That Was Quick

Let's take a look at the timeline of Passportgate. At 10:22 AM yesterday morning (all times EDT), Trump first posted, “Wow! In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else” on Truth Social. This was greeted with immediate skepticism:

It remains unclear why Trump only spoke out about this a week after the search of his property in the US state of Florida.

At 12:45 PM Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich posted on Twitter reiterating Trump's claim.

At 3:55 PM. NBC News anchor Norah O'Donnell posted that "according to a DOJ official," the FBI was NOT in possession of Trump's passports.

However, at 4:34 PM, Budowich replied to O'Donnell with a screenshot of a message from the FBI's Jay Bratt confirming that the FBI had the passports and would return them. Bratt, by the way, is head of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the DOJ’s National Security Division; he also signed the DOJ's opposition to the motion to unseal the affadavit for the Mar-a-Lago search warrant.

It is unclear why the DOJ only spoke out about this six hours after Trump's original post at 10:22 AM, having first assured Norah O'Donnell at 3:55 that they didn't have the passports. Took a full six hours to get up to Bratt, the big suit on the case, though he claims in the message that he's traveling. Who, by the way, was the "DOJ offical" who told her they didn't have the passports? Deep Throat A? Deep Throat B? Deep Throat 52? This is truly hinky.

Let me suggest what's been going on behind the scenes here. Anti-Trumpers and never-Trumpers have been asking the same thing:

It took Trump a week to notice that the passports were missing, or at least a week to go public with it.

What a dummy! Somebody in the FBI stole his passports, and it took him a week to figure it out! Boy, we sure are lucky he's no longer in the oval office, huh? My view continues to be that the man is mortal, but he's nevertheless smart. Recall that there was a dispute on August 8 at the start of the raid, when the FBI demanded the Mar-a-Lago staff turn off the surveillance cameras, but they refused, and the cameras kept rolling. This means there had to have been hours and hours of surveillance film for the Trump team to review, and that's just what they've been doing. (I would also venture to say that those cameras are top of the line, not grainy stuff like you see from a McDonald's heist.)

And as a few observers have suggested, people keep their passports in their home safe, as we can be pretty sure Trump does. Do you think there might even have been a security camera aimed right at the Mar-a-Lago office safe? I certainly wouldn't rule it out. I would also think that since Eric Trump announced right after the raid that the FBI had gone into the safe only to find nothing (or presumably nothing but a few passports), he must already have seen that footage, although he hadn't been on site. Took a whole week for Trump to learn about the passports. Yeah, right.

In other words, they went public with the missing passports only when they were good and ready. They'd had the film for a week. I would also guess their legal team is now at least a cut above Sidney Powell of "release the kraken" fame. My surmise is that the real dummies were in the FBI, who were totally blindsided by Trump's accusation they'd stolen his passports, which in fact they had, and it took them six hours to get their story as straight as they could get it. Not only that, but Trump has tapes of the whole search, every room from several angles I'm sure, and his lawyers have been watching those tapes for the past week. Somehow Bratt, the big suit, just figured this out.

So as of this morning, they've changed their tune:

The Justice Department informed Trump's team Monday that agents gathered the former president's passports and are obligated to return them, and that officials are also reviewing seized materials that may be covered by various privileges, multiple sources told Just the News.

DOJ has designated a process for separating materials that could be covered by executive privilege or attorney client privilege and hopes to return such memos to Trump within a couple of weeks, the sources said.

"Occasionally a warrant collection can grab things outside the scope authorized by the court and the department is now following a procedure we would for any person affected this way," one official said Monday night.

Er, which "official" was this? Deep Throat F? Look for this story to change by the day, if not the hour; we can be sure they're suddenly realizing they have to cover themselves in a hurry. What other footage does Trump have? Here's an ominous sign from the Wall Street Journal, apparently citing Deep Throats J and P:

Attorney General Merrick Garland deliberated for weeks over whether to approve the application for a warrant to search former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, people familiar with the matter said, a sign of his cautious approach that will be tested over the coming months.

The decision had been the subject of weeks of meetings between senior Justice Department and FBI officials, the people said. The warrant allowed agents last Monday to seize classified information and other presidential material from Mar-a-Lago.

This further overrides the backgrounder from last week from Deep Throats A and B that Garland didn't even approve the raid, which Garland himself rendered inoperative on Thursday by claiming that in fact he had. Now the story is that he "deliberated for weeks", adding to the impression that this whole thing was carefully staged, which Deep Throats A and B said last week, and even meticulously planned, which we might reasonably assume now. So who planned to seize the passports?

I would go so far as to guess that the weeks of meetings were the result of pressure from higher up in the organization. In a completely unrelated story,

President Joe Biden is planning to extend his vacation this week after ending his time on Kiawah Island, South Carolina.

According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data Cited By The Associated Press, Biden plans to be in Wilmington, Delaware from Tuesday to Friday after leaving Kiawah Island.

. . . He has not answered any questions from reporters since the FBI’s controversial raid on former President Donald Trump.

This is starting to unravel a lot faster than Watergate, if you ask me.