US Magistrate Judges are *not* Article III judges.
Not appointed by the POTUS.
Not confirmed by the Senate.
Magisrate Judge Bruce Reinhardt was also linked to several Epstien's emplyees.
This just gets juicier and jucier.
Link: https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/08/09/history-of-judge-who-signed-off-on-trump-raid-raises-all-kinds-of-red-flags-n609341
from the Federal Rule...
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(b) Venue for a Warrant Application. At the request of a federal law enforcement officer or an attorney for the government:
(1) a magistrate judge with authority in the district—or if none is reasonably available, a judge of a state court of record in the district—has authority to issue a warrant to search for and seize a person or property located within the district;
(2) a magistrate judge with authority in the district has authority to issue a warrant for a person or property outside the district if the person or property is located within the district when the warrant is issued but might move or be moved outside the district before the warrant is executed;
(3) a magistrate judge—in an investigation of domestic terrorism or international terrorism—with authority in any district in which activities related to the terrorism may have occurred has authority to issue a warrant for a person or property within or outside that district;
(4) a magistrate judge with authority in the district has authority to issue a warrant to install within the district a tracking device; the warrant may authorize use of the device to track the movement of a person or property located within the district, outside the district, or both; and
(5) a magistrate judge having authority in any district where activities related to the crime may have occurred, or in the District of Columbia, may issue a warrant for property that is located outside the jurisdiction of any state or district, but within any of the following:
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Could it be that the FBI (i.e. Federal Law Enforcement Officers) did it right?
Link: https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_41
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Dame
standard. There may be troubling aspects to the raid, but this does not seem like one.
Magistrates are generally appointed by judges to lighten the discovery load and not to make substantive decisions.
He should have kicked a matter of this importance up to an actual Federal Judge.
He arbitrarily sought his 15 minutes of fame by deciding that Trump might destroy the documents even though he was out of town.
THAT was a real reach.
I would laugh my ass off if there is evidence of criminality here that gets tossed as fruit of the poisoness tree.