BREAKING: Judge Aileen Cannon Grants President Trump’s Request for Special Master Review of Documents Seized During Mar-a-Lago Raid – BLOCKS BIDEN REGIME FROM ACCESS Pending Review
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District Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon
Trump-appointed US District Judge Aileen Cannon from the southern district of Florida on Saturday announced the “preliminary intent to appoint a special master” to review all of the records seized by the FBI during its unprecedented raid on President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.
Judge Cannon said the FBI raid on Mar-a-lago “involved political calculations” to diminish the leading voice of the Republican Party just months before the midterm election.
Every attack on President Trump has been a political calculation to stomp out the voice of the American people.
On Labor Day Monday Judge Aileen Cannon granted President Trump’s request for a Special Master review of the material confiscated by the Biden DOJ during their raid on his home at Mar-a-Lago.
More… Judge Cannon also ‘temporarily enjoins’ or forbid the Biden regime from ‘reviewing and using the seized materials’ pending the completion of the review.
The judge also ‘temporarily enjoins’ the government from ‘reviewing and using the seized materials’ pending the completion of the review.
That grants Trump and his legal team a side benefit of stalling the fast-moving proceedings that have unfolded since the August 8 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.
Stephen Miller: “Biden Tonight Gave the Speech of a Dictator, In the Style of a Dictator, In the Visual of a Dictator, Using the Words of a Dictator” (VIDEO)
Joe Biden made history on Thursday night and declared war on the American people.
It was a turning point in American politics.
It was the speech of a raging tyrant.
Former Trump aide Stephen Miller delivered an amazing rebuttal to Joe Biden’s historic declaration of war on the American people.
Thank God we still have men like Stephen Miller on our side!
Stephen Miller: President Trump poured out his heart, his soul, his spirit every day to build a better America for everyone to build a safer and more prosperous America. While Democrats and deep state launched an illegal operation to take him out and it is now in its sixth year!
President Biden tonight gave the speech of a dictator, in the style of a dictator, in the visual of a dictator, using the words of a dictator.
This was his enemies of the state speech. And like every other radical, Marxist, tyrant, he accused his opponents of being fascist while he engages in oppressive authoritarian behavior.
He’s the one who’s forcing Americans against their will to take a vaccine.
He is the one who has violated our nation’s Constitution to open our borders.
He’s the one who is interfering in the sacred relationship between parent and child to try to force dangerous medicine, puberty blockers, hormones, on our little kids.
He’s the one whose government raided the home of his chief political opponent. in a fashion that violates the entire constitutional order because President Trump has the absolute right to decide what is or isn’t in the national security interest when he leaves the White House.
All of those things, all of them, are the behavior of a tyrant.
AG Merrick Garland Issues Threatening Memo Against FBI Whistleblowers
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“Attorney General Merrick Garland has issued a memo to Justice Department personnel reiterating the department’s policy of prohibiting communication with members of Congress,” Fox News reports.
Garland said all communication with Congress must be handled by the Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA).
Per DOJ policy, “no department employee may communicate with Senators, Representatives, congressional committees, or congressional staff without advance coordination, consultation, and approval by OLA.”
“All congressional inquiries and correspondence from Members, committees, and staff should be immediately directed to OLA upon receipt,” says Justice Manual 1-8.000.
Hannity discussed the memo on his program Tuesday night.
Garland said these policies were designed to protect the DOJ’s “criminal and civil law enforcement decisions, and its legal judgments, from partisan or other inappropriate influences, whether real or perceived, direct or indict.”
They are also designed, Garland said, “to ensure that Congress may carry out its legislative investigatory and oversight functions.”
Garland insisted that such policies were not “intended to conflict with or limit whistleblower protections.”
The memorandum comes on the heels of a tumultuous few months for the DOJ and the FBI. Over the weekend, Tim Thibault, an assistant special agent-in-charge in the District of Columbia, retired amid allegations that he supposedly ran interference in the investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Kurt Siuzdak, a former FBI agent and attorney who represents bureau whistleblowers, said the memo is targeting employees who want to speak out against misconduct, noting there is no official whistleblower designation.
“There’s no whistleblower status, per se. If you make a protected disclosure of criminal wrongdoing or serious misconduct, and then they retaliate, you go to the Office of Attorney Recruitment and Management and they basically will remove any personnel actions after two to five years and people know it’s two to five years. And they know the Office of General Counsel is going to fight and cause them lots of money,” he said.
“‘So if it’s not a whistleblower, then we’re coming after you,’ is what they would say,’” he said. “‘If we determine you’re not a whistleblower, then we’re gonna retaliate. … Because if you’re gonna report misconduct to the Congress, and that doesn’t rise to the level of misconduct, then we’re gonna take action.’’’
