Loss of Objectivity

For John, BLUF:  I am disappoointed in The New Yorker in its selection of "experts" to interview.  Apparently Diogenes was not available.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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What the F.B.I.’s Raid of Mar-a-Lago Could Mean for Trump

Here is the sub-headline:

A former federal prosecutor and general counsel for the F.B.I. explains the process and implications of obtaining a search warrant on the home of a former President.

From The New Yorker, by Staff Writer Isaac Chotiner, 9 August 2022.

Here is the lede plus one:

On Monday, F.B.I. agents searched the Florida home of former President Donald Trump, possibly commencing a new phase in the legal scrutiny that he has faced since leaving office.  According to the Times, the search concerned classified material that Trump removed from the White House and took to Mar-a-Lago.  What remains unclear is whether they found any information related to attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election.

To understand what the search might signal, I spoke by phone with Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor and F.B.I. general counsel who worked on the Mueller investigation.  He is currently in private practice and a professor at N.Y.U. School of Law.  During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why Merrick Garland was almost certainly involved in the decision to order the search, what criteria the government uses for asking a judge for a warrant, and the quickening pace of the Department of Justice’s January 6th investigation.

I got to then mention of Mr Andrew Weissmann and stopped reading.  This is a fox guarding the hen house issue for me.  The article is totally discredited.

As for the raid, it was about the Dirty Dossier and Bureaucratic self-protection.

Where is Émile Zola when we neen him?

Regards  —  Cliff