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Merrick Garland 'could not be confident' that Trump would have complied with a grand jury subpoena: Mueller lawyer
August 09, 2022
The FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort on Monday sent shockwaves through Washington D.C. -- and attorney Andrew Weissmann believes there's no way Attorney General Merrick Garland would have signed off on it without good reason to believe that Trump would have blown off a lawful subpoena.
In an interview with The New Yorker, Weissmann broke down exactly why Garland would have opted to go with a search warrant for the documents rather than a subpoena.
"You use a search warrant, and not a subpoena, when you don’t believe that the person is actually going to comply," he said. "For me, the biggest takeaway is that the Attorney General of the United States had to make the determination that it was appropriate in this situation to proceed by search warrant because they could not be confident that the former President of the United States would comply with a grand-jury subpoena."
Weissmann also speculated that Trump could have asserted Fifth Amendment protections as reason to not supply with a subpoena under the so-called "act of production" privilege.
RELATED: Trump turns to alleged war criminal's attorney in search for 'killer' criminal defense team: report
"It’s a part of the Fifth Amendment that says you don’t have to produce documents in your possession if the act of producing them would be incriminating," he said. "So, for instance, there is a lot of speculation that this is about whether the former President has classified documents in his possession that he should not have. If he produced those pursuant to a subpoena, that would be incriminating himself, because it would show that he had them and knew where they were."
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According to an exclusive report from TMZ, the FBI took great pains to schedule their search of Mar-a-Lago when Donald Trump was out of town because they feared he would make a scene.
Late Monday, the FBI descended upon the luxury Florida resort armed with a warrant. The FBI declined to comment on whether the search was happening or what it might be for, nor did Trump give any indication of why federal agents were at his home.
But multiple media outlets cited sources close to the investigation as saying that agents were conducting a court-authorized search related to the potential mishandling of classified documents that had been sent to Mar-a-Lago.
According to the TMZ report, based on their sources, "... the feds timed the raid so there would not be a confrontation between agents and the former President."
The report goes on to note that there was the possibility the former president might have been handcuffed and the agents were leery about how that would play out.
"Sources involved in numerous FBI searches tell TMZ ... even if there were not a confrontation, protocol in raids like the one Monday would go like this," the report stated. "The FBI would swoop in and, if the target of the search warrant was in the house, agents would typically handcuff the target until the property was secured. The target would not be arrested, but rather detained."
The report continued, "Once the property was secured, agents would remove the handcuffs but the target could not reenter the premises until the raid was completed," before adding, "This would present an extremely awkward situation for the feds, and it would become a political hot potato."
The National Archives said in February it had recovered 15 boxes of documents from Trump's Florida estate, which the Washington Post reported included highly classified texts, taken with him when he left Washington following his reelection defeat.
READ MORE: Trump turns to alleged war criminal's attorney in search for 'killer' criminal defense team: report
The documents and mementos -- which also included correspondence from ex-US president Barack Obama -- should by law have been turned over at the end of Trump's presidency but instead ended up at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
The recovery of the boxes raised questions about Trump's adherence to presidential records laws enacted after the 1970s Watergate scandal that require Oval Office occupants to preserve records related to administration activity.
The Archives had requested then that the Justice Department open a probe into Trump's practices.
With additional reporting by AFP
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Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended a Tampa-area elected state attorney on Thursday, who signed a pledge that he would not prosecute people under the state’s newly enacted abortion law.
Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren has vowed not to prosecute any women seeking abortions from their doctors; Warren has also vowed to protect transgender minors undergoing gender transition treatment. The suspension of 13th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Andrew Warren was effective immediately.
DeSantis said he made the decision because Warren was picking and choosing which laws to enforce. His decision was a stunning override of the 369,129 Hillsborough County voters who cast their ballot for Warren in 2020, which made up 53.4 percent of turnout.
DeSantis cited ‘neglect of duty’ and ‘incompetence’ in the order suspending Warren.
According to the Orlando Sentinel’s Skyler Swisher, Democratic State Representative Dan Daley is calling DeSantis out as hypocritical.
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“All you have to do is Google ‘Florida sheriff not enforcing,’ and there are so many examples, mostly related to guns," Daley said. "If this is the game you are going to play and tell me it’s not political, you better start suspending those people too.”
A simple Google search does offer multiple results for sheriffs who claim they will, and do not, enforce Florida gun laws. In Seminole County, Florida Sheriff Dennis Lemma told gun activists he wouldn’t enforce a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would require owners of semiautomatic weapons to register them with the state. Sheriff Lemma has not been suspended or received any formal reprimanding, instead he was applauded by a crowd when making the statement.
State Attorney Warren was suspended by DeSantis, but has not yet been removed from office, which will require involvement from the Florida Senate.
Warren says he is assembling his legal team to fight the order and announcements related to the legal case will be made in the coming days.
“Let me be clear," he said on Sunday. "I’m not going down without a fight. I’m a former federal prosecutor, the duly elected State Attorney, a native Floridian, and a proud American. I refuse to let this man trample on your freedoms to speak your mind, to make your own health care decisions, and to have your vote count.”
Governor DeSantis named Hillsborough County Judge Susan Lopez, whom he appointed as judge in December, to fill the vacancy. She has already reversed a decision made by Warren, and is now seeking the death penalty against Matthew Terry, who is accused of murdering a Hillsborough teacher.
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