Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,
Below is my column in the Hill on the release of the affidavit leading to the raid on Mar-a-Lago. The redacted affidavit did confirm key points, but the most interesting elements could be what did not happen. That may change now that a federal judge has finally indicated that a special master may be appointed. Since the start of the controversy over the Mar-a-Lago raid, I have called for the release of a redacted affidavit and the appointment of a special master to sort through the seized material, including alleged attorney-client privileged material. Such an appointment could result in additional material being returned to the Trump team and a release of additional information on what was seized under this exceptionally broad warrant.
Here is the column:
With Friday’s release of the redacted affidavit from the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, the largest Rorschach test in history seemed to play out on cable television. Instead of ink blots, pundits and politicians stared at pages of solid black lines and offered strikingly different “ah-ha” observations. Some called the matter effectively closed and that, with the redacted affidavit, we have now “finally seen enough. Donald Trump will be indicted by a federal grand jury.”
Likewise, for former Mueller top aide Andrew Weissmann, the affidavit meant one thing — that “the former president is going to be prosecuted.” (Of course, Weissmann once expressed certainty that Donald Trump would pardon himself by his last day in office.)
There already are a plethora of news and opinion columns focusing on the five things we learned from the redacted affidavit....