By Mike McDaniel
During my police career, I obtained many search warrants. The standard was always probable cause—PC–which is facts and circumstances—evidence—that would convince a reasonable police officer a crime had been committed and a specific person committed it. PC for a search warrant consists of that, and evidence that the fruits of a crime—stolen goods, money, drugs, classified documents, etc.—can be found at a specific place related to that specific person. The things one expects to find can’t be vague or general, but must be very specifically described. That PC must be timely; it can’t be days or weeks old. It also must be convincing.
That’s because of the Fourth Amendment, which requires any warrant to specifically describe the persons or things to be seized and the place to be searched.
Gaining all that information, I wrote an affidavit explaining those details and exactly how I came by them. I signed the affidavit, swearing everything in it was true, ran it by a prosecutor, and then took it to a judge who carefully reviewed it and authorized the warrant, which strictly limited for what I could search and where I could search for it. If I was looking for a ladder, I couldn’t search anywhere a ladder couldn’t reasonably be hidden. If I found what I sought, the search was over.
If I felt for a moment I didn’t have enough PC, I would have never written the affidavit, and prosecutors and judges would never have seen it. I never met a judge who would sign off on a warrant without assuring himself there was adequate PC.
That’s why I‘ve always been profoundly suspicious of the FBI raid on Mar-A-Lago. They searched Melania Trump’s underwear drawers, faked photos of classified folders, and engaged in blatant political theater. Were they raiding the place to try to harm Trump? Because they feared he had documents that could damage Democrats?
That’s why I was pleased with Trump’s reelection, the failure of the lawfare waged against him and the possibility criminals in the FBI, DOJ and elsewhere would be exposed and get what’s coming to them. While it’s still early in the second Trump Administration and there are doubtless mountains of dirty dealings to be unearthed, Normal Americans are justifiably disgruntled those criminals aren’t being exposed and prosecuted.
There may now be greater hope:
Graphic: X Post
The FBI did not believe it had probable cause to raid President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in 2022, but moved forward amid pressure from the Biden Justice Department, with an official saying he didn’t “give a damn about the optics” of the search, newly declassified documents reviewed by Fox News Digital reveal.
Fox News Digital reviewed emails between FBI and Justice Department officials in the months leading up to the August 2022 raid of Mar-a-Lago, with FBI officials expressing concerns about a lack of probable cause to execute the search warrant on the then-former president’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida.