After a raid on the Mar-A-Lago estate of former President Donald Trump in February of 2022, new details emerged about the circumstances leading up to the raid, and the FBI s handling of the investigation. Greg and Vanessa discuss how the FBI handled the investigation, and how they handled the aftermath of the raid.
00:00:30.000this is the stone zone with roger stone people love him and respect him roger stone
00:00:46.780now get in the zone it's the stone zone here's roger stone
00:00:52.800You are now diving headlong into the deep end of the stone's home.
00:00:58.880You know, there are moments in life of a republic when the veil slips, when the carefully curated facade of institutional integrity gives way to something far more unsettling.
00:01:10.460The raid on then-former president and current president Donald J. Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate was one of those examples.
00:01:19.600This was not a mere law enforcement action.
00:01:22.000this was a rupture. And now, documents have been uncovered that reveal even within the FBI,
00:01:28.800there were grave doubts about the legal foundation for that extraordinary intrusion.
00:01:33.640Doubts that were brushed aside by Joe Biden's Department of Justice, determined to proceed.
00:01:39.840At the heart of the matter lies Plasmic Echo. That's the code name for the FBI's secret
00:01:45.920investigation into Trump's alleged mishandling of presidential documents. Now, the presidential
00:01:51.980Records Act essentially allows a current or former president to declassify and retain any document.
00:01:59.620So one wonders what this entire case was really about. And now, according to internal communications
00:02:05.720recently uncovered, the FBI's Washington Fields Office explicitly stated that it did not believe
00:02:12.720that probable cause existed to justify a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago. Now let that sink in for
00:02:20.040a moment. The agents on the ground, the professionals entrusted with the solemn
00:02:24.780responsibility of safeguarding our constitutional rights, concluded that the legal threshold had not
00:02:31.720been met for the raid on Mar-a-Lago. Yet the Department of Justice pressed forward regardless,
00:02:37.960culminating in an unprecedented raid on the home of a former president. Having had my own home
00:02:44.480raided by the FBI, having FBI agents go through my wife's underwear draw the same way they went0.59
00:02:51.480through First Lady Melania Trump's, I can understand the feeling of violation that the0.98
00:02:58.760president and his wife must have felt. Now, one is compelled to ask, since when does the absence
00:03:05.160of probable cause become a mere inconvenience? These bombshell internal emails from mid-July
00:03:12.140of 2020, revealed that the FBI personnel questioned the justification for searching not only Trump's
00:03:19.200residents broadly, but even specific areas such as his bedroom and his office. Concerns were raised
00:03:26.060about the distinction between boxes of documents and genuinely classified material, as well as the
00:03:32.240recency of the alleged issues. These were not fringe objections. They were formal,
00:03:37.460now documented and emphatic, and still the Biden Department of Justice moved forward.
00:03:44.560Even more damning is the revelation that FBI officials repeatedly proposed less confrontational
00:03:50.780alternatives. They suggested contacting Trump or his legal counsel directly. They floated the
00:03:56.780possibility of a consensual search. They even recommended seeking a renewed referral from the
00:04:02.680National Archives. Each of those options, which would have preserved both the dignity of the
00:04:07.680office and the integrity of the law, was brushed aside. They were all rejected. Why? That's because
00:04:15.100this entire investigation, part of Arctic Frost, was an extra constitutional effort to get Donald
00:04:22.280Trump. On August 4th, 2022, email provides more chilling evidence. A senior FBI official expressed
00:04:29.900concern over the DOJ's handling of pre-search communications, quoting a Department of Justice
00:04:36.500official who said, frankly, I don't give a damn about the optics. Such cavalier disregard for the
00:04:43.420perception of justice is not merely unseemly. To me, it seems corrosive. Justice must not only be
00:04:49.860done, it must be seen to be done. When those entrusted with this execution dismissed optics
00:04:55.580entirely. They invite the very suspicious that now engulfs this entire case. The origins of
00:05:02.780this investigation are now equally revealing. Plasmic Echo, you wonder who comes up with these
00:05:07.980names, was opened as a Sensitive Investigative Matter, or SIM, on February 11, 2022, following
00:05:15.700coordination between FBI headquarters, the Deputy Director, the Office of General Counsel of the
00:05:21.980FBI and the Department of Justice. Among those involved were senior counterintelligence division
00:05:27.980officials. You see, by declaring this a SIM, a sensitive investigative matter, they were able
00:05:34.480to keep it all secret. Yet what catalyzed this extraordinary mobilization of federal power?
