The Trump Administration has released disturbing emails from the FBI and Justice Department leading up to the unprecedented raid on Mar-a-Lago. Internal communications confirm that some were expressing doubts about both the basis for probable cause and the need for a raid within the departments. The newly disclosed material also shows how some in the Biden Administration appeared hellbent on carrying out the search even as agents objected that it might not be necessary.
The memos also show that agents in the bureau’s Washington Field Office sought to persuade Biden Administration officials to consider alternatives and stressed that the entire matter might be resolved by a “reasonable conversation” with Trump’s lawyers. Those concerns were dismissed as were efforts to limit the search warrants to avoid bad “optics.”
The DOJ wrote to the Trump legal team on May 11, 2022 requesting that the former president return all classified documents in his possession. They set a deadline of May 24, but the Trump attorney later said he understood the deadline was flexible.
The emails show that the DOJ ruled out further efforts to resolve the matter, including a June 1, 2022, memo from the Assistant Special Agent in Charge stating “DOJ has been adamant that no accommodation would be given and that they would not reach out to the attorney.” That date is important since it was just a week after the first deadline and less than a month after the demand letter.
Yet, the DOJ officials were already treating the matter as closed in seeking further resolution. The WFO, however, noted that it “believes that a reasonable conversation with the former president’s attorney… ought not to be discounted.”When it became clear that the Justice Department was going forward with the search, an agent again counseled caution that the search should be “handled in a professional, low key manner, and to be mindful of the optics of the search.”
However, then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General George Toscas appears to have dismissed such calls for restraint on the scope or manner of the search. An agent wrote
“Since we heard Mr. Toscas say yesterday in the call that he ‘frankly doesn’t give a damn about the optics’ and Mr. Bratt has already built an antagonistic relationship with (Trump) attorneys…I think it is more than fair to say that the DOJ contact with (Trump attorney) just prior to the execution of the warrant will not go well. DOJ said as much yesterday.”
Documents also show that agents were concerned about the basis for the warrants and the need for additional, more recent support from witnesses.
Despite stating that it had nothing to do with the raid, documents also show that the Biden White House worked with the Justice Department to help brush aside executive privilege claims to facilitate the searches.
The most surprising aspect of these emails was how quickly Biden officials seemed to close the door on further efforts to resolve the matter despite references to promising communications with Trump counsel. Officials appear adamant that they were going to carry out the first search of the home of a former president. Later, the Justice Department was accused of staging certain scenes for photographs to embarrass the president.
Notably, agents also questioned the scope of the warrant and the need to narrow the rooms to be searched. Ultimately, Trump would criticize agents for going through the personal things and drawers of the First Lady.
The emails reinforce the view that the raid was carried out when there remained a possibility of reaching a simple accommodation with Trump counsel. Instead, officials launched a massive search with dozens of cars while insisting that there was little alternative.
Seems about time for the Trump law fare machine to raid the homes of Clinton, Obama and Biden. Pandora’s box has been opened. Let’s use it for shock and awe.
Man, commies here being real sore heads about losing this one.
Down on their luck, in the gutter, no leaders, just correcting conservative grammatical errors.
Resorting to violence, crying victim, abandoning context…typical non-civil war democrat activities.
Americanonymous,
Once again, their “Get Trump!!!!!” narrative is failing. And it is not some shoddy reporting from the WaPo or the NYT, but actual emails and memos showing the corruption of the Biden DOJ and those senior leadership at the FBI.
OT, but related to DOJ, FBI corruption, New memos show how corruption probe into Clinton Foundation was killed: ‘We were told NO by FBI HQ’
“A newly-declassified timeline exposes how the FBI’s investigation of the Clinton Foundation was hamstrung by DOJ leaders while the inquiry into Trump-Russia collusion hoax marched forward. This isn’t the first tranche of evidence pointing to political interference.”
https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/we-were-told-no-fbi-hq-how-investigation-clinton-foundation-was-allowed
According to the emails, it looks like some in the FBI had the good sense to question the Biden DOJ and the senior leadership at the FBI.
Emails detail how Biden DOJ bowled over FBI concerns in raiding Donald Trump’s Florida home
https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/biden-doj-expanded-warrant-refused-talks-trump-lawyer-discounted
FBI repeatedly warned DOJ didn’t have probable cause to raid Trump home: ‘Not been corroborated’
https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/6abombshell-fbi-memos-show-agents-didnt-believe-doj-had-probable
You are just upset the rioters didn’t kill Pence on Jan 6th, enabling Trump to declare martial law and end the election with him in permanent power.
