OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
President Joe Biden’s FBI has been caught in another scandal, this time misleading a judge to get a warrant to raid a Beverly Hills safety deposit company.
The search uncovered $86 million in cash as well as millions in other assets, The New York Post reported.
A senior FBI agent recently testified that central to the plan, and not disclosed to the judge, was the permanent confiscation of the contents of every box that contained at least $5,000 in cash or goods, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The alleged disclosure failure came out in FBI documents and agent depositions in a class-action lawsuit by box holders at U.S. Private Vaults, who say the 2021 raid violated their rights.
The FBI justified the seizure by arguing that the goods were tied to unknown crimes, the Times reported, citing court records.
Court filings also showed that agents defied a judge’s restrictions in the warrant by searching through box holders’ belongings for evidence of crimes, the paper said.
The failure to disclose the confiscation plan in the warrant request came to light in FBI documents and depositions of agents in a class-action lawsuit by box holders who say the raid violated their rights.https://t.co/zygb4JQG3u
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) September 23, 2022
The FBI:
-Misled a judge.
-Obtained a warrant to raid hundreds of safe deposit boxes.
-Searched the belongings of a saxophone player, an interior designer, a retired doctor, a flooring contractor, and many others — who did nothing wrong! https://t.co/YZ2j0rcaDP
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) September 26, 2022
“The FBI and US Attorney’s Office misled a judge who issued a warrant for a controversial raid on a Beverly Hills safety deposit company that uncovered $86 million in cash and millions more other assets.” https://t.co/7mNmsDjdl0
— Ned Ryun (@nedryun) September 25, 2022
"a lawsuit last week revealed FBI agents misled a judge so they could illegally seize and withhold property from innocent American citizens."
FBI Seized $86 Million In Raid On Innocent Americans’ Safe Boxes After Duping Judge For Warrant https://t.co/4lxSBI84vY
— 2 + 2 = 4 (@PGtwentytwo) September 27, 2022
“The government did not know what was in those boxes, who owned them, or what, if anything, those people had done,” attorney Robert Frommer, who represents around 400 box holders said in court papers.
The near 800 safety deposit boxes that were searched were owned by private citizens who rented them. Among what they took was cash, jewelry, poker chips and other valuables.
Other items that were photographed included credit cards, password lists, prenuptial agreements, a will and cremated human remains.
The company, U.S. Private Vaults, was charged with drug selling and money laundering in the case.
The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office involved in the case deny that they misled the judge.
Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman, said that the warrants were lawfully executed “based on allegations of widespread criminal wrongdoing.”
“At no time was a magistrate misled as to the probable cause used to obtain the warrants,” the spokeswoman said.
Last week between 25 and 30 agents arrested pro-life activist Mark Houck at his home in Bucks County, his family told the outlet LifeSiteNews.
The activist leads a non-profit organization, The King’s Men, and is involved in providing sidewalk counseling outside abortion clinics in Philadelphia. The report indicated that the arrest stemmed from a case that was dismissed by a federal court in the city but was nevertheless picked up by Joe Biden’s Justice Department, according to the family.
“The kids were all just screaming,” Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie, told LifeSiteNews. “It was all just very scary and traumatic.”
The outlet noted further:
Ryan-Marie, who is a homeschooling mother, described how the SWAT team of 25 to 30 FBI agents swarmed their property with around 15 vehicles at 7:05 a.m. this morning. Having quickly surrounded the house with rifles in firing position, “they started pounding on the door and yelling for us to open it.”
Before opening the door, she explained, her husband tried to calm them, saying, “‘Please, I’m going to open the door, but, please, my children are in the home. I have seven babies in the house.’ But they just kept pounding and screaming,” she said.
When he opened the door, “they had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house,” Ryan-Marie described.
When agents burst in, the couple said they instructed their children to stay upstairs. “Our staircase is open, so [the kids] were all at the top of the stairs which faces the front door, and I was on the stairs as well, coming down,” Ryan-Marie said.
Upon inquiring as to why agents were at their home, one of them said they were on-scene to arrest Mark. When his wife asked to see a warrant, “they said that they were going to take him whether they had a warrant or not.”
She protested that, saying it was tantamount to kidnapping. “You can’t just come to a person’s house and kidnap them at gunpoint,” she said. At that, an agent retrieved a warrant from a vehicle and presented it.