00:05:41.240Not solely internal deliberations, but external agitation. There's actually a letter from an
00:05:47.560activist organization, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. By the way, they always
00:05:53.800are engaged in the exact opposite of what their name says. This is Norm Eisen's left-wing
00:05:59.280quasi-legal group that was agitating for the removal of Donald Trump under the fake
00:06:07.060Russian collusion hoax, but their letter somehow got routed directly to the case file and was
00:06:15.380acted upon within days. The implication here is unmistakable. Left-leaning advocacy groups were
00:06:22.560not merely spectators, but they were actually participants in the genesis of a federal
00:06:27.700investigation targeting a former president. That's a very dangerous precedent. Compounding those
00:06:34.940concerns were indications of media entanglements. Months before the raid, a reporter from the
00:06:40.060Washington Post, sought confirmation for a tip that he got that the FBI had begun interviewing
00:06:46.140individuals within Trump's orbit about his retention of presidential documents. The inquiry
00:06:52.120was logged by the FBI's Public Affairs Office, underscoring the extent to which the investigation
00:06:58.240had already seeped or been injected into the press ecosystem. Whether through leaks or strategic
00:07:05.120disclosures, the narrative was already being shaped in real time. In the dissonance that is
00:07:11.200most striking on one hand, field agents raise legitimate legal concerns about probable cause.
00:07:17.260On the other hand, the senior leadership projecting unwavering confidence in the
00:07:21.620propriety of their actions. This is not merely a difference of opinion. It's a chasm. Judicial
00:07:28.320Watch President Tom Fitton said it best today. The FBI and the Justice Department must go all
00:07:34.120out to release the nearly 2 million secret FBI and DOJ files on the lawfare against President Trump
00:07:41.760and whatever else the Obama and Biden gangs don't want the American people to know. And therein lies
00:07:47.900the ultimate question. If the process was as pristine as the defenders claim, why the resistance
00:07:54.560to full transparency? Why are these documents still classified and sealed? Why the hesitation
00:08:00.380to allow the American people to examine in exhaustive detail
00:08:04.320what actions were taken that justified the raid on a former president's home.
00:08:10.080In a constitutional republic, power must answer to the people.
00:08:13.280And when it doesn't, when it cloaks itself in secrecy
00:08:16.560while dismissing its own internal warnings,
00:08:19.540it ceases to be a guardian of liberty and becomes something else entirely,
00:08:27.300We'll be following this question extraordinarily carefully.
00:08:30.380The Supreme Court today heard arguments on the question of birthright citizenship. That is based in the 14th Amendments, the law that holds that anyone born on U.S. soil is automatically a U.S. citizen.
00:08:47.020President Donald Trump questioned that in executive order during his first term, an executive order that was struck down by the courts.
00:08:56.780The president is arguing that one of the two parents of a person born on U.S. soil must be a U.S. citizen in order for the newborn to be a U.S. citizen.
00:09:07.500Later on in the show, Don Brown, a former U.S. federal prosecutor, Navy JAG officer, and Pentagon counsel, also a nationally recognized legal and national security analyst, going to join us for a breakdown of today's hearing and that entire issue.
00:09:23.880You're going to want to definitely hang on for that.
00:09:26.520Meanwhile, President Trump announced Tuesday that the U.S. military operations in Iran, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, are nearing a successful conclusion with a withdrawal expected within two to three weeks or possibly sooner.
00:09:42.900As I've said here in the Stone Zone multiple times, Donald Trump was elected as an anti-war president,
00:09:48.500and our actions in Iran are not a continuation of the endless foreign war, boots on the ground,
00:09:57.360massive U.S. casualties, and multi-billion dollar payday for the defense contractors.
