 19, 2021 declassifying materials in a binder that the DOJ gave to the White House in December 2020 on the “Crossfire Hurricane” probe. However, the binder’s materials never saw the light of day after the DOJ sought to issue redactions over privacy concerns, as detailed in a memo on Jan. 21, 2021 authored by then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who told the DOJ he would return the records.
MORE MONEY FOR Z… REUTERS: U.S. to send $4.5 billion more to Ukraine for budget needs
Aug 8 (Reuters) – The United States will provide an additional $4.5 billion to Ukraine’s government, bringing its total budgetary support since Russia’s February invasion to $8.5 billion, the U.S. Agency for International Development said on Monday.
The funding, coordinated with the U.S. Treasury Department through the World Bank, will go to the Ukraine government in tranches, beginning with a $3 billion disbursement in August, USAID, the Agency for International Development, said.
It follows previous transfers of $1.7 billion in July and $1.3 billion in June, USAID said. Washington has also provided billions of dollars in military and security support. The Pentagon announced a $1 billion arms aid package on Monday. read more
Overall, the United States has contributed more than $18 billion to Ukraine this year.
‘OUR BIGGEST SECURITY ASSISTANCE PACKAGE TO DATE FOR UKRAINE’ … ‘PRESIDENT BIDEN’ TWITTER ACCOUNT: Today, the United States has authorized our biggest security assistance package to date for Ukraine. This package will get additional ammunition, weapons, and equipment to Ukraine to help meet their critical security needs as they defend their country.
CBS SCRUBS DOCUMENTARY ABOUT US WEAPONS IN UKRAINE… BI: CBS partially retracts documentary that outraged Ukraine by claiming that US weapon shipments were going missing
CBS partially retracted a documentary in which it said that shipments of weapons to Ukraine from the US had been going missing.
CBS tweeted on Monday that it had removed a video promoting the documentary that included a months-old quote saying most aid was not making it to Ukraine’s front lines.
It said it was updating the documentary, called “Arming Ukraine,” with “new information” about the delivery of military aid to Ukraine.
Among the material removed was a quote the founder of pro-Ukraine nonprofit Blue-Yellow, Jonas Ohman, who said in late April that only around 30% of aid was reaching the front lines in Ukraine.
CBS said that “Since that time, Ohman says delivery has improved.” It also noted that the US had sent an official — Brigadier General Garrick M. Harmon — to Kyiv specifically to monitor the use of military aid.
“We are updating our documentary to reflect this new information and air at a later date,” CBS said.
HERE’S THE NOW-UPDATED CBS PIECE: Why military aid in Ukraine may not always get to the front lines
In a war being fought largely in World War II era trenches, with Soviet ammunition, the vast influx of modern NATO weapons and military supplies from the West into Ukraine has proven to be among the largest determinants of whether the territory is lost, or gained, along Ukraine’s embattled border region with Russia.
The bulk of these weapons and military supplies make their way to the border of Poland, where U.S. and NATO allies quickly ferry it across the border and into the hands of Ukrainian officials.
Jonas Ohman is founder and CEO of Blue-Yellow, a Lithuania-based organization that has been meeting with and supplying frontline units with non-lethal military aid in Ukraine since the start of the conflict with Russia-backed separatists in 2014. Back in April, he estimated that just “30-40%” of the supplies coming across the border reached its final destination. But he says the situation has significantly improved since then and a much larger quantity now gets where it’s supposed to go.
The government of Ukraine notes that U.S. defense attaché Brigadier General Garrick M. Harmon arrived in Kyiv in August 2022 for arms control and monitoring. CBS News has reached out to Harmon for an interview.
AND HERE’S THE ARCHIVED ORIGINAL… Why military aid to Ukraine doesn’t always get to the front lines: “Like 30% of it reaches its final destination”
In a war being fought largely in World War II era trenches, with Soviet ammunition, the vast influx of modern NATO weapons and military supplies from the West into Ukraine has proven to be among the largest determinants of whether territory is lost, or gained, along Ukraine’s embattled border region with Russia.
The bulk of these weapons and military supplies make their way to the border of Poland, where U.S. and NATO allies quickly ferry it across the border and into the hands of Ukrainian officials. That’s where U.S. oversight ends.
“All of this stuff goes across the border, and then something happens, kind of like 30% of it reaches its final destination,” said Jonas Ohman, founder and CEO of Blue-Yellow, a Lithuania-based organization that has been meeting with and supplying frontline units with military aid in Ukraine since the start of the conflict with Russia-backed separatists in 2014.
“30-40%, that’s my estimation,” he said in April of this year.
UKRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER LECTURES CBS… DMYTRO KULEBA: Welcome first step, but it is not enough. You have misled a huge audience by sharing unsubstantiated claims and damaging trust in supplies of vital military aid to a nation resisting aggression and genocide. There should be an internal investigation into who enabled this and why.
JOE KENT EDGES OUT HOUSE INCUMBENT IN WASHINGTON STATE… Pro-Impeachment Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler Loses To Trump-Backed Primary Challenger
Retired Green Beret Joe Kent defeated Republican Washington Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in a primary challenge stemming from her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
With 92% of ballots counted, Democrat Marie Glusenkamp Perez received 31% support, Kent received 22.8% support, and Herrera Beutler received 22.3 %. Kent, Herrera Beutler’s chief GOP challenger, raised $2.25 million and was endorsed by Trump. Several election analysts called the race on Monday night. Washington’s universal vote-by-mail rules allow voters to submit ballots up through election day, meaning that the results of races are not often immediately clear.
DEM ABORTION ENTHUSIASM MAY BE TURNING OFF BLACK VOTERS… AP: Dems rally around abortion. Are they reaching Black voters?
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Facing critical races for governor and U.S. Senate, Democratic hopefuls in Wisconsin are hoping that their support for abortion rights in the face of a Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade can overcome the headwinds of a midterm election long expected to favor Republicans. But there’s one key group their strategies might fail to mobilize: Black voters.
An issue with strong support from white Democrats is more complicated in the Black community, especially among churchgoers who hold more conservative views on abortion. The topic is so fraught that most community organizers avoid bringing it up.
“Among the Black Baptist church alone, that would split us in half,” said David Liners, executive director of WISDOM, a faith-based organizing group with a statewide presence, when asked why his group isn’t organizing around abortion. Karen Royster, spokeswoman for Milwaukee-based Souls to the Polls, called abortion “taboo” in church circles, making it difficult for faith leaders to do any sort of work around it.
‘GREASE’ STAR DIES… Olivia Newton-John Dead At Age 73
Legendary actress and singer Olivia Newton-John died peacefully at her Southern California ranch Monday morning.
Newton was surrounded by her family and friends at the time of her passing, according to a post shared to social media by Newton’s husband John Easterling. Her exact cause of death has not yet been publicly declared, but it is widely known that Newton has battled breast cancer for over 30 years, according to the outlet.
“Olivia has been a symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30 years sharing her journey with breast cancer,” Easterling said.