Ahhhh! Our leftist friends putting on full display of their hate and rage with more of their lies! Nothing you said was true.
How marvelous!
“You are just upset the rioters didn’t kill Pence on Jan 6th,”
You’re still upset that your two day long assault on the White House a few weeks earlier failed to breach police lines,
And as a result you were unable to get to Trump and his family in order to murder them all so Pence was left as president to turn America over to you.
You Democrat commies in Pantifa and Black Liars & Marxists have sure been law abiding since Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray left and your felonies are no longer protected.
Just leave it to the Leftist Dem Operatives that KNOW IT ALL and are the KING SOLOMON’s of the USA!!! They will surely overstep with pompous ass actions and help swing the pendulum in the opposite direction!!! Hope they step forward for midterms or 2028!!!!
Calm down anon, all those exclamations are dizzying.
No mention of a senior SECRET SERVICE Agent giving an illegal order to the agents there to leave. I raised this and was hung up on.
E Brown
Completely false !!!!
The FBI coordinated with the Secret Service agents who were present for the raid.
The SS agents actually cooperated and facilitated the raid by unlocking the main gate to Mar-a-Lago and providing access to all areas within the complex by unlocking doors so that the FBI would not have to force to open doors.
Until the current DOJ sees the frustration in the American people not a dam thing will happen.
It’s all recirculating activist bureaucrats within the upper levels of government. It’s the same douche bags leaving the Democrats and moving in to the alphabet soup agencies. They and their allies sow dissent and disruption in these agencies until their masters are back in power. They are unelected people and are destroying our country.
Actually I am somewhat encouraged that the FBI pushed back as many times on what was a rush to raid. I would say that the fellow who said “Damn the Oprics” really wanted to see the bad optics so as to cower the former president and the rest of us about what awaited people who crossed JRB, the stooge in the WH or the “minions acting in his behalf”. Gladly it did not work.
GEB,
Well said about the “Gladly it not work.” part. We all knew it was bogus from the start.
The “FBI” didn’t push back. Some disgruntled Trumplican agents couldn’t accept that Trump had committed a Federal crime and wanted to stop the investigation.
This raid exemplifies how deranged and corrupt the DOJ and FBI became. They acted like they were untouchable and operated in a KGB manner. They spied on senators, lied to the court. What do the henchmen get for punishment? Nothing.
How many tens of millions of taxpayer dollars went into the frivolous warfare against the President?
Unfortunately, these “Damn the optics” agent’s identities have been hidden from the American public.
I want names! NONE of these people should ever be working for the government again.
Exactly! How much has HRC wasted of our tax dollars playing her smear games? There should be a class action lawsuit for her fraud committed against the American taxpayer.
The whole Mar-a Lago raid stinks, and we will probably never know the truth. Was it a set-up from the start? The boxes were packed up by government personnel. I understand many boxes of stuff were held in storage and not delivered to Mar-a-lago until after Biden took office. Were those boxes tampered with while in storage? Did Biden’s crack team already know what was in there because they put them there? It is a good bet that Trump never looked through most of the boxes at all at Mar-a-lago, but at some point before the raid, he must have realized there was stuff there that shouldn’t have been there.
Was Hunter head of the Biden crack team?
” Were those boxes tampered with while in storage?”
If the were, then Trump was responsible for failing to take measures to secure them. If the feds can get to them so can foreign agents.
We know Trump looked through them because he told reporters what was in them to show off.
Please don’t feed the Trolls.
says the anon troll.
Does anyone know what usually happens when there is a disagreement between the FBI and DOJ, or the local police and prosecutors, about probable cause for a search warrant? How common is it for the lawyers to override the investigators?
Garland was the DOJ boss. The FBI is subservient to the the DOJ.
True! Then why was Comey deciding who to indict rather than Garland?
Sad to read such “comments” in a serious forum.
Sad to read such “comments” in a serious forum. Says the 90 y/o fart.
“Wiseoldlawyer” has as much right to voice an opinion as anyone else. He is not alone in feeling that a number of the comments are unserious, including those that resort to name-calling and / or profanity, neither of which is a substitute for reasoned opinions.
right to voice an opinion .. no one wrote that. Opining fo rthe sake of opining yields “unserious” comments. The guy hasn’t earned anyone’s respect. Key word: EARNED.
And this: not alone in feeling that a number of the comments are unserious, including those that resort to name-calling and / or profanity, neither of which is a substitute for reasoned opinions. Are you daft woman? You and your ilk resort to non-stop insults and threats when challenged or criticized.
Are you daft woman?
As you’ve brought up the subject of daft women, let’s have a short chat about the one that’s afraid to admit she’s your mother.