00:10:05.100The projected, limited, but incredibly lethal use of American power.
00:10:13.180Not since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were steering our foreign policy has any president used the combination of military strength, economic persuasion and pressure, and diplomatic efforts to run their foreign policy.
00:10:29.200Speaking to reporters, after signing a new election integrity order, President Trump made clear that the mission so far has achieved its primary objective, which was always stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
00:10:43.140Just to be clear, that has been Donald Trump's position since 1988.
00:10:47.880That's when I first urged him to get serious about running for president.
00:10:51.880He has said it throughout his public career, and therefore there should be no surprise that he took the action in Iran that he did.
00:11:00.200The president also underscored his commitment to putting American interests first, signaling that responsibility for securing the strategically vital Hormuz Straits,
00:11:10.600from which at least 20 percent of the world's energy must float, will soon shift over to other
00:11:17.380nations that rely far more heavily on the region's oil flow than we do, as the conflict has shown us
00:11:24.700that our European so-called allies in NATO will not have its our backs when it most matters.
00:11:31.780President Trump pointed out that maintaining constant U.S. involvement in such hot spots is
00:11:36.780neither sustainable nor necessary, nor the aim of his administration. President Trump stated,
00:11:43.580we're finishing the job, noting that remaining operations will target key infrastructure
00:11:48.040to ensure lasting stability and deterrence. At the same time, President Trump left the door open for
00:11:54.760a negotiated settlement, always the businessman, remember the art of the deal, suggesting that
00:12:00.980Iran could avoid further strikes by coming to the table. Early reports indicate that commercial
00:12:06.680shipping is already resuming through the strait, a sign that U.S. efforts have restored a level
00:12:12.260of order in the region. And the U.S. efforts are, pardon me, and the President is planning to address
00:12:19.360the nation tonight actually at 9 p.m. to fully outline his plans regarding Iran with victory
00:12:26.080secured and only a small amount of work remaining to ensure that they will not be a threat moving
00:12:31.900forward. I said from the beginning that I supported the president's effort, even though I'm
00:12:37.540like him, an anti-interventionist republic. But I also don't think that this effort was going to be
00:12:45.960ongoing. The slight increase in oil prices will be worth the cost of not allowing the lunatics
00:12:55.520in Tehran to have a nuclear weapon. I believe, as I said earlier, this is peace through strength,
00:13:04.600not endless foreign war. Peace through strength is when you use American power in a limited but
00:13:11.200purposeful way. Thanks for joining us in The Stone Zone. I'm Roger Stone, and we'll be right
00:13:16.660back on The Other Side. This is The Stone Zone with Roger Stone. He likes politics and he's a
00:13:24.100professional at the highest level roger stone where's roger
00:13:29.140let me tell you about prohealthconnect.com it's transforming health care payments providing
00:13:43.040retailers a seamless process for over-the-counter and healthy benefit programs by connecting
00:13:47.760retailers health plans and payment processors prohealth connect creates one powerful unified
00:19:30.460Joining me now is a man for whom I have enormous personal respect.
00:19:35.000Don Brown is a former U.S. federal prosecutor, Navy JAG officer, and Pentagon counsel.
00:19:41.180But he's also a nationally recognized legal and national security analyst with extensive experience in constitutional law, military law, and geopolitical affairs.
00:19:50.980If you haven't read his best-selling book, Kangaroo Court, let me strongly recommend it to you.
00:19:56.800I'm really honored to have you with us today.
00:19:59.320Don Brown, welcome into the Stone Zone.
00:20:49.140This was primarily intended to grant citizenship
00:20:52.140to formerly enslaved people after the Civil War
00:20:55.240and after the overturn of the Dred Scott decision.
00:20:58.480But as I said earlier, it's turned into something very different.
00:21:01.840We have a booming, booming tourism industry here in which people come to the country so that their children will be U.S. citizens entitled to the rights and privileges thereof.
00:21:17.020You're right, Roger, in this booming tourism industry you're referring to is largely from communist China, and it's a big problem.
00:21:23.840But it really goes back to the Congress's attempt to deal with the issue of the children of slaves at the end of the Civil War.