The memorandum is Mr. Garland’s second in two days as he tries to clamp down on heated criticism from Republicans that the Justice Department has been weaponized against them. They have accused Mr. Garland of authorizing the Aug. 8 raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to politically damage Mr. Trump.
August 30, 2022 at 04:26PM What’s Behind Trump’s Private War With the Intelligence Community?
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
When you are at war with the truth, you attack the truth tellers. When you are a threat to U.S. national security, you attack those who seek to defend it. When you are conscious of your own guilt, you target those who can confirm your crimes.
These are the reasons that Donald Trump has been engaged in a one-man war against the U.S. intelligence since even before he became president. These are the reasons we must see Trump’s theft of vital national secrets as more than just a story about documents.
The seizure of documents at Mar-a-Lago—and what we have learned about the former president’s apparent violation of federal laws by keeping them, mishandling them, and obstructing the efforts to return them—must not be seen as an isolated incident. Trump’s disregard for U.S. national security and in particular his contempt for and struggle with the U.S. intelligence community, has been a theme since he first publicly sought the support of an American enemy to help him win the 2016 presidential campaign.
We now know that Trump and his closest advisers were told many times, even before they left office, that the law required them to return all documents to the U.S. government. We know they were informed repeatedly about their legal obligations with regards to the treatment of classified material. We know they ignored that guidance and removed documents illegally. We know they then were asked to return them. Multiple times.
We know they did not comply. We know that when they were forced to comply, they returned some but not all the documents, and that among these were highly sensitive documents—the mistreatment of which could threaten U.S. national security. We know that these documents were stored at Mar-a-Lago, which had been targeted for years—and penetrated—by foreign intelligence organizations. And we know that even after all this, Trump’s lawyers misrepresented that all documents had been returned.
Subsequently, we know that when all efforts to retrieve the remaining documents failed, the Department of Justice sought a subpoena to reclaim them—and that among what they found were more highly classified documents. Since then, we have also heard Trump claim he declassified the documents, the documents were his, the search was illegal, and that he was the victim. We also heard members of his party support him, despite the fact that Trump’s disregard for the law and his recklessness could well have put the lives of members of the U.S. intelligence community and their sources at risk.
I spoke to several national security veterans about Trump’s latest—and one of his most pernicious—abuses of power.
Former CIA Director General Michael Hayden said of the Mar-a-Lago revelations, “Literally, it’s unbelievable.” He described the kind of secrets that appeared to be in Trump’s possession as the core elements—essential to protect. “It’s the bread and butter of intelligence,” Hayden said.
Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) General James Clapper observed, “The FBI search of Mar-a-Lago—an obvious target of adversary foreign intelligence—is stunning, but not surprising; it seems entirely consistent with the former president’s apparent disdain for the intelligence community and its rules for protection of sensitive information.”
(L-R) National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen, FBI Director Robert Mueller, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and CIA Director John Brennan testify during a hearing before the Senate (Select) Intelligence Committee March 12, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
Alex Wong/Getty
Clapper knows that the views toward the intelligence community of Trump (and those closest to him) have been contemptuous and irresponsible since before the former president took office. He knows that because he was tasked as DNI with briefing then President-elect Trump on key intelligence issues in January 2017. (Which he did despite the apprehensions some in the intelligence community had about even briefing Trump, whom they considered a potential security risk.)
As I report in my upcoming book, American Resistance, Clapper said that prior to that briefing, “I certainly harbored what turned out to be the naïve illusion that somehow President Trump would change, that he would grow into the job, would rise to the occasion. And I believed that up to the last minute, even though the transition was pretty ragged, and regrettably the incoming team, which kept turning over, blew us off, basically. They didn’t want to hear anything. They thought, it seemed, that we were all incompetent and didn’t know anything.
“So, when I briefed him in early January, I tried to appeal to his higher values, if you will, and tell him what a national treasure he was inheriting in the form of the national intelligence community (IC) and the men and women standing by to serve him. He kind of blew it off. He was being transactional since what he really wanted from me was a public rebuttal of the [Steele] dossier, which of course I couldn’t and wouldn’t do.”
Clapper’s hopes that Trump would evolve once in office were again quickly shattered when, the day after being sworn in, the 45th president made a trip to speak at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
“I thought, well, maybe I got through to him, maybe he got the message. And now he’s going to kiss and make up with the intelligence community at least. And then came that disastrous speech he delivered. He was OK for a minute or two, but standing [in the lobby] in front of that wall with all the stars on it,” Clapper said, referring to the memorial to former CIA employees who had fallen in the line of duty, “I think it was 119 stars at the time—it is more now—was a desecration in the minds of intelligence professionals. Not just CIA employees… it was an affront to me and the whole community. And that’s when I knew it was going to be a challenge for the country.”
