Justice Department Investigates FBI Search for Finding Evidence
The Justice Department opened a heroic inquiry into the possibility that federal agents executed a court-approved search warrant and found precisely the government documents listed in it, an outcome officials regard as dangerously consistent with competent police work. Investigators have sought interviews with FBI personnel involved in the August 2022 search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where agents recovered classified and top-secret records after the National Archives requested their return, a subpoena demanded them, witnesses described their location and a federal judge approved the search. Authorities are now examining how so many independent facts were allowed to agree with one another without first considering the president’s feelings.
The inquiry is expected to determine whether agents unfairly manufactured the appearance of evidence by accurately photographing boxes, labeling recovered material and writing down what they encountered. Investigators are also reviewing the deeply suspicious sequence in which the government asked for its records, did not receive all of them, obtained a warrant and then located additional records. Legal experts loyal to Trump said the process bore every hallmark of a conspiracy, particularly the hallmark in which events occur in chronological order. “Nobody has ever seen a search warrant find exactly what it was looking for unless the whole search was rigged by very dishonest people,” Trump said. “When agents discover evidence, that proves they planted the suspicion that made them look for it. It’s a perfect case, maybe the most perfect case.”
Officials familiar with the effort said investigators are considering whether the FBI could have avoided controversy by replacing each classified folder with a Mar-a-Lago brunch menu, congratulating Trump for safeguarding national secrets beside the pool and leaving before the former president noticed the courtesy. The probe will also test the radical legal theory that law-enforcement powers become unlawful when used on a sufficiently famous defendant, while presidential records become personal property whenever they are stored near golf trophies. Under the emerging standard, evidence that clears Trump is reliable, evidence that implicates Trump is planted and evidence found exactly where witnesses said it would be is proof that the witnesses joined the plot. The search was therefore illegal because it worked.
* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.