00:21:33.340And, of course, the Citizenship Clause was put initially into the 14th Amendment.
00:21:37.940And the author, the principal author of the 14th Amendment, Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, who was a personal friend of Lincoln, said in the congressional record that citizenship was only to be granted to the children of emancipated slaves for that generation.
00:21:56.140American Indians were specifically excluded, and the language had to do, the relevant language,
00:22:02.480all persons born are naturalized in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction or citizens.
00:22:08.680But actually the civil rights side just two years before that, 1868, was even stricter on limiting a birthright citizenship
00:22:17.300and used the phrase children born not subject to any foreign power.
00:22:22.340And so it was pretty clear in the early days, and especially after the 14th Amendment and the 1866 Civil Rights Act, that just anyone born here of illegal parents don't get the right of citizenship.
00:22:36.620And this was a case – up until 1898, there was a case called Wong Kim Ark, which is discussed today in the argument – I list the entire argument, by the way, which had a distinction.
00:22:50.780There were two Chinese folks who were living in San Francisco legally.
00:22:55.920They were legal residents of the United States, gave birth to a son, and the court in that case allowed that kid to have citizenship because his parents had legal residents.
00:23:07.760Now, Roger, that's different from illegal aliens who come across the border who don't have any legal residents' rights at all.
00:23:17.780The Wong Kim Ark case was a limited situation.
00:23:22.680But the left and leftist courts have taken and drove in a Mack truck through it and tried to expand it all the way.
00:23:28.420It really got expanded to outright birthright citizenship under the FDR administration when the State Department began to push that narrative.
00:23:37.360And the Trump administration is right on mark to try to come back to an original intent interpretation, and we'll see what happens.
00:24:08.560Actually, I don't think you need a reversal of Wong Kim Ark.
00:24:10.960I think you simply need a clarification of it.
00:24:13.000But I think the justices were able to see through that.
00:24:15.800They asked the ACLU attorney a number of times, why is it that the court and Juan Kim Mark kept using the phrase domicile, domicile, domicile, domicile,
00:24:24.500in fact, 20 times, you know, and you can't have domicile really if you're here illegally because you're subject to being arrested.
00:24:32.000And the conservative justice kept driving that point home.
00:24:34.960But other than that, I thought it did an excellent job.
00:24:37.160The briefings were excellent, and we'll see how the court comes down on it.
00:24:40.040I mean, am I wrong, or could this case fundamentally change how citizenship is defined in the United States?
00:24:47.400Well, sure, and of course, to be clear, Roger, the Trump administration is attempting to secure this interpretation to end birthright citizenship moving forward.
00:24:59.280And the birthright citizenship will be moving forward for those children born of illegal parents.
00:25:04.540If one parent is here legally, that doesn't even necessarily mean citizenship.
00:25:09.380And that's what happened with Wong Kim Ark.
00:26:40.520But to the courts overstepping, you're absolutely correct.
00:26:43.260We've got a problem in this country with these Article III courts, these federal district courts, just overstepping the authority.
00:26:50.640When you go back to Federalist 78, when Alexander Hamilton wrote to the states to try to persuade them to adopt the Constitution, the states were afraid, Roger.
00:27:00.040One of the biggest fears they had was judges acting as tyrants, wearing black robes to try to legislate and serve as the executive.
00:27:08.180And Alexander Hamilton said a couple of things.
00:27:10.020We ought to take heat up from Federalist 78.
00:27:12.220One, that the judiciary is to be by far the weakest branch of government.
00:27:17.200So the Supreme Court was put down below the other two branches.
00:27:20.640And then, of course, he also said that you don't have to worry because judges don't have the authority to issue injunctions against either the legislative or the executive.
00:27:30.200And the Constitution clearly gives the authority for immigration and naturalization to the legislature and to the executive and not to the courts.
00:27:41.300I believe we need a Judicial Separation of Powers Act to basically clip the wings of any court trying to step in and meddle in issues concerning immigration and naturalization and the United States military.
00:27:57.640The question is if they have the guts to do it.
00:27:59.240I wondered if you had a view on this decision by a D.C. judge halting the construction of the ballroom that President Trump is building within the White House compound, the White House executive office compound in Washington, D.C.
