He's a federal magistrate judge. There's nothing unusual about using a magistrate judge making the search warrant.
Maybe. Maybe the FBI always gets warrants from magistrates when they want to search the private homes of former presidents, or other senior officials. Or was there no precedent? Yes, I think that's it. Searching Donald Trump's private residence was unprecedented, i.e. highly irregular. Just for appearances sake, they should not have gotten some obscure magistrate for that.
My theory is that a magistrate, not being a lifetime appointment and perhaps aspiring for a real Federal Judgeship, might be easier to convince to issue a sketchy warrant in a way that had never been done before.
Simple way to solve that mystery: Get him under oath, and ask him if the warrant request was done in the normal way he always issues warrants, or was he contacted by anyone prior to the application being submitted. If he was contacted, by whom and to say what?
Maybe he'll say, "oh yes, very normal. One morning I was going through my in box and there was a motion for bail reduction, a request for mediation by parties to a boundaries dispute, a thank you card from my daughter and new son-in-law, a request to search the private residence of a former president of the opposing party, and a draft of a judgement in federal firearms license case. Just another day at the office!"
Or maybe he'll say he was contacted and tell us all about it.
Or maybe he'll take the fifth. Ya think?
I would like you to attempt to substantiate your claim that prior presidents kept WH documents, but specifically classified WH documents. You can provide an example of anyone since Nixon. I don't think this is correct.
I didn't mention classified documents. It's a different deal with presidents "keeping classified documents." Presidents have sole authority over classification, the courts have long ruled that. Much different from the huge stash of classified documents that Biden stole as Senator.
But, say!
We seem to have an "answer deficit" here. I'm answering your questions, but you're not answering mine.
How about I give you two for one? I'll answer two of yours and you answer one of mine?
I choose this one:
Bondi can get the agents under oath and ask them if the documents were marked classified as they found them.
Reckon they'll plead the 5th?