Have you ever been curious about why that daft woman keeps giving you her hair dryer, vibrator collection, and the kitchen toaster complete with extension cord for your monthly baths?
That’s relevant, because your mother’s intellectual deprivation appears to be either genetic, or brain damage has you believing you’re winning anyone over with what you post here as your arguments.
I suppose the other option is that you’re simply here to preen, flex and pose in a desperate hope that a commie woman hanging out here may notice you as an eligible .boy.
Even more so given the family history I believe he has! A true Long Juicer in this nation of ours if my assumptions are correct.
It’s “year old” Anonymous, can’t you communicate effectively? Cmon, get your spelling right too, I’m watching you!
No, yo fart.
Sad to read such “comments” in a serious forum. Says the 90 y/o fart.
Mind your manners you pimply faced mouthy pup. And take a shower and clean your room like your Mommy told you before you miss the school bus again.
This is as disingenuous a post as Turley has ever written. The efforts to get Trump to return classified material didn’t begin May 11, 2022 with a deadline of May 24,2022 to comply. They started in May of 2021 when the National Archives began trying to get the material back. Trump took the material in January despite his lawyer Pat Cipollone telling him not to. In February of 2022, the Justice Department got involved when the 15 boxes Trump return was shown to include classified material, that triggered a criminal referral and the DOJ began contacting Trump lawyers. The DOJ requested voluntary cooperation, the return of remaining classified documents and access to storage areas at Mar-a-Lago.
January 18, 2021
Moving trucks are seen at Mar‑a‑Lago transporting boxes of documents from the White House.
May 2021
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) first contacts Trump’s team to request missing presidential records.
This is the first official request for the return of government materials.
✅ 2022 — Classified Material Discovered, DOJ Becomes Involved
January 2022
Trump returns 15 boxes to NARA. Archivists discover classified documents inside the boxes.
February 2022
NARA makes a criminal referral to the Department of Justice, triggering DOJ involvement.
This is when DOJ first becomes formally engaged.
Spring 2022 (March–April)
DOJ and FBI begin direct contact with Trump’s lawyers, seeking:
voluntary return of remaining classified documents
access to storage areas at Mar‑a‑Lago
June 2022
A grand jury subpoena is issued for additional classified documents at Mar‑a‑Lago.
Trump’s attorneys turn over some materials and sign a certification claiming all classified documents have been returned.
July 2022
Internal FBI–DOJ emails show FBI agents expressing doubts about probable cause and recommending continued cooperation with Trump’s attorney Evan Corcoran.
DOJ leadership pushes for a search warrant despite FBI hesitation.
✅ August 2022 — The Search of Mar‑a‑Lago
August 8, 2022
The FBI executes a court‑approved search warrant at Mar‑a‑Lago, recovering:
over 100 classified documents
materials marked Top Secret, Secret, and Confidential
additional presidential records
Turley seems fueled by the fact that some agents were concerned about raiding Mar-a-Lago and sought alternatives to raiding the former President’s home. Isn’t that a good thing that agents felt able to raise concerns and objections. Perhaps they were rightfully worried that there could be backlash on them and they all could get fired if Trump ever got back in office which is exactly what happened. Turley should be ashamed to have submitted this totally misleading story, knowing most of you won’t bother to check.
Do you know when the last Classified Documents were returned from the Nixon or LBJ Administrations?
Between 2012 and 2014. That’s right, between 2012 and 2014.
Long after either of those former Presidents DIED. You see, until the Biden Administration, the National Archives worked WITH the former Presidents and their personnel to return Classified Documents, they did NOT work in an antagonistic manner as if the former President’s Administration was a foreign enemy (i.e. Nicolas Maduro). However, the Biden administration in their inescapable idiocy would rather treat Nicolas Maduro as a friend, allowing his criminal enterprises FULL and complete access to the United States, while attempting to do everything in their power to imprison a former President.
You can only work with someone willing to work with you. If I have to prove to you Trump wasn’t trying to comply, you weren’t paying attention. Instead of acknowedging the facts of this case, you point elsewhere.
enigmainblack says: You can only work with someone willing to work with you.
While you are serving as Biden’s Uncle Tom, share with us how you told Bribery Biden to work with the DoJ during his 40 years of stealing and hiding several hundred boxes of classified documents?
Recommend a sudden switch from brilliant White House taskmaster working young staffers to death, to suddenly mumbling and stumbling while giving The First Felon Crackhead Son the nuclear football to put up for bids?
That’s how you get Biden yet another pass and cover up from the FBI?
