The Honeymoon Phase

S

o, you start dating someone. You enter into what is called the "Excitement Stage." You are excited about the prospects to be. And you can let your imagination run free here. 

This stage is short lived. Then you enter into what is referred to as a the "Honeymoon Period."  This period may last anywhere from several months to a few years. This is a period early on in a relationship where everything seems carefree and happy. 

Of course, he or she cannot do anything wrong. Everything seems so perfect. And this period only lasts so long, and reality sets in. You learn that your partner is flawed. 

Of course, then you spend time introducing her to your friends and family members. And, of course, before that you introduce her to your family. You take her to your favorite hangouts and restaurants. You take her to see the sunset in your favorite location, etc. etc. And everything works out great. She loves your friends and you love hers. She loves where you enjoy watching the sunset. And you enjoy whatever she shows you about her life. 

So, for quite some time, during this honeymoon period, you are introducing her to your life. And, of course, when you are visiting her, it's the opposite: she introduces you to her life. Oh, the honeymoon days. 

At some point, the honeymoon period will end. Reality sets in. You learn that she is a flawed individual and she learns your flaws. This is called the adjustment phase. Then, if you survive this, you travel to the adjustment phase. And then you get married and live your life together. 

So, basically, you'll eventually run out of new things to show her. At that time, you basically sit around hoping that you don't annoy each other. Can you survive this part of the relationship? That is the question. 

FBI, DOJ Weaponized Against Trump

I wrote a while back how my biggest fear is the weaponization of government against the private sector. And today we read in the news how the Florida residence of Donald Trump, Mar'a'Lago, has been raided by the FBI. Attorney General Merrick Garland has admitted that he ordered the raid. And, of course, Merrick is the head of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). 

Garland has said he ordered the raid. He said they are looking for classified documents that the Fed has asked Trump to return. Trump has not turned in those documents. And so, Garland ordered the FBI to raid Trump's home. 

Garland must know that the person he ordered the raid against is probably going to be the person who will challenge his boss in 2022. So, the risk of this search is insurmountable. This search better turn up a smoking gun. Or Garland will go down as one of the biggest bumble head in U.S. history. And this could be one of the biggest blunders in history. It could be akin to Al Capone's Vault. 

This brings up a few questions. 

Is there a potential crime listed on the warrant? 

No government organization can legally search anyone's home without a warrant. A warrant must list a reason for the search. And it cannot just list that it is searching for documents. It must note a potential crime. As in, it must note that the president was charged of X crime. And the search is looking for evidence. 

The warrant says that the FBI has been ordered to search Trump's home for classified documents. It does not list a crime Trump has been charged with. 

This raises a huge red flag. 

You cannot order a search warrant without stating the crime that was committed. So, in this case, it looks like this is a situation of a warrant in search of a crime. The goal here is to grab every document with the hopes that one of them reveals a crime. 

Is this search politicized? 

Democrats spent the entire four years of the Trump presidency trying to convict him of a crime. You had the Russian scandal where they spent four years trying to convince Americans that Trump was colluding with the Russians. And it was proven to be a complete hoax. 

Now they are still going after him long after he was voted out of office. And there is a good chance he will be the next challenger to Garland's boss.  And this makes it look like the FBI has been weaponized or politicized against a future presidential challenger. It makes it look like they are scared to death of Trump politically, and they will do anything in their power to get rid of him. 

So far they have failed miserably. And so, here you have the FBI going into Mar'a'Lago and grabbing every paper they can get their hands on. And they are hoping that one of those documents reveals a crime. Or perhaps one of those documents proves Trump colluded with Russia. Anything to get rid of Trump. 

This raises another red flag. 

Are they declassified documents? 

Trump has said that all the documents obtained by the FBI were declassified. If this is the case, then the raid was pointless to begin with. 

Presidents have a lot of work to do. So they often take work home to review. Obama did this. Clinton did this. Bush H and Bush W did this. And Trump did this. So, it is not uncommon for former presidents to have documents in their homes. 

To take documents home they need to be declassified. Interestingly, the president is the only person in the U.S. with the power to declassify documents. And all he needs to say is, "I declare these documents unclassified." He does not need to go through a ceremony, or even write his signature, to make documents declassified. 

And even if Trump forgot to do this, he certainly would not be the first. And all he would need to do is say he declassified them, because how would any lawyer be able to prove that he didn't declassify them. So, on this ground, it would be awfully hard for any lawyer to submit any of the documents obtained during the raid into a court of law. 

And this raises another red flag. 

Conclusion.

So, we have determined that many former presidents have documents in their home. The reason the White House might want the documents at Trump's home is because they believe they pose a security risk. And, of course, keeping us safe is the #1 job of any president. Still, are documents stored in boxes or in safes at Mar'a'Lago a security risk. 

Let's look at it this way. Let's look at Hillary Clinton. She had classified information on her emails. And she does not have the ability to declassify them because she was never president. She had information on her emails. And I'm sure some of the information was top-secret information. 

And she had these emails on an unsecured server. And she conveniently lost those emails. So, what documents are at greater risk for being a security risk: documents stored in boxes or in safes in Trump's home, or documents stored on an unsecured server? 

And Clinton's home was not raided by the FBI.