Olivia Troye, a former adviser to Vice President Mike Pence on homeland security, and who had served previously in key national security roles dating back to her time working in the office of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, said, “From day one, Trump told us what he thought of us. He villainized us, consistently telling the American people that we in the intelligence and law enforcement communities are the enemy—a talking point repeated by many MAGA Republicans especially in the past few days since the search at Mar-a-Lago. A talking point that should be a reminder to the American people of Trump and these people being not only unfit for office, but unworthy of being trusted with our most sensitive of state secrets given their complete disregard for the seriousness of what this all means.”
Throughout his time in office Trump regularly revealed his disregard for U.S. national security and his contempt for those charged with defending it (or was it his fear of them?). He hired Mike Flynn as his national security adviser despite the advice of many including former President Barack Obama that he not do so. Flynn, of course, later resigned in disgrace, admitted he lied to the FBI… and was then pardoned by Trump.
Trump encountered resistance from intelligence professionals to giving clearances to his daughter and son-in-law, but overruled it thus providing access to sensitive national secrets to others who might be seen as security risks.
The day after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for, among other things, continuing investigations into Trump’s suspected collusion with Russia, he welcomed Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador to the Oval Office and there, he shared with them classified intelligence provided to the U.S. by a foreign ally. Later he would also irresponsibly release classified information via a tweet.
President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin arrive for a meeting at Finland’s Presidential Palace on July 16, 2018, in Helsinki.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty
Infamously, in 2018, during meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki (which took place behind closed doors and without other observers other than note-takers), Trump threw the U.S. intelligence community under the bus by suggesting he took Putin’s word about Russian interference in the 2016 elections over that of the intelligence professionals who worked for the U.S. government.
Later, continuing his pattern, Trump forced out senior intelligence officials who he felt were insufficiently loyal to him and replaced them with unqualified political hacks he felt he could manipulate—and who he felt would protect him from IC revelations that he saw as threatening. He used the classification process to keep politically damaging information (like notes from his call pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on Joe Biden) from becoming public.
In other words, the revelations about stealing classified documents are not an isolated incident. They are part of a deeply disturbing pattern. It is one that leaves us with many questions.
We know, for example, that he stole and improperly handled a massive number of highly classified documents. We just know that doing what he did was not simply an act of ignoring the law, it directly put U.S intelligence assets and national security at risk. We know we have never seen such behavior from a senior US government official, much less a president.
But, we still don’t know how many classified documents were stolen or who may have had access to them. We don’t know what was in them. And we still don’t know why he did it.
We still can only speculate about why he was so threatened by the intelligence community for so many years. Why did he feel they knew things about him that could be damaging? Was it just consciousness of guilt due to his active solicitation of the support of a hostile foreign entity during the 2016 election? Was it more than that? What secrets went missing before this point?
Jared Kushner at the White House on Aug. 1, 2018, in Washington, D.C.
Oliver Contreras/Pool/Getty
What were the consequences of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, having an apparently voracious appetite for state secrets? Why was he so actively interested in them? What were Trump’s motives in taking secrets and obstructing the government’s efforts to have them returned?
What happened to the documents while they were in Trump’s custody? Do we have all the documents back? Were there documents stored at places other than Mar-a-Lago? What did he get his lackeys to do when they ran the IC? What were his plans for them and these agencies were he re-elected?
These are not “political” questions. These are questions that must be answered to understand the extent of the damage Trump and his inner circle may have done to our intelligence community, our intelligence assets worldwide, their safety, and our security. They are questions we need to answer in order to understand what they might do should they regain power.
Yes, as important as it is to see the revelations about the documents at Mar-a-Lago in the context of the past, it is also vitally important to see them in the context of the future, of a potential second Trump presidency or should any of his allies and defenders win the White House. It is important to see them in the context of the people at the center of these abuses because they remain active forces in America’s political life.
As former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, Frank Figliuzzi, said to me, “Trump’s dangerous disdain for revered agencies and institutions is bigger than just his ire about being investigated. It’s about his need to be viewed as the only one who can fix things, the only one who can be trusted, the only one who has America’s interests at heart. That’s a hallmark of a cult leader who fears his followers will find the truth elsewhere.”
