EXPLAINER: How Does the FBI Get a Warrant to Search a Home?

News that FBI agents descended on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and searched it has spawned accusations of a politicized law enforcement organization doing the bidding of the Biden administration in targeting political enemies. The reality is that the process of obtaining a search warrant is a controlled by a checklist of requirements before a judge signs off on a decision to invade someone’s home. Experts say that even the decision to seek a warrant to search a former president’s property would probably have to have been approved by top officials at the Justice Department. The search is part of an investigation into whether Trump took classified records from the White House to his Florida residence, according to people familiar with the matter. The Justice Department has been investigating the potential mishandling of classified information since the National Archives and Records Administration said it had received from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of White House records, including documents containing classified information, earlier this year. Here’s a look at the process for obtaining a search warrant and laws governing government records: HOW DO SEARCH WARRANTS WORK? FBI agents can’t just show up to search a property such as Mar-a-Lago. Investigators first need to obtain a search warrant, which requires convincing a judge that they have probable cause that a crime occurred. Federal authorities seeking a search warrant present their evidence and the basis for needing to search a property in an affidavit reviewed by a federal magistrate or district court judge. Magistrate judges are not nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Instead, they are appointed by district court judges to handle matters such as search warrant applications and defendants’ initial court appearances. The judge can ask for additional information and question the agent seeking the search warrant under oath. The judge will only sign off on the warrant if there is probable cause there’s evidence of a federal crime at the location authorities want to search. Given the sensitivity of an investigation involving a former president, there must have been a serious amount of deliberation by both the Justice Department and the judge, said Dennis Lormel, who served 28 years in the FBI before retiring in 2003. “This couldn’t have been just a knee jerk ‘let’s go serve a warrant’ situation,” said Lormel, now president of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. “I would want to make sure that I have an as airtight or as bulletproof of an affidavit as I could have.” The search warrant application process happens in secret in order to avoid tipping off the person whose property may be searched. Any court records related to the warrant application would be sealed. Those records typically remain under seal unless and until a criminal case is brought, and even then, authorities may try to keep the affidavit from public view. The person whose property is being searched is entitled to see the warrant, but not the affidavit. When executing a warrant, the FBI controls the scene and doesn’t let residents of the home or their attorneys follow agents around as they search to ensure items aren’t improperly removed from the property, said Tom O’Connor, a retired special agent. If a property is searched without a valid warrant or probable cause, any evidence seized […]

The post EXPLAINER: How Does the FBI Get a Warrant to Search a Home? appeared first on The Yeshiva World.

View Source: Read More