“It’s true,” FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed Tuesday amid reports that newly-declassified documents show that President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) pressured the FBI to conduct the infamous 2022 raid of then-former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home – even though the FBI repeated warned that such a raid was unwarranted.
“Received shocking new docs 2day from DOJ & FBI showing FBI DID NOT BELIEVE IT HAD PROBABLE CAUSE to raid Pres Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home but Biden DOJ pushed for it anyway,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced in a X.com post Tuesday.
“Based on the records Mar-a-Lago raid was a miscarriage of justice. Read for urself,” Grassley added, linking to the documents posted online, which detail communications between DOJ and FBI.
“It’s true – we just turned over documents to Capitol Hill to be made public showing the FBI told DOJ they did not have probable cause for raiding President Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago but DOJ ‘didn’t give a damn’ and did it anyway,” Patel confirmed in a X.com sharing a Fox News report.
As one document by the FBI’s Washington Field Office (WFO) notes:
“WFO does not believe (and has articulated to DOJ, CES), that we have established probably cause for the search warrant for classified records at Mar a Lago. DOJ has opined they do have probable cause, requesting a wide scope including residence, office, storage space.”
Multiple documents include comments revealing that the FBI concluded that, without new information or witnesses, existed no probable cause to justify raiding Trump’s home in search of mishandled classified documents:
- “WFO ADIC has advised we will not do the SW (search warrant) unless director is received by DD. WFO would like to propose a second path. Which I would be more than happy to discuss.
- “Continued investigation and additional interviews have not found any witness who has reported seeing classified records at Mar a Lago since the return of records via [redacted] compliance on June 3, 2022.”
- “Very little has been developed related to who might be culpable for mishandling the documents.”
- “Absent a witness coming forward with recent information about classified on site, at what point is it fair to table this?”
- “It is time consuming for the team, and not productive if there are no new facts supporting PC (probable cause)?”
If a raid must be conducted on former President Donald Trump’s home, one document notes, “The FBI intends for the execution of the warrant to be handled in a professional, low key manner, and to be mindful of the optics of the search.”
But, the documents also note that Biden’s DOJ had no desire for the raid to be either low key, professional or mindful, Fox News explains:
“The FBI did not believe it had probable cause to raid President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in 2022, but moved forward amid pressure from the Biden Justice Department, with an official saying he didn’t ‘give a damn about the optics’ of the search, newly declassified documents reviewed by Fox News Digital reveal.”
