There’s a problem with the FBI warrant given to Donald Trump before his Mar-a-Lago home was raided, Glenn says, that may make it entirely unconstitutional. The warrant seems to be, ‘pretty much,’ a general warrant for the former president’s entire house. So what is a general warrant and why does the Fourth Amendment protect AGAINST them? That answer goes all the way back to King George III and our Founding Fathers. In this clip, Glenn and Stu explain...
TranscriptBelow is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Let me ask you: What is the -- what is the problem with the warrant? Have you heard the real problem with the warrant for Donald Trump?
What are you hearing?
STU: The problem from our perspective, or the problem from --
GLENN: The constitutionally.
STU: I mean, it just seems like they -- it strikes me as basically a general warrant, right?
GLENN: What is the general warrant? Excellence.
STU: To just go search. Looking for stuff. Basically, a free pass for a fishing expedition.
GLENN: Right. You can go in, and look anywhere. And grab papers that you might think. Okay?
And that's pretty much what the warrant says. It is a general warrant for his whole house. Okay?
Any papers lying around us. You can grab them. Any boxes with papers. You know, you can look in these places. But any part of the House.
STU: And it's a big House. It's a big House.
GLENN: That's called a general warrant. And the reason why this is in our Fourth Amendment, is because this is the way the king would get his own citizens over in England. And they were outlawed in England, I think in 1600. Something like that. And they were -- they just came in to a guy's house. And started searching everything. Not for illegal papers. Just papers. And he's like, I -- I wasn't committing a crime. You guys came in, and you're just doing a general warrant. You cannot do it. And it's where the castle doctrine actually started. A man's home is his castle, okay? Well, the king was doing that to us. This is, according to John Adams, the spark that lit the revolution. Because in 1755 or '4, before the Declaration of Independence, let's leave it at that one. Do your own homework. I urge you. But, anyway, the king just said, general warrants. And so any cop. Anybody could just go, I got a general warrant here from the king. And they could go into your house. And take anything they wanted. And just say, you're under suspicion.
That's why the Fourth Amendment exists. This is what happened to Donald Trump. This is -- this allows them to kick the door down, in the middle of the night. You're not charged with anything. They're just looking. They're just looking to see. If they have anything. I wonder what they've got in there. They can use it to hassle you. They can do it just to see. Does he have anything he shouldn't have? That's a general warrant. We don't do that, in America. And it's a fundamental principle of America, and a fundamental principle in justice. Imagine what the south could have done and what the south probably did do, until we started enforcing the Fourth Amendment, from the federal government and saying to these states, you're not doing that. Imagine you're black, and you're living in a southern state. What they could do, and probably what they did do, just going in with a general warrant. What am I suspected of? What am I -- you're all guilty. You know it. You're all guilty. We know you. And they could just go terrorize your family and bust in at any hour, and just take whatever they wanted. That's not justice. That is not justice. Also, one other thing: When I heard they charged him with the Espionage Act, excuse me? Or they're thinking about it. No --
STU: That was the basis for the warrant.
GLENN: He might be violating the Espionage Act. Really? Really? You think Donald Trump is taking nuclear secrets and selling them to, whom? Beyond that, you know, I don't know if you have thought this out as a society or in a Justice Department.
You know, the nuclear secrets, that's kind of big. They're not just like in a file cabinet in the drawer of the President. Okay? If he wants a nuclear secret, he's got to ask for it and it's the kind of thing that usually comes over with a handcuff on a briefcase. And then that person shows it to the president, and they have to sign for it if they want to keep it, and somebody has to stay there. It's not like, hey, so I was on the crapper this morning, and I picked up accidentally nuclear secrets documents. I'm going to keep it.