disinformation and flat out lies continue to pour out of trump world this week, as the red continues to scramble to try to get their stories straight following the fbi search on trump s home. in just a few days, the official maga line says there was no cause for a search and that the fbi planted classified materials to u.s., there was classified materials, but trump somehow telepathically the classified them. look, each lie is more absurd and more cartoonish than the one before it. quite honestly, it is even more dangerous because the lies are actually turning into threats. those threats are beginning to turn to real world consequences. in fact, just last week, the fbi and the agents issued a joint bulletin warning that threats to federal law enforcement have spike since the mar-a-lago search. here s the thing, trump and his allies, they have continued their attacks on what enforcement agency even after a pro trump gunmen attempted to storm distance in it fbi field office. th
justice department. his message was unambiguous. it was time for me, jeffrey berman, the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york and lifelong republican, it was time for me to take one for the home team. he came into my office and closed the door, quote, you re not going to believe the conversation i just had with o callaghan, before sharing the details. the top leadership at doj wanted me to bring criminal charges against a private attorney who had once been president barack obama s white house counsel and they wanted me to bring those charges before election day. i said, you have got to be f ing kidding me. i wish, he said, but no. doj s rationale for this demand had nothing to do with evidence or law. o callaghan kept reminding him that our office had just prosecuted two high profile trump loyalists, republican congressman chris collins and crump s private attorney, michael cohen. he related that o callaghan told him bluntly, quote, it s time for you guys to ev
that s how it starts. that s the very beginning. this was written by jeffrey berman who ran sdny in southern district of new york for half of trump s time in office. he was fired from that job at sdny and fired loudly in a way that made a difference. we ll have more on that in a second. that s important. but now since he is the former u.s. attorney, he has written this book. to put it in the public record how trump and his administration tried to force federal prosecutors to go after trump s political enemies to go after democrats, to help trump s allies. regardless of the law. regardless of the crimes committed or lack thereof. geoff berman was told to bring the prosecution before the midterm elections. told to do so because some republicans had been prosecuted and so now it was time to prosecute a democrat. he was told to even things out. berman refused to do it. he didn t bring that prosecution. so, yea rule of law for a second. what happened after geoff berman refused
a judge in florida saying there are portions that could be unsealed and giving the doj a week to explain everything that they say needs to be kept secret. but will it be page after page of black redactions? how will we know? we don t know until we see it. that as a justice department lawyer says the affidavit contains, and i quote here, substantial grand jury information and warns releasing it could have a chilling effect on witnesses. but the judge did release several never-before-seen documents today including the motion where prosecutors argue that they needed to keep their search warrant secret because the integrity of the ongoing investigation might be compromised and evidence might be destroyed. there are some more really intriguing clues in one of those documents. more on that in just a moment. but you ve got to wonder just how much the former president actually wants the full affidavit to be released. because his lawyer sitting right there in court today didn t sa
documents that were released today. but even that gives us more information about where things are headed, and that s why i think, no matter how redacted the release of this affidavit is gonna be, take the first thing on their. the espionage act. the 18 usc seven 93, we will all were wondering, i rode along piece, what angle are they taking? well, they ve just stated their theory of the case, one, that they might or might not argue to the jury. he retained government documents. well, don, if i go to the white house and help myself to property that s in the oval office, and i take it with me, i m retaining government property. that s a crime. and these are boxes and boxes and boxes. so, we re already learning more. okay, he says he wants this information out there. do you think this is going to be helpful to him? i do not. i think it s going to tell the story of why the government, they had to put the details to convince a judge that there was probable cause of crime. is