The FBI did not believe agents had probable cause to raid President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022 — but former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice approved the search anyway, according to newly released records.
An FBI official even noted that agents had spent six “counterproductive” weeks trying to establish they had grounds for a search warrant but they were eventually overruled by the DOJ, with one top official grouching that he “frankly [didn’t] give a damn about the optics.”
“We haven’t generated any new facts, but keep being given draft after draft after draft,” one official in the FBI’s Washington Field Office groused in a July 13, 2022, email. “Absent a witness coming forward with recent information about classified on site, at what point is it fair to table this?”
The bombshell details were lodged in internal records released Tuesday by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, posted on X that the records were “shocking,” emphasizing that the “FBI DID NOT BELIEVE IT HAD PROBABLE CAUSE to raid Pres Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home but Biden DOJ pushed for it anyway.”
The Iowa Republican also claimed the emails and other documents were proof of a “miscarriage of justice” against Trump.
Interviews with witnesses had also not yielded any proof that sensitive intelligence files remained hidden at the former president’s estate since a trove of them was returned on June 3, 2022.
The memo on probable cause and another series of emails exchanged just one week before the Aug. 8, 2022, raid of the former president’s Palm Beach, Fla., residence show that the FBI was looking for “a second path” on the search warrant.
Washington Field Office Special Agent in Charge of Counterintelligence Tony Riedlinger and DC field office boss Steven D’Antuono were included on that email exchange.
The communications revealed the bureau wanted the warrant to be executed “in a professional, low key manner … mindful of the optics of the search” — though the reality was anything but.
That involved a request for cooperation from Trump attorney Evan Corcoran, who recused himself later and became a witness, that the FBI officials said “may not go well at DOJ.”
Trump later accused the dozens of plainclothes FBI agents of having “raided, and occupied” his home and breaking into a safe during the search for classified records and national defense information.
The former president wasn’t on site, as he and his family had decamped to the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, NJ. Only a skeleton staff and groundskeepers remained.
Agents turned on their lights and sirens before swarming the complex, entering even first lady Melania Trump’s Versailles Master Bedroom, while a professional safe cracker later helped access items in his office, sources and Eric Trump later revealed.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” he wrote on Truth Social on the day of the search, with agents lingering from 9 a.m. in the morning to after 6 p.m. in the evening.
“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.”
Special counsel Jack Smith’s deputy Jay Bratt apparently did not expect to “negotiate” with the Trump attorney when serving an earlier grand jury subpoena because DOJ officials didn’t expect compliance, according to new FBI emails from June 2, 2022.
Earlier emails reveal DOJ officials wanted a search warrant ready as soon as June 6, 2022, for a meeting with Corcoran in case the president didn’t play ball — and were “adamant that no accommodation” be given to extend an earlier May deadline for the documents.
The scope of the search was later “widened” in July to only specify it wouldn’t include “guest rooms.”
An Aug. 1 email drafted to send to Corcoran listed “[a]ll boxes/containers present in the storage room,” “[t]he 45th Office at MAL,” “MAL Owner’s Quarters,” “[a]ll other spaces currently used to store USG [US government] documents from January 2021 to present,” “[a]ny relevant local off-site storage facilities.”
The same day, Riedlinger wrote to senior DOJ National Security Division attorney George Toscas: “Just to recap from earlier WFO ADIC [D’Antuono] has advised we will not do the SW unless direction is received by DD.”
Court filings last year show that Toscas reportedly said in a phone call before the search that he “frankly [didn’t] give a damn about the optics” of the recovery operation.
Former President Joe Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland ultimately signed off on the search over the objections of D’Antuono and others at the FBI.
Smith charged Trump with dozens of counts in June 2023 related to his alleged hoarding of sensitive intelligence files in bedroom, bathroom, ballroom and basement locations at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
South Florida US District Judge Aileen Cannon later dismissed the case, ruling that Smith was unlawfully appointed special counsel without congressional approval.
In its letter to Grassley handing over the files, FBI Assistant Director Marshall Yates said the disclosures were aimed at restoring trust in the bureau.
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