Olivia Troye adds, “The selfishness of Trump and anyone in his circle who deliberately mishandled the most sensitive classified information that if compromised could lead to the killing of intelligence officers, their sources and their families as well as derail potentially decades of intelligence operations is not only criminal, it’s treasonous and the most unpatriotic behavior one could possibly exhibit. We’ve seen Trump and those around him profit off of disinformation and lying—and this is just another scenario that raises serious questions about what they might do in the future given Trump and his defenders’ ongoing contentious relationship with the national security community.”
In the end, despite the lingering questions, what we do know is this: that the same man who was engaged in a multi-year battle with the U.S. intelligence community also led an attempted coup against the U.S. government, attacked our allies, sought to gut NATO, and worked to aid and empower our enemies.
This is not hyperbole. It is not speculation. This is the reality of the Trump presidency. It must be seen for what it was and the man at the center of it must be seen for who he was and is—one of the greatest, most deleterious, pernicious threats to U.S. national security we have ever seen. And those who would defend his indefensible actions must be viewed in precisely the same light.
BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Trump Got’em – Huge Concerns About Peter Strzok Working for the CIA Are Likely at the Heart of Mar-a-Lago RAID
The brazen raid of President Trump’s home in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, likely has its roots in the Russia collusion story with a particular focus on Peter Strzok and his affiliation with the CIA.
We reported back in May 2020 that Peter Strzok was somehow connected to the CIA. General Michael Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell even said so on Hannity’s show on FOX News at that time:
Sidney Powell was on Hannity last night on FOX News after the breaking news that her client, General Michael Flynn, had his case dismissed by the DOJ earlier in the day. Powell shared:
This was a deliberate, malevolent, concerted effort to destroy an honest man and thereby get to the President of the United States to destroy him. There’s no doubt about it whatsoever. I would encourage people to read the actual documents themselves. The governments own reports, the agents own notes, they’re all attached as exhibits to the government’s filing today and our filings in the last 10 days or so. It’s important for people to see it for themselves, the actual evidence in the government’s own handwriting and documents….
Hannity asked what did Obama know and when did he know it, to which, Powell replied:
Probably Susan Rice and Peter Strzok, who was working for both Mr. Brennan in the CIA and the FBI on the quote ‘counterintelligence investigation’. We have to go back to at least August 15, of 2016 when Strzok and Page text each other about the insurance policy they discussed in McCabe’s office.
It’s the very next day, August 16, 2016, before the election when they opened the file on General Flynn.
The day after that they slipped an agent [believed to be Joe Pientka] into the Presidential briefing to spy on General Flynn.
Could Peter Strzok have worked for both the FBI and CIA, or only one entity? If that entity was the CIA, how could Peter Strzok have been fired from the FBI if he never worked for the FBI?
These are HUGE questions. Did the Deep State lie to President Trump when they claimed they fired Peter Strzok from the FBI because he never worked for the FBI? How could he have been fired from the FBI if he worked for the CIA?
There is no evidence that Peter Strzok ever worked or served in any FBI field office. Nor is there any evidence that Strzok attended the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia. There is no evidence Strzok ever graduated from Quantico. Any of these would indicate his attachment to the FBI but they cannot be found.
Strzok’s history shows that he left the Army and was immediately assigned to the White House. (See picture above of Strzok in the late 1990’s in the Clinton White House.) When did Strzok have time to attend the FBI academy if he went directly to the White House?
Another indication of Strzok’s connection to the FBI is that he signed a document with the title not of an FBI employee but with a CIA title.
It appears Peter Strzok was under the FBI to allow the CIA to operate in the US and that Crossfire Hurricane was a political operation by the CIA disguised as an FBI operation.
August 16, 2022 at 07:22AM Trump warns ‘terrible things are going to happen’ in US after ‘sneak attack’ FBI raid
Former President Donald Trump warned Monday that “the temperature has to be brought down in the country” or “terrible things are going to happen” before accusing the FBI of a “sneak attack” raid on his Florida estate last week.
“The country is in a very dangerous position,” Trump told Fox News Digital in his first interview since the Aug. 8 search. “There is tremendous anger, like I’ve never seen before, over all of the scams, and this new one — years of scams and witch hunts, and now this.”
“If there is anything we can do to help, I, and my people, would certainly be willing to do that,” the 45th president continued.
More than two dozen boxes of items, including 11 sets of classified documents, were seized from Mar-a-Lago.Marco Bello/REUTERS
According to an inventory that was unsealed by a federal judge Friday, four sets of documents were marked “Top Secret,” the highest level of classification the government can give information; three were marked “Secret,” the second-highest level, while the remaining three were marked “Confidential,” the lowest classification level.
Another set was marked “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” which is the abbreviation for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” a special category meant to protect the nation’s most important secrets.
