Disturbing details surrounding the unprecedented raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this week are continuing to surface, putting into context the extremely partisan nature of the entire incident.
According to reports, the federal magistrate judge who approved the FBI's warrant to conduct a search of Trump's palatial estate -- ostensibly for "classified" documents he wasn't supposed to have -- not only hates Republicans and was a donor to Barack Obama, but he also has nebulous ties to the now late-convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart "signed off on the FBI’s warrant to search the former president’s palatial home in South Florida in what he said was an 'unannounced raid on my home.' He took a leave of absence from a local U.S. Attorney’s office more than 10 years ago to represent employees of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein after they had gotten immunity during the lengthy probe of the now-late financier for sex trafficking," Conservative Brief reported earlier this week.
Reinhart was elevated to magistrate judge in March 2018 after 10 years in private practice. That November, the Miami Herald reported that he had represented several of Epstein’s employees — including, by Reinhart’s own admission to the outlet, Epstein’s pilots; his scheduler, Sarah Kellen; and Nadia Marcinkova, who Epstein once reportedly described as his “Yugoslavian sex slave.”
Kellen and Marcinkova were among Epstein’s lieutenants who were granted immunity as part of a controversial 2007 deal with federal prosecutors that allowed the pervert to plead guilty to state charges rather than federal crimes. Epstein wound up serving just 13 months in county jail and was granted work release.
The Herald reported in 2018 that Reinhart was later named in a civil suit that accused him of violating Justice Dept. policies by changing sides during a federal probe of Epstein. The paper also suggested that the judge used inside information about the investigation in order to win favor with Epstein.
Watch the mental gymnastics that Bruce Reinhart (judge who signed off on Mar-a-Lago warrant) goes through to defend Lois Lerner deleting two years of emails during the IRS scandal. pic.twitter.com/AOva9wnVF4
— Maze (@mazemoore) August 9, 2022
Reinhart has denied any wrongdoing in a 2011 affidavit while also claiming that because he didn't get involved personally in any active investigation regarding Epstein, he could not have gotten access to any insider info about the case.
As for his political leanings, Reinhart "donated $1,000 to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and added $1,000 more to the Obama Victory Fund that same cycle, according to federal filings," Fox News reported. The outlet added that Reinart also contributed $500 to Jeb Bush's failed 2016 GOP presidential campaign.
Regarding the FBI raid, Trump lawyer Christina Bobb told streaming network Real America’s Voice: “When I arrived and kind of announced myself as the legal representation for President Trump. I asked to see a copy of the warrant.”
“Initially they refused and said, ‘You know, we don’t have to show it to you.’ And there was a little bit of an exchange about whether it was appropriate to withhold the warrant when you’re searching the residence of the former president, who’s likely to be the Republican nominee in the next election, though they conceded and let me see it, they did not give me a copy of it right away, but they did let me see it,” she went on, according to Mediaite.
“It was very, I would say, thin. And as you can tell from public records, the affidavit, the supporting documentation of what the probable cause was to obtain the warrant has been sealed,” Bobb noted further.
She told the streaming network that FBI agents had the warrant sealed and would not tell her what probable cause they had to search the former president's home.
“They also said that they were looking for classified documents, evidence of a crime as far as classified documents go,” Bobb explained.
“So they were looking for both classified information that they think should not have been removed from the White House as well as presidential records,” she continued, noting that she found the search “ironic” since a president can declassify any documents he wants and for any reason.
“It doesn’t really make any sense. And the same thing with any potential classified information, which I don’t believe there was any down there. We had done a search of it before and didn’t find anything noteworthy yet. I’m sure that they’re claiming that there was something terribly egregious, that there was a grave matter of national security. But we’ll find out,” Bobb said.
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