Not everyone involved with the raid on Mar-a-Lago last year was happy about it.
According to a new report, senior FBI agents clashed with the DOJ over the aggressive nature of the raid and argued for a more cooperative approach.
Here’s more from Breitbart:
Some Federal Bureau of Investigations field agents wanted to shut down the probe into suspected documents held by former President Donald Trump as early as June, but Justice Department leaders pushed for and ultimately got a surprise raid on Mar-a-Lago in August, according to a report.
According to the Washington Post, FBI officials and the DOJ clashed fiercely over how to handle recovering suspected classified documents from Trump, with FBI agents arguing for a cooperative approach and the DOJ pushing for the unprecedented raid on a former president’s home.
The aggressive approach was starkly different than the cooperative one the DOJ and FBI have taken towards classified documents held by President Joe Biden at his former office at the Penn Biden Center office in D.C. and his home garage in Delaware.
According to the Post, two senior FBI officials argued a raid would be “too combative” and proposed to seek Trump’s permission first, but DOJ prosecutors argued that Trump was “knowingly concealing secret documents” at Mar-a-Lago and pushed the FBI to conduct a surprise raid.
Even before the raid on August 8, 2022, FBI agents in the Washington field office as early as May wanted to slow the probe into the suspected classified documents and some wanted to shut down the investigation altogether in early June, after corresponding with Trump’s legal team.
The FBI agents reportedly worried that investigating a former president would face political blowback, but federal prosecutors in the DOJ’s national security division — the same one that oversaw the investigation into the Russia collusion hoax — argued for an aggressive approach.
A week before the raid there was a tense confrontation between the head of the FBI field office and DOJ officials over the raid:
Those within the DOJ pushing for aggressive measures and a surprise raid were Jay Bratt, the prosecutor in charge of counterespionage, Assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen, and George Toscas, a top DOJ counterintelligence official, according to the report. Arguing for a more cooperative approach was the then-head of the FBI Washington field office Steven D’Antuono.
During that meeting, DOJ prosectors argued the FBI had “no other choice” but to search Mar-a-lago as soon as possible, bringing with them a draft search warrant. D’Antuono, whose field office was running the investigation, was adamantly opposed, the report said.
According to the Post, the meeting was tense: “Bratt raised his voice at times and stressed to the FBI agents that the time for trusting Trump and his lawyer was over.”
D’Antuono asked if Trump was officially the subject of a criminal investigation, to which Bratt reportedly responded, “What does that matter?”
D’Antuono reportedly questioned why they would be going after presidential records as well as suspected classified documents, when only the latter were sought. “We are not the presidential records police,” he reportedly said.
FBI senior leadership were on the side of the DOJ, with the FBI’s general counsel Jason Jones — a confidant of FBI Director Christopher Wray — saying he planned to recommend to Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate that the FBI seek a warrant for the search and D’Antuono opposing that recommendation.
Olsen then reportedly appealed to senior officials in FBI headquarters to push their agents to conduct the raid, with Abbate ordering D’Antuono to execute the surprise search.
It’s amazing to me that there were actually senior FBI agents who were opposed to the raid and argued against it. Of course they were overruled by others in the FBI and the DOJ, but I think it says something about the nature of the raid and the hatred for Trump in the upper echelons of the FBI and the DOJ which argued for the raid.
I hope one day we can get someone to run the FBI and the DOJ who will get rid of these partisans in the organizations to restore public faith in these institutions. Justice is supposed to be blind but it’s clearly not under Joe Biden.