Four sets of seized documents were marked “Top Secret,” three were marked “Secret,” and the remaining three were marked “Confidential.”Jon Elswick/APA member of former President Donald Trump’s legal team signed a written statement contending that all classified material once held at Mar-a-Lago had been returned to the government.Jon Elswick/AP
News of the raid caused outrage among the former president’s supporters, with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warning this weekend of a spike in threats to law enforcement.
“The people of this country are not going to stand for another scam,” said Trump, who claimed that he and his legal team had contacted the Justice Department and offered to assist in their investigation into whether the former president violated three federal laws dealing with government information.
The former President told Fox News Digital that his team “has not heard yet” from the DOJ.
“I think they would want the same thing—I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. “It is a very dangerous time for our country.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the former president contended: “There has never been a time like this where law enforcement has been used to break into the house of a former president of the United States, and there is tremendous anger in the country—at a level that has never been seen before, other than during very perilous times.”
Trump then lamented “years of fake witch hunts and phony Russia, Russia, Russia schemes and scams.”
“And then they break into a president’s house— a sneak attack where it was totally—no one ever thought a thing like this would happen,” he added.
The FBI operation occurred as Trump is publicly mulling a third consecutive run for the White House in 2024.
The 45th president reacted angrily to the raid, even suggesting that agents may have planted evidence during their search. On Monday, he claimed that the searchers told his team to turn off security cameras and remain outdoors while the raid took place.
“They could take anything they want, and put anything they want in,” Trump told Fox News Digital Monday. “My people were asked to stand outside.”
On Sunday, the former president called on the Department of Justice to return the seized documents, citing a Fox News report that at least five of the 27 boxes removed from Mar-a-Lago contained information covered by attorney-client or executive privilege.
“Oh great! It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now famous raid of Mar-a-Lago, took boxes of privileged ‘attorney-client’ material, and also ‘executive’ privileged material, which they knowingly should not have taken,” Trump said on his Truth Social site.
“By copy of this TRUTH, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!,” he wrote.
The three statutes at issue ban the gathering, transmission or loss of defense information (a law commonly known as the Espionage Act); the concealment, removal or mutilation of documents; or the destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal probes.
Trump’s team is arguing that the documents were in fact declassified, citing a “standing order” the former president had while in office that deemed sensitive documents “declassified the moment he removed them” from the White House.
Despite the claim, the New York Times reported this weekend that a member of Trump’s legal team signed a written statement during a visit by Justice Department officials in early June — two months before the raid — contending that all classified material once held at Mar-a-Lago had been returned to the government.
August 15, 2022 at 06:42AM Feds see American anger over Trump raid, insecure border as posing increased terror threat
Americans angry about the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Florida estate and insecurity at the southern border pose an increased risk of domestic terrorism, the Biden administration warned in a series of bulletins sent to federal and local law enforcement over the weekend.
The warnings from the Justice Department, the Homeland Security Department, the FBI and Customs and Border Protection used nearly identical language and were issued after one man tried to attack an FBI office in Cincinnati and a driver crashed into a barrier with his car on fire at the U.S. Capitol before committing suicide.
“Last night, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice issued a Joint Intelligence Bulletin, accessible via the Homeland Security Information Network, providing information on the potential for domestic violent extremists to carry out attacks on federal, state, and local law enforcement and government personnel or facilities,” CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus wrote in a memo to 60,000 employees.
The warnings were being “shared in light of an increase in threats and acts of violence, including armed encounters, against law enforcement, judiciary, and government personnel, in reaction to the FBI’s recent execution of a court authorized search warrant in Palm Beach, Florida,” Magnus wrote. “Since the search, the FBI and DHS have observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities.”
A senior law enforcement official told Just the News that some federal police agencies were asked last week to monitor social media accounts of known political influencers for signs of agitation and FBI officials reached out to some social media platforms frequented by conservatives in the aftermath of Cincinnati attack, in which the perpetrator was killed.
Most of the warnings cited the Aug. 8 FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound as a possible motivation for violence. Some, like Magnus’ memo, also mentioned concerns about illegal immigration, suggesting such concerns weren’t warranted even though scores of members of Congress have expressed concern about border security under President Biden, officials said.
“As described in the June 7 National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin, some domestic violent extremists have expressed grievances related to the false perception that the U.S. government is not working to maintain security along the U.S.-Mexico border,” Magnus wrote. “And there remains increased risk of domestic violent extremists relying on these grievances to justify violence against law enforcement officials involved in the enforcement of border security.”
The memos said they had no specific or credible threats but urged federal and local law enforcement to use heightened awareness.