BTW… did your duties as Biden’s house Darky include changing his diapers?
Your shitposting here doesn’t work well on anyone who has seen that racist, anti-Semitic communist blog you tried and failed at. And they aren’t going to pick you as the replacement for Louis Farrakhan and his fellow black racists at your Nation of Islam.
The above list is specific, and appears to be comprehensive – except I didn’t see the part where someone from the FBI looked at the storage arrangements and, instead of removing documents, they suggested addition of another lock – hence the padlock. Also, standard procedure would have been for the FBI to contact Trump’s attorneys prior to the raid, so they could be present at the time of the raid, but this was not done.
Of note, I have read that a number of other past Presidents, including Bush 43 and Obama, also removed classified information when exiting the White House. No FBI raids were done. As an aside, I can only imagine what would have happened if FBI agents had rifled through Michelle Obama’s lingerie. The whole situation veritably screams “double standard.”
In the other cased, raids weren’t required. The DOJ had been in contact with Trump lawyers multiple times before the raid. The FBI and DOJ had access to surveillance footage of boxes being removed from Mar-a-Lago. This footage was part of the evidence used to support the FBI search warrant. If Trump was moving the material, I’d conclude the time for talking was over. My question is why additional raids weren’t conducted at Bedminster and elsewhere? There seemed to be little effort to find the documents that were moved.
I don’t recall other Presidents, after their term in office, bragging to reporters about the classified material they had stolen.
We all agree with you that Biden never told anyone he had 40 years and hundreds of boxes of classified documents he stole as a senator.
Refresh our memory on how many times he said “okay, now that’s all or it.”… followed by later the country hearing yet again that, no, that wasn’t all of it. Clinton v2.0
When did possession of stolen property no longer be a crime for Democrat politicians?
What are your thoughts about Biden having classified docs (when he had never been a PRESIDENT) in his garage, his office and his “Think” Tank that was funded by the CCP? Come on Enigma, answer the question, do you have any thoughts about what I asked?
If you mean the Penn Biden Center, they did not receive any foreign funding, though the University of Pennsylvania (where Trump went) has received Chinese-linked donations. I think several people have had classified documents they weren’t entitled to. It’s what happened when the government asked for them back that got Mar-a-Lago raided. You are desperately trying to distract from Turley misleading people about the timeline.
Enigma
You’re not answering the fundamental question, Biden retained thousands of classified documents as a VP and Senator to that he had zero legal authority to have. Seems to me, YOU are the one misleading the facts surrounding the case.
You changing the subject doesn’t make something else my fundamental question.
Biden broke the law. trump did not. This is the truth you refuse.
You certainly ARE an enigma: how can anyone be so stupid?
We need a team of scientists working on you around the clock.
“If you mean the Penn Biden Center, they did not receive any foreign funding, though the University of Pennsylvania (where Trump went) has received Chinese-linked donations.”
Uh, The Penn Biden Center is at the University of Pennsylvania.
So by your logic, Biden received money from China? That explains a lot. Maybe the Penn football team should sport a Chinese logo as well.
Umm, you really don’t get out much. Yes Joe biden got money from china. Fact.
no, we don’t know why they gave bidens so much money but they did.
Maybe you know Mr. enigma?
BTW, WHO thinks of themselves as an enigma? a confused person.
Obama wrote 568 pages of a 768 page memoir on the first three years of his presidency.
How the hell could he do this without access to bales of his presidential papers? An Elaine Nardo memory? Or was one of his many estates chock full of classified documents?
Hillary Clinton’s personal email server — kept in a Chappaqua bathroom — turned out to have classified documents on it, up to and including Top Secret. Where was the FBI raid, to make sure there were no classified CDs or DVDs among Hillary’s panties?
The server that was never breached, unlike many of the US Gov’t servers at the time?
It never occurred to you that President Obama would keep his own notes? Just because Trump is functionally illiterate doesn’t mean any other President has been.
It took four years of retirement for Obama to write a book covering three years in office.
If Obama took copious enough notes while he was in office to produce this book, that would be all he had ever done.
Hillary’s bathroom server was necessarily connected to the internet. That’s why Trump joked that Russia had a copy of the 33,000 messages that HRC had deleted.
Turley has no shame that wasn’t bought and paid for. This is a gig economy after all. He just doesn’t have what it takes to fill Hegseth’s weekend reporting shoes, so he has to make due. Maybe if he threw an ax and hit someone in a marching band with it?
This is as disingenuous a post as Turley has ever written.
