The Washington Post has an extended recapitulation of the argument between the FBI and Biden’s DOJ over whether to raid Mar-a-Lago. How much you should believe it? Well as much as you should believe any Washington Post article fed by anonymous sources with their own agenda. But it does contain an extraordinary moment as the FBI and the DOJ gather to debate whether a raid should happen.
By mid-July, the prosecutors were eager for the FBI to scour the premises of Mar-a-Lago. They argued that the probable cause for a search warrant was more than solid, and the likelihood of finding classified records and evidence of obstruction was high, according to the four people.
But the prosecutors learned FBI agents were still loath to conduct a surprise search. They also heard from top FBI officials that some agents were simply afraid: They worried taking aggressive steps investigating Trump could blemish or even end their careers, according to some people with knowledge of the discussions. One official dubbed it “the hangover of Crossfire Hurricane,” a reference to the FBI investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible connections to the Trump campaign, the people said. As president, Trump repeatedly targeted some FBI officials involved in the Russia case.
Against that backdrop, Bratt and other senior national security prosecutors, including Assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen and George Toscas, a top counterintelligence official, met about a week before the Aug. 8 raid with FBI agents on their turf, inside an FBI conference room.
The prosecutors brought with them a draft search warrant and argued that the FBI had no other choice but to search Mar-a-Lago as soon as practically possible, according to people with knowledge of the meeting. Prosecutors said the search was the only safe way to recover an untold number of sensitive government records that witnesses had said were still on the property.
Steven M. D’Antuono, then the head of the FBI Washington field office, which was running the investigation, was adamant the FBI should not do a surprise search, according to the people.
D’Antuono said he would agree to lead such a raid only if he were ordered to, according to two of the people. The two other people said D’Antuono did not refuse to do the search but argued that it should be a consensual search agreed to by Trump’s legal team. He repeatedly urged that the FBI instead seek to persuade Corcoran to agree to a consensual search of the property, said all four of the people.
Tempers ran high in the meeting. Bratt raised his voice at times and stressed to the FBI agents that the time for trusting Trump and his lawyer was over, some of the people said. He reminded them of the new footage suggesting Trump or his aides could be concealing classified records at the Florida club.
D’Antuono also questioned why the search would target presidential records as well as classified records, particularly because the May subpoena had only sought the latter.
“We are not the presidential records police,” D’Antuono said, according to people familiar with the exchange.
Later, D’Antuono asked if Trump was officially the subject of the criminal investigation.
“What does that matter?” Bratt replied, according to the people. Bratt said the most important fact was that highly sensitive government records probably remained at Mar-a-Lago and could be destroyed or spirited away if the FBI did not recover them soon.
That’s exactly why D’Antuono said that the FBI isn’t the records police. Bratt’s “what does that matter” line is really extraordinary. The FBI correctly notes that they shouldn’t be conducting a raid unless there’s a criminal investigation, but Democrats in the DOJ continue to conduct fishing expeditions in the hopes of generating a criminal investigation.
Bratt’s “What does that matter?” really points to the authoritarian culture of lawlessness that has overtaken the DOJ when it acts at the behest of the Democrats.
Olsen, the assistant attorney general for national security, appealed to senior officials in FBI headquarters to push their agents to conduct the raid. Abbate handed down his instructions a day later: The Washington field office led by D’Antuono would execute the surprise search.
Olsen, Obama’s man.
Trump’s a special case. He threatens the retention of the Actual Power. Like that Kennedy asshole.
Thank you Daniel. for clarifying what really went on. In this story, At another time you would have been an award-winning journalist for your prolific writing in exposing corruption and what takes place behind the scenes. In our cultural /political-revolution..
Thank you, Frank.
Frank says that “at another time” Greenfield would have been an award-winning journalist for exposing corruption. Actually at no time have the prizes gone to journalists exposing corruption on the left, certainly not the Pulitzer.
When anyone says “ what does that matter” that is a tell tale sign of a fishing expedition
Exactly.
What do the rules, the facts, procedures, the rule of law, etc actually matter.
So the gist of this “story” – mostly a long quote from the WP, which, by the way, in case I want to spew some lie or conspiracy theory in the future, is not a reliable source – is that there was a debate between FBI officials and DOJ officials over the question of whether the raid was appropriate, advisable, justified. Wow. Stop the presses!
In order to make this mean anything, it’s necessary to color the event with a pre-conceived understanding of how the world works (where one need only say “Obama’s man” and all readers will immediately understand what it implies), and to take quotes out of context and twist them beyond all meaning.
Where, for example, in the WP piece does “the FBI correctly [note] that they shouldn’t be conducting a raid unless there’s a criminal investigation”? Nowhere. The article says one FBI official asked (later) whether Trump was under investigation.
Any careful and critical reader can see what you are doing here. You’re counting on the fact that most of your readers are neither.
Say what you want, it wont change any minds. It may be oversimplified, but here come a truth for you.
If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, its a duck.
Like every post you make is you saying stuff about the readers. Maybe Daniel can feel insulted but I don’t like you.
“Where, for example, in the WP piece does…”
You really like to hear yourself talk. I am extremely inspired by your comment. I look forward to a government that will raid commie kiddy rapists like your buddies all day and double at night and say, “what does it matter if there’s an investigation” as the reason. I like that reason, agreed.
Never forget what these people did to you like the jab Nazis, all limbs of the same beast.
The Washington Post thought that the story was notable. Any reasonable person thinks that the revelation that FBI officials resisted the push for a raid and that the impetus came from Biden’s DOJ is significant. The FBI is more apolitical than the DOJ. Certainly more so than Garland, Biden’s errand boy, who signed off on it.
But I know you prefer more hard-hitting stories like this
https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/politics/trump-time-magazine-ice-cream/index.html
Trump gets 2 scoops of ice cream, everyone else gets 1 – CNN
Paragraph one: you repeat Daniel’s words twisted with your compliments to commies.
Paragraph two: You declare paragraph one can’t imply the FBI did bad things and doing so is twisting an argument. You hope people forget that your argument is “You can’t say the FBI was unjustified in raiding Trump just because they said there was no investigation and had to argue with the DOJ to convince them”, (not that anything written in a left-wing rag can be trusted).
Love it. The FBI should all day long argue with the DOJ why there is good reason to raid leftists. Fishing trips in the frozen fish section there. Agreed, that’s how I want every leftist treated in America that isn’t informing on their fellow child-rapists.
Paragraph four is you trying to convince people that the article does not say that there needs to be an investigation for the FBI to raid you, and therefore them bringing it up can’t possibly be connected. There should be that for every leftist, I want you back here arguing for it to happen to Killery and Hunter, ok?
Paragraph 5 is insults, and beings with a word from the spokesretard for “careful and critical thinking people”. You wanted to write “like me” after, you’re so great at portraying humility, you should be proud. You know that you are the presidential careful and critical thinker, you also want the FBI to raid Obama and Biden. I think instead of saying “we don’t have an investigation”, lets use the other times the FBI felt the need to raid the homes of presidents.. Those were when? Was Clinton less suspect?
Investigation? Who needs investigations anyway.
The lefty position is that the FBI should be able to raid you if lefties agree you’re a bad person.
Blatant abuse of the legal system for political reasons.
Although I suppose that’s the norm these days.