00:28:18.920Sure, it's a separation of powers issue, Roger. You know, the Constitution divides our government into three branches. The Supreme Court is a branch of government, but the executive has the authority to operate within the agencies under the executive, and that's what this is.
00:28:37.420And so to have a judge sit over and to insert that court into the decision-making of the President of the United States on an executive matter, on an administrative matter, essentially, is judicial overreach and is a violation of the time-honored doctrine of separation of powers.
00:28:54.780These federal judges, Roger, have got to be brought under control.
00:29:00.240I saw the other day that we had defunded the immigration court in San Francisco because they'd gone out of control with so many very, very liberal decisions.
00:29:09.880Congress has the ability to ring these judges in.
00:29:17.260First, we found some obscure New York best court that actually rules that the president of the United States doesn't have the authority to negotiate a tariff agreement with another country.
00:29:30.520I mean, I mean, where do they come up with this stuff?
00:30:04.400That party is calling Donald Trump, who won an election with a record number of votes, a king.
00:30:10.860The whole thing seems upside down to me.
00:30:13.000It is. The Democrats, they call you what they are. So they disagree with you politically. They call you a racist.
00:30:21.500You know, they are the party of tyranny themselves. They say that you are a king.
00:30:26.800If Donald Trump left the White House, you know, after the 2020 election, even though he won the election, in my view, and I've delved very deeply into that,
00:30:34.960if he were a king and a tyrant, he would have stayed in the White House and caught up the National Guard.
00:30:39.500but don't let the facts get in the way.
00:30:42.760And I want to know, Roger, with regard to these No Kings protests,
00:30:46.800who is behind the funding of all this?
00:30:50.120I mean, it's analogous to what we saw with all the George Floyd riots
00:30:53.420and all of a sudden brickbats show up.
00:30:55.620Now, we haven't seen brickbats so much,
00:30:57.560but somebody's paying for the signs and somebody's coordinating it.
00:31:00.560Who's behind it and what's their objective?
00:31:02.580I think the people have a right to know.
00:31:05.120Actually, I did a little research on this.
00:31:07.400there are over 300 NGOs that were involved in the funding of the No Kings operation.
00:31:15.340So the idea that this was some indigenous grassroots uprising,
00:31:20.320if you looked at them, the average age of the protesters was about 80.
00:31:28.040But it is very clear that this was astroturf.
00:31:31.900And I think I'm really very hopeful that J.D. Vance and the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besson, who I think is really among the president's very best appointees,
00:31:46.040We'll get to the bottom of U.S. taxpayer financing of these completely political non-government organizations who they always have very highfalutin and Democratic sounding names, but they're very rarely committed to the goals stated in their title.
00:32:08.140How much of our money is going to subsidize people who are calling for violence against the United States?
00:32:14.980We had a demonstrator in San Francisco, I believe it was, to take it back, Los Angeles, who spray-painted, kill your local ICE agent on a federal building.
00:32:32.120Who's paying for the pallets of bricks?
00:32:34.500Who's paying for the lawyers who immediately show to bail out the very few people who get arrested?
00:32:40.040I really think it is essential the administration get to the bottom of that.
00:32:44.980This is not how the American taxpayers want their money spent.
00:32:48.500There should be an aggressive investigation.
00:32:51.340Elon Musk made the comment, or worse to this effect, that many of these NGOs basically are set out just to funnel federal tax dollars, our tax dollars, into leftist organizations.
00:33:02.620We had a decision or a sentencing decision come down from Minnesota yesterday in connection with a Somali, you know, food fraud case where you have an umbrella NGO taking money from the Department of Agriculture.
00:33:16.880And the 79 defendants under that umbrella organization, 72, were Somali, and they're billing the federal government for meals and for catering services where there's no catering.
00:33:30.340When we come back, I'm going to ask Don Brown about the executive order President Trump signed today in an effort to tighten the controls on mail-in ballots, a system long used by Democrats to cheat through ballot harvesting.
00:33:44.980You're listening to The Stone Zone. I'm talking to my friend Don Brown, and we'll be right back.
