According to new emails, ‘Very little has been developed related to who might be culpable for mishandling the documents,’ an FBI official wrote.
By Catholics for Catholics
The FBI’s Washington field office forewarned Biden administration officials they needed probable cause to raid President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate prior to the August 2022 search, according to emails the Justice Department will hand over to Congress.
Mike Johnson, the House’s Speaker, corroborated Tuesday that the emails are real and said they will prove “the complete and total weaponization of the Department of Justice under the Biden administration.”
“They used it to go after political enemies, and chief among them was, of course, Donald J. Trump,” said Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, according to the Washington Times.
Fox News Digital examined emails between FBI and Justice Department officials in the months leading up to the August 2022 raid of Mar-a-Lago, with FBI officials voicing worries about a lack of probable cause to execute the search warrant on the then-former president’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
“Very little has been developed related to who might be culpable for mishandling the documents,” an FBI official serving as an assistant special agent in charge, wrote to another FBI official, Anthony Riedlinger. “From the interviews, WFO has gathered information suggesting that there may be additional boxes (presumably of the same type as were sent back to NARA in January) at Mar-a-Lago.”
“WFO has been drafting a search warrant affidavit related to these potential boxes, but has some concerns that the information is single source, has not been corroborated, and may be dated,” the official continues. “DOJ CES opines, however, that the SW’s meet the probable cause standard.”
“Even as we continue down the path towards a search warrant, WFO believes that a reasonable conversation with the former president’s attorney, (stating that the FBI and DOJ are readying a search warrant, and have developed information that there are more documents at Mar a Lago), ought not to be discounted,” the official wrote.
“At a minimum, even if the former president’s attorney is correct and the documents were all declassified (or believed to be declassified), it can be reasonably argued that the documents remain sensitive and should be properly secured until the matter of classification is sorted out,” the official continued. “This conversation could easily be accomplished at the same time that WFO presses forward with the investigation and continues building out the search warrant.”
According to Fox News, weeks later, an FBI agent writes an email stating: “We haven’t generated any new facts, but keep being given draft after draft after draft.”
“Absent a witness coming forward with recent information about classified on site, at what point is it fair to table this?” the agent writes. “It is time consuming for the team, and not productive if there are no new facts supporting PC (probable cause)?”
Another email revealed that the FBI’s Washington Field Office did not “believe (and has articulated to DOJ CES), that we have established probable cause for the search warrant for classified records at Mar a Lago.”
“The DOJ has opined that they do have probable cause, requesting a wide scope including residence, office, storage space,” an agent wrote.
The FBI believed that a raid would be “counterproductive,” and suggested “alternative, less intrusive and likelier quicker options for resolution” to reclaim any potential classified records.
The process moved forward, regardless of concerns.
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