“Out of an abundance of caution and to ensure the safety of our workforce and the security of federal facilities, we are encouraging you to remain vigilant and aware of your surroundings and to exercise caution as you go about your daily routine,” one memo said.
BREAKING: Garland Speaks LIVE for First Time Since FBI Raid on Mar-a-Lago
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U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is scheduled to speak to the media LIVE for the first time since the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago:
Below is a transcript of Garland’s speech:
Since I became Attorney General I have made clear that the Justice Department will speak through its court filings and its work. Just now the Justice Department has filed a motion in the Southern District of Florida to unseal a search warrant and property receipt relating to a court-approved search that the FBI conducted earlier this week.
That search was a premises located in Florida belonging to the former President. The department did not make any public statements on the day of the search.
The former president publicly confirmed the search that evening as is his right. Copies of both the warrant and the FBI property receipt were provided on the day of the search to the president’s counsel who was on-site during the search.
The search warrant was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause.
The property receipt is a document that federal law requires law enforcement agents to leave with the property owner.
The department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances and the substantial public interest in this matter.
Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Dept. and of our democracy. Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly without fear or favor. Under my watch that is precisely what the Justice Dept. is doing.
All Americans are entitled to even-handed application of the law, the due process of the law and the presumption of innocence. Much of our work is by necessity conducted out of the public eye. We do that to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans and to protect the integrity of our investigations. Federal law, long-standing department rules and our ethical obligations prevent me from providing further details as to the basis of the search at this time.
There are, however, certain points I want you to know.
First, I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.
Second, the department does not take such a decision lightly. Where possible it is standard practice to seek less-intrusive means as an alternative to a search and to narrowly-scope any search that is undertaken.
Third, let me address recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Dept. agents and prosecutors. I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked. The men and women of the FBI and Justice Dept. are dedicated patriotic public servants. Every day they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety, while safeguarding our civil rights. They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves. I am honored to work alongside them.
This is all I can say right now more information will be made available in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time.
Notably, Garland never mentioned former president Trump by name and only referred to the raid as a “search.”
35 min wait for:
1. doj will unseal the warrant and property receipt barring an objection from trump
August 10, 2022 at 05:15PM Exclusive: An informer told the FBI what documents Trump was hiding, and where
The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek.
The officials, who have direct knowledge of the FBI’s deliberations and were granted anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters, said the raid of Donald Trump‘s Florida residence was deliberately timed to occur when the former president was away.
A confidential informer told the FBI what documents Donald Trump was hiding at Mar-a-Lago, and where. The former president at a rally on August 05, 2022 in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
FBI decision-makers in Washington and Miami thought that denying the former president a photo opportunity or a platform from which to grandstand (or to attempt to thwart the raid) would lower the profile of the event, says one of the sources, a senior Justice Department official who is a 30-year veteran of the FBI.
The effort to keep the raid low-key failed: instead, it prompted a furious response from GOP leaders and Trump supporters. “What a spectacular backfire,” says the Justice official.
“I know that there is much speculation out there that this is political persecution, but it is really the best and the worst of the bureaucracy in action,” the official says. “They wanted to punctuate the fact that this was a routine law enforcement action, stripped of any political overtones, and yet [they] got exactly the opposite.”
Both senior government officials say the raid was scheduled with no political motive, the FBI solely intent on recovering highly classified documents that were illegally removed from the White House. Preparations to conduct such an operation began weeks ago, but in planning the date and time, the FBI Miami Field Office and Washington headquarters were focused on the former president’s scheduled return to Florida from his residences in New York and New Jersey.
“They were seeking to avoid any media circus,” says the second source, a senior intelligence official who was briefed on the investigation and the operation. “So even though everything made sense bureaucratically and the FBI feared that the documents might be destroyed, they also created the very firestorm they sought to avoid, in ignoring the fallout.”
A “Florida For Trump” flag being displayed outside Mar-a-Lago following the FBI search.
Eva Marie Uzcategui/GETTY
On Monday at about 10 a.m. EST, two dozen FBI agents and technicians showed up at Donald Trump’s Florida home to execute a search warrant to obtain any government-owned documents that might be in the possession of Trump but are required to be delivered to the Archives under the provisions of the 1978 Presidential Records Act. (In response to the Hillary Clinton email scandal, Trump himself signed a law in 2018 that made it a felony to remove and retain classified documents.)