00:33:50.280This is The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
00:33:53.740He likes politics and he's a professional.
00:34:46.920He's a nationally recognized legal and national security analyst
00:34:50.260with extensive experience in constitutional law, military law, and geopolitical affairs.
00:34:56.440Don, you've done a lot of research and a lot of talking and writing about election integrity.
00:35:02.760Today, the president took decisive action to restore confidence in an election,
00:35:06.940signing a new executive order aimed at tightening controls on mail-in balloting,
00:35:12.120a system that I think has long been used to cheat the vote through ballot harvesting.
00:35:19.000Speaking from the Oval Office, the president emphasized a core principle, saying if you don't have honest elections, you can't have a nation.
00:35:26.480The order reflects the president's ongoing commitment to election integrity, a central issue that remained in the forefront of the MAGA movement since the famous election steal of 2020.
00:35:37.320Now, under this law, the Department of Homeland Security will compile a verified list of U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state.
00:35:46.740Only individuals on the list will be permitted to cast absentee ballots,
00:35:50.680ensuring that ballots are tied directly to confirmed citizens.
00:35:53.880And additionally, ballots would also feature secure envelopes with traceable barcodes.
00:35:58.000My question, Don, is since the election laws are generally done by the states,
00:36:04.740does the president have the authority under federal law to mandate this across the country?
00:36:11.280Well, I believe so, and I'll tell you why.
00:36:13.020Yeah. First, you're correct. The Constitution contemplates that the states were in their own elections at Article I.
00:36:19.900But then we get into the issue of mail-in ballots.
00:36:23.180Mail-in ballots, in my opinion, have been one of the most – one of the ripest cancers for voter fraud.
00:36:30.820I have a friend of mine in Oregon, a Republican, who said, well, mail-in's easy. You just drop it in the mail.
00:36:35.280And I said, Chip, I said, how many times have Republicans won since you guys in Oregon started that?
00:36:41.200But that's beside the point. The point here is, when the Democrats began to push the concept of mail-in ballots, what method did they use for the mail-ins? They used the United States Post Office. Democrats brought the federal government into local and congressional and federal elections by using the post office as the means for delivering mail-in votes and collecting them.
00:37:04.200Who is the commander-in-chief and who is the head of the executive branch?
00:37:08.260The post office is under the executive branch.
00:37:12.400The president of the United States has full authority to issue executive orders to agencies operating in the executive branch
00:37:19.400and therefore can and has signed an executive order to try to curtail the fraudulent voting.
00:37:27.640So the Democrats are going to come attack this, trying to use the argument that you suggested
00:37:33.500that it should be vested with the states.
00:37:35.120But this is an executive order to a federal agency of the United States government,
00:37:44.360What is unconstitutional about ensuring that only American citizens vote?
00:37:48.260So I think the president is on solid legal ground here,
00:37:51.420and I think this is where you're going to see the issue break down.
00:37:55.340But understand, when I say break down, I mean this is where the line of demarcation is going to be
00:38:00.940between left and right when we get into the courts.
00:38:03.500But what I told some of the folks on Newsmax today, I was discussing this earlier in another interview, if you want to deal with this problem altogether, then you end mail-in voting altogether and end the post office's involvement, and then you don't have to worry about it.
00:38:20.500But if you're going to bring the federal government in and bring a federal agency in, the president has the ability to issue executive orders that don't violate the law, and that's exactly what he's done here, in my opinion.
00:38:29.840It astounds me that today there are 50 votes in the U.S. Senate for the SAVE Act, sometimes called the Save America Act, which simply requires that one be a U.S. citizen in order to vote in a federal election and that one have a photo ID.
00:38:46.800And we can't get that to the floor for a vote because of an antiquated Senate rule, the filibuster rule.
00:38:54.600The real problem here are not the left-wing, socialist, Marxist Democrats.
00:38:59.560The real problem are the gutless, feckless, weak-kneed, lily-livered, white wine-swilling, country club belonging, establishment Republicans who just don't have the guts to stand up for this country.
00:39:14.600All right, I'm afraid we have to end it there.