On the face of it, the unprecedented FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida home in Mar-a-Lago should shock Americans of all political persuasions. Collaboration between the Trump team and the National Archives over who should have possession over various White House papers had resulted in the Trump team sending 15 boxes to the National Archives in January. But the Department of Justice and the FBI, supposedly when they thought more papers may exist that belong to the National Archives, didn’t reopen discussions, nor did they obtain subpoenas for missing documents. Rather, they arranged for a search warrant and an FBI raid of a former President of the United States. One would think we are living in modern-day Ukraine.
Thirty or so FBI agents were sent to examine three rooms in the complex specified to the judge in obtaining the warrants. They spent nine hours on the premises and reportedly went into many other private areas of the complex, while insisting that no Trump team legal representatives could witness the search. Trump has already raised the issue that such circumstances easily allow for planting evidence. The FBI team demanded the Trump team turn off all the security cameras at the complex. Evidently that demand was defied, so that what was recorded may well come into play. Trump’s son, Eric, who was on the scene, reported that the cameras captured agents searching unauthorized areas. The New York Post reported that three unnamed DOJ lawyers claimed: “We have full access to everything. We can go everywhere.” Somewhere between 10 and 15 boxes of materials were reportedly seized.
After the National Archive had received 15 boxes from Trump in January, archivist David Ferriero testified to Congress in February that there were some items “marked as classified national security information.” Supposedly, this triggered concerns that there was more such classified material. Trump had described those boxes as being shipped from the White House to Florida inadvertently and innocently, and that there was never any problem in returning them.
Of note, two “senior government officials … who have direct knowledge of the FBI’s deliberations” recently went to Newsweek, providing their background story. Today Newsweek related their narrative. It described one of the two as “a senior Justice Department official who is a 30-year veteran of the FBI” and the other as a senior intelligence official who was briefed on the investigation and the operation. The former claims that the National Archives believed that there was more “unauthorized material.” That was the one who asked the DOJ to investigate. (This version has it that not only was the investigation free of politics, but that the National Archives had no interest in continuing their successful work with the Trump team!) A grand jury was convened in late April, whereby the National Archives gave prosecutors copies of what was turned over in January. The “the grand jury concluded that there had been a violation of the law.…”
