DOJ Source Calls Trump Raid a "Spectacular Backfire;" DOJ Distances Itself from Raid, Claiming Merrick Garland Never Signed Off On It

Via John Sexton at Hot Air -- I guess AllahPundit didn't jump to claim this story, for some reason! -- the "Justice" Department is trying to claim this was all the decision of the local US Attorney for, I think, the Southern District of Florida.

Sexton notes a leak put out by someone claiming that there was evidence -- of the walls closing in variety -- that someone had spilled the beans on where Trump was keeping the precious national security documents.

But that doesn't make much sense, Sexton notes, because everyone knew where the documents were -- Trump allowed the DOJ and National Archives people to go through the boxes in June. They could have taken what they wanted.

So this story -- We had to act fast, we knew where the documents were! -- seems shaky.

There seems to have been an orderly and amiable process in place to vet and return the documents:

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.

So you... raid a president's home for the first time in American history?!

Sexton points out that this cover story about having to act fast based on this tip omits the detail about everyone already knowing where all the documents were stored:

The story points to the FBI's focus on a few specific areas as proof they knew where to look. But curiously this story doesn’t mention the June meeting between investigators and Trump's lawyers when they looked through some of the documents kept in a basement storage room. In other words, the DOJ didn't need a secret source to know the documents were kept in that particular room because they'd seen them there themselves and, at the time, not taken them.

And adding to its shakiness is the fact that, according to this story, Merrick Garland is claiming he wasn't in the loop on this.

But Criminal Wray was.

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.

We have a hot tip, we have a hot tip!

You know those sensitive records we're working with Trump to get back...?

Well get this: They're in the room we already know he's keeping them in. But wait -- specifically, he keeps some of the most sensitive ones... in his safe.

A SAFE, huh?! Who'd've thunk it?!

I KNOW, right?!! That's some top-grade Direct-From-Danchenko Steele-Level Russian-Sourced intel, huh? NOW LET'S RAID THE PRESIDENT'S FUCKING PERSONAL RESIDENCE BASED ON THIS INCREDIBLE HUMINT!!!

You mean: Like Hillary Clinton continued to possess classified US intelligence on her servers, until she defied government demands for those emails and used BleachBit to destroy them?

I don't remember any raids being ordered to recover those emails. I remember her being allowed to keep the emails as long as she liked, and then to destroy them, without any consequences.

This sounds like the faked-up FISA warrant again. People knew where these documents were already-- but the warrant is written breathlessly, hiding from the Epstein Lawyer Magistrate that this information was not new but already well-known.

...

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."

Disband. Impeach. Defund his pension.

Sexton has another story, which, again, somehow the Always Online AllahPundit failed to claim for his own -- even CNN's legal analyst says that the DOJ and FBI will have to offer compelling explanations as to why this extraordinarily invasive measure was chosen, instead of far less invasive measures, such as... simply continuing to work with Trump to get the documents back.

Reminder: Everyone's playing dumb.

And Criminal Wray's on vacay, so he can't be reached.

DOJ Source Calls Trump Raid a "Spectacular Backfire;" DOJ Distances Itself from Raid, Claiming Merrick Garland Never Signed Off On It&bodytext=Via John Sexton at Hot Air -- I guess AllahPundit didn't jump to claim this story, for some reason! -- the "Justice" Department is trying to claim this was all the decision of the local US Attorney for, I think,...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 04:31 PM

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