And the pathetic commie Black Nationalist racist Uncle Tom, enigmainblack, reappears. When his personal blog failed due to a lack of ability to attract other communist black racists, he wandered off on a walkabout of successful blogs,
When Bribery Biden told him “Look here boy, if you ain’t with me then you can’t be black”, enigmainblack said “Yes, Massah” and tugged at his forelock in obsequence.
Uncle Tom enigmainblack likes to speculate.
So let’s speculate how many times he was Biden’s house boy whose job was keeping those hundreds of boxes of stolen classified documents tidied up and ready for inspection when Biden’s Chicom and Russian customers arrived.
Biden never would have trusted his house Darky like enigmainblack to handle any of the bribes. Commies don’t trust other commies not to be thieves as well to begin with, never mind the black ones.
Black American men having an Uncle Tom like enigmainblack servile to a racist like Biden and representing them, is like black American women having Justice Jackson serving as representative of the best that can be expected of black women.
I can tell who lost this discussion, the real you came out. I see why you’re anonymous.
Again, NICE fantasy world there Mr. Enigma. YOU lost but your TDS adled brain can’t handle it so it invents an alternate reality where you are some kind of sassy smart superhero who’s always right.
I can tell who lost this discussion, the real you came out. I see why you’re anonymous.
A racist black communist Uncle Tom pitching his defenses of Massa’ Bribery Biden can come from his failed blog to tell himself he won ANY of his discussions here. But he’d have a hard time convincing even himself he has any credibility here.
Such a clever rebuttal… as though you coming here from your racist Black Nationalist commie blog and using the same screen name here gives credibility to your lies.
Would you like to present us with the rebuttal you would attempt if I logged in and posted my responses to you with my existing username Conservatively Black?
enigmainblackcom, You missed this: ” The efforts to get Trump to return classified material”
That’s the point They are HIS documents, The archive has copies of everything, it’s not all just single-copies pieces of paper now, it’s a document ‘system’.
So the wall of text you posted is based on that lie. And you believed it. Because of your political bias. Living in a fantasy world because of your bias.
Do you see how this has limited you?
And instead the news is how Susie Wiles “admits” that the case against Latisha James is retaliation. After what the Biden Administration did to Trump, who wouldn’t want to retaliate?!
What does that have to do with this article?
Democrats are fighting a Civil War
Republicans are worried about mean tweets and democrats feelings.
We are at 1860 stage of Democrats!
“Democrats are fighting a Civil War”
No they are not. Its written “civil war”.
Again with correcting people’s grammar? Is that your little contribution to the Democrats civil war against one man; TRUMP!
Your leaders are continuing to call you to the ‘fight’, ‘out in the streets’, and you sit here correcting mistakes?
What are you the school marm brigade of antifa?
Little commie authoritarian down to the bone, huh?
Come at us with something, anything. Not even gonna ask for the context that you don’t have. you got nothing.
The next thing you say will be an insult or have no context for inspection. That’s what you got.
The Biden administration was fascistic in nature. Law was not even a concern.
The Democrat Party is a Criminal party…pro bribery, pro illegals, pro crime, pro drugs, pro debt, pro war, pro FAILURE!
Jail The Democrats by 1000’s!!!
1) Russian Hoax, Trump Persecution
2) Protecting bidens, other crimes, jail bad judges
3) Jan 6th entrapment
4) Vote Crimes
5) Helping Illegals, bribery & Stealing
6) Child endangerment
7) Who call for Violence
8) COVID
Got proof?
ANON is deaf ,dumb and blind! ha ha ha ha ha ha
Lawfare at its finest.
In your lifetime? Then you must be 8 years old.
What are worse ones, except perhaps the rest of the persecutions (I won’t dignify them as prosecutions) of Donald Trump?
Or perhaps you consider letting violent protesters off with a warning lawfare as well?
And how are old are you little Ellen Evans? asked Santa Claus.
Here’s a new doll for you.
ANON sounds like a 2 year old!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha
For all the gnashing of teeth about “No Kings” and “Fascism” about the Trump administration, the closest thing we’ve had to an authoritarian regime in my lifetime was the Biden administration. Shameful. And the Demedia cheered it on.
In your lifetime? Then you must be 8 years old.
Oh, sorry I posted a response earlier. I should have realized baby has learned it’s first sentence and, like a child of 1 or 2, is so enamored it keeps repeating that and nothing else. Mazel tov, and I hope you learn another before New Year.
Child of 1 or 2? Who read, write and talk full sentences? Maybe your Barbie dolls do eh?
Ellen, spoiler alert, he won’t learn.
Biden was merely a more extreme extension of Obama’s authoritarianism.
Just “merely”? God, you are stoopid.