Letter to the editor: The Fourth Amendment controversy
During the War for Independence, British soldiers ransacked the home of patriots with general warrants. Our founders created the Fourth Amendment to keep our government from doing the same. Legal warrants have to be very specific. It is the basis of our privacy rights.
The armed FBI raid on President Trump’s home was no different than that of the British soldiers 250 years ago. Unrestricted access with no particular description of the items seized included his personal items. The unsupervised ransacking of his private property to take or even plant evidence taints its validity. If the documents are indeed classified, a jury could not even see them.
The Presidential Records Act was cited in a case involving Bill Clinton, who hid classified documents in his sock drawer. An Obama-appointed judge, Amy Berman Jackson, ruled that Clinton was “completely entrusted with the management and even disposal of presidential records during his time in office.”
Trump was following the act while the DOJ/FBI ignored it.
Politics is a blood sport, but “rules for thee but not for me” is a serious abuse of the process. Using the police powers to sway public opinion is an existential threat to our constitutional republic.
Dr. Bill Choby
Latrobe
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