The act establishes that presidential records are the property of the U.S. government and not a president’s private property. Put in place after Watergate to avoid the abuses of the Nixon administration, the law imposes strict penalties for failure to comply. “Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined” $2,000, up to three years in prison or “shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”
The act, and concerns about the illegal possession of classified “national defense information” are the bases for the search warrant, according to the two sources. The raid had nothing to do with the January 6 investigation or any other alleged wrongdoing by the former president.
The road to the raid began a year-and-a-half ago, when in the transition from the Trump administration to that of President Joe Biden, there were immediate questions raised by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as to whether the presidential records turned over to the federal agency for historical preservation were complete or not.
In February, Archivist David Ferriero testified before Congress that his agency began talking with Trump’s people right after they left office and that the Trump camp had already returned 15 boxes of documents to the Archives. Ferriero said that in those materials, the Archives discovered items “marked as classified national security information,” unleashing further inquiries as to whether Trump continued to possess classified material.
The basic outlines of the facts surrounding this timeline have been confirmed by the former president. He has previously said that he was returning any official records to the Archives, labeling any confusion in the matter as “an ordinary and routine process to ensure the preservation of my legacy and in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.” He also claimed the Archives “did not ‘find’ anything” in what he had already been returned, suggesting that there was nothing sensitive. He said the documents had inadvertently shipped to Florida during the six-hour transition period in which his belongings were moved.
According to the Justice Department source, the Archives saw things differently, believing that the former White House was stonewalling and continued to possess unauthorized material. Earlier this year, they asked the Justice Department to investigate.
In late April, the source says, a federal grand jury began deliberating whether there was a violation of the Presidential Records Act or whether President Trump unlawfully possessed national security information. Through the grand jury process, the National Archives provided federal prosecutors with copies of the documents received from former President Trump in January 2022. The grand jury concluded that there had been a violation of the law, according to the Justice Department source.
In the past week, the prosecutor in the case and local Assistant U.S. Attorney went to Florida magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart in West Palm Beach to seek approval for the search of Donald Trump’s private residence. The affidavit to obtain the search warrant, the intelligence source says, contained abundant and persuasive detail that Trump continued to possess the relevant records in violation of federal law, and that investigators had sufficient information to prove that those records were located at Mar-a-Lago—including the detail that they were contained in a specific safe in a specific room.
“In order for the investigators to convince the Florida judge to approve such an unprecedented raid, the information had to be solid, which the FBI claimed,” says the intelligence source.
According to experts familiar with FBI practices, Judge Reinhart reviewed the prosecutor’s evidence and asked numerous questions about the sources and the urgency. The judge signed a search warrant allowing the FBI to look for relevant material and the FBI then planned the operation, wanting to conduct the raid while Trump was spending time at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. A Secret Service source who spoke on background said the Secret Service director was given advance warning and was later told the specifics of the raid.
Because the Secret Service is still responsible for protecting the former president, his family, and his property, the FBI had to coordinate with the Secret Service to gain access to the grounds.
A convoy of unmarked black SUVs and a Ryder rental truck filled with about three dozen FBI special agents and technicians entered the gates in the early evening. Heavily armed Secret Service agents were also visibly present at the gates. The Palm Beach Police Department was also present at the scene.
The entire operation was conducted relatively stealthily. No FBI people were seen in their iconic blue windbreakers announcing the presence of the Bureau. And though local law enforcement was present, the Palm Beach Police Department was careful to tweet on Tuesday that it “was not aware of the existence of a search warrant nor did our department assist the FBI in the execution of a search warrant.”
According to news reports, some 10-15 boxes of documents were removed from the premises. Donald Trump said in a statement that the FBI opened his personal safe as part of their search. Trump attorney Lindsey Halligan, who was present during the multi-hour search, says that the FBI targeted three rooms—a bedroom, an office and a storage room. That suggests that the FBI knew specifically where to look.
“This unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” former President Trump said in a statement. He called the raid “prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024.”
Though Trump and his Republican Party allies are portraying the raid as politically motivated, it is likely the unprecedented nature of the raid on the property of a former president will have the greatest reverberation. Even Trump’s political rivals have rallied in condemning the FBI.
Former Vice President Mike Pence tweeted that “no former President of the United States has ever been subject to a raid of their personal residence in American history.” Mike Pompeo, Trump’s Secretary of State and CIA director, tweeted that Attorney General Merrick Garland “must explain why 250 yrs of practice was upended w/ this raid. I served on Benghazi Com[mittee] where we proved Hillary possessed classified info. We didn’t raid her home.”
The Biden White House says the president was not briefed about the Mar-a-Lago raid and knew nothing about it in advance. “The Justice Department conducts investigations independently and we leave any law enforcement matters to them,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday afternoon. “It would not be appropriate for us to comment on any ongoing investigations.”
