Former President Donald Trump's Tuesday night appeal to the Supreme Court is the latest expression of his insistence that his rights have been violated by the federal investigation following an FBI search for classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. And while the allegation here is fairly arcane, more often Trump has been leveling (and fundraising from) a simpler and graver charge: that this was an "Unwarranted, Unnecessary, and possibly Illegal Raid on Mar-a-Lago, a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment."
That'd be terrible were it true—like anyone, Trump deserves constitutional protections. But the search was not, in fact, "unwarranted" in the relevant sense of the word: We've seen the warrant, its inventory list, and much of its justification. Of course, it's possible that we'll learn the FBI lied, though it's hard to imagine even federal law enforcement being reckless enough to take that risk in the highest profile case on earth. For now, anyway, we've learned no such thing.