As U.S. President Joe Biden, appearing via teleconference, looks on, Attorney General Merrick Garland attends a meeting of the Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access during an event at the White House complex August 3, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
The senior Justice Department source says that Garland was regularly briefed on the Records Act investigation, and that he knew about the grand jury and what material federal prosecutors were seeking. He insists, though, that Garland had no prior knowledge of the date and time of the specific raid, nor was he asked to approve it. “I know it’s hard for people to believe,” says the official, “but this was a matter for the U.S. Attorney and the FBI.”
FBI director Christopher Wray ultimately gave his go-ahead to conduct the raid, the senior Justice official says. “It really is a case of the Bureau misreading the impact.”
FBI agents scoured Melania Trump’s wardrobe and spent several hours combing through Donald Trump’s private office, breaking open his safe and rifling through drawers when they raided the former First Family’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida Monday morning.
The Post has learned that the search warrant used by the FBI to enter the palatial Palm Beach property focused solely on presidential records and evidence of classified information being stored there.
A source close to the former president expressed concern that FBI agents or DOJ lawyers conducting the search could have “planted stuff” because they would not allow Trump’s attorneys inside the 128-room building to observe the operation, which lasted more than nine hours.
The raid by over 30 plain clothes agents from the Southern District of Florida and the FBI’s Washington Field Office extended through the Trump family’s entire 3,000-square-foot private quarters, as well as to a separate office and safe, and a locked basement storage room in which 15 cardboard boxes of material from the White House were stored.
Feds arrived at 9 a.m. and didn’t leave until 6:30 p.m.
An eyewitness to the raid said all of the boxes were confiscated by federal agents Monday, but it is unknown if anything else was taken as no itemized list of items was provided by the FBI.
Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower in NYC Tuesday night.Gregory P. MangoThe Justice Department and FBI raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home Monday.Larry MaranoThe feds reportedly stayed at the residence from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty ImagesFBI agents even scoured Melania Trump’s wardrobe during the raid.GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images
The boxes contain documents and mementos from Trump’s presidency, reportedly including letters from Barack Obama and Kim Jong Un, and other correspondence with world leaders.
A legal source said that the boxes had been packed up by the General Services Administration and shipped to Mar-a-Lago when Trump left office in January 2020.
Trump’s attorneys, led by Evan Corcoran, had been cooperating fully with federal authorities on the return of the documents to the National Archives and Records Administration, according to sources.
An interior view of the living room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home circa 2000.Marc Serota/Getty imagesThe agents scoured the home’s entire 3,000-square-foot perimeter.Marc Serota/Getty imagesAn eyewitness described the demeanor of the agents as “arrogant.”Scott Keeler/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire
In May, Corcoran granted access into Mar-a-Lago’s windowless storage room to FBI agents who spent several hours searching through the boxes. Trump stopped by the basement to say hello at one point, says someone who was there.
The Trump family since has decamped for the summer to his golf estate in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Mar-a-Lago is closed for the season and only a skeleton staff, including groundskeepers, were present during Monday’s raid.
Access to the 20-acre private country club is believed to have been granted by heavily armed US Secret Service (USSS) agents stationed at the front gates and toting M4 carbines. Lawyers for the former president, who were caught off guard by the raid, arrived an hour later.
The FBI would not have executed a warrant without notifying the Secret Service first, according to a retired high ranking USSS agent.
“USSS legal counsel probably would’ve directed [them] to see copy of warrant and then step back.”
Once inside the air-conditioned, white marble-clad private quarters, agents fanned out to search every room, while shocked staff were instructed by Trump’s lawyers to unlock doors and provide the FBI access to every room, including the sumptuous Versailles Master Bedroom, renovated by Melania two years ago.
Another group of agents, including a professional safe cracker, moved to a separate part of the enormous 1924 Spanish stucco building to search Trump’s office and safe.
The demeanor of the three DOJ lawyers who accompanied the FBI was described by one eyewitness as “arrogant,” and they repeatedly told Trump representatives: “We have full access to everything. We can go everywhere.”
Despite the sweltering 91 degrees temperature Monday, Trump’s lawyers were forbidden by the feds to shelter inside the cool lobby, or to observe the search in any way, but were left outside in the baking sun near a parking lot.
The feds instructed Trump’s representatives to switch off the security cameras but they refused.
Trump has ripped the raid of Mar-a-Lago as a political ploy.REUTERSA member of the Secret Service is seen in front of Trump’s Tuesday.GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty ImagesTrump’s lawyers were reportedly forbidden to observe the raid as agents took boxes from the home.Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images
