In the immediate wake of the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, even high-profile liberals like Andrew Yang and Andrew Cuomo were shocked. Attorney Alan Derschowitz did an entire podcast on the unconstitutional nature of the raid. Appearing on Glenn Beck in the immediate aftermath Tuesday morning, Derschowitz asserted that once it was evident President Trump was not present, the search should have ended, and agents should have subpoenaed the materials. That was just one flaw he discussed.
Now that the details of the raid are coming to light, it is even worse than Dershowitz imagined. According to accounts from those close to the president and others present, the search went far further than identifying and removing about 15 boxes on behalf of the national archives.
President Trump’s former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, appeared with Steven Crowder on Tuesday morning. He noted that the raid broke an unwritten rule that kept the nation a democracy. Crowder asked Giuliani to correct the record on President Trump’s access to classified documents and what “mishandling” them actually meant.
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Giuliani replied, “I imagine every single president putting together a presidential library makes that mistake [mishandling classified information] a hundred times. This has never been pursued criminally, ever before.” He continued, “This is again another one of these things where they have never pursued anyone criminally but Trump people.” Giuliani gave the example of Paul Manafort’s conviction under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which had always resulted in a fine previously.
Giuliani added, “This is a dispute over whether records are classified or not or who gets to classify whether they’re presidential. The reality is by taking them from the White House, that mere act alone could declassify all these papers. The president gets to classify and declassify. When he [Trump] ordered their removal, he was the president.” Giuliani’s assessment supports previous statements by former Pentagon Chief of Staff Kash Patel.
Then Guiliani shared information that makes it even more unclear why the FBI needed to raid Mar-a-Lago. “The FBI padlocked this room a few weeks ago. They just went and broke the padlock they put there.” Even more shocking, Giuliani asserted that “They [the FBI] went there a few weeks ago. They searched the whole place. They saw everything. They said it wasn’t secure enough. So they put in an additional padlock.” If the FBI secured the documents a few weeks ago, how could Trump’s handling of them in the interim necessitate a few dozen agents raiding his estate Monday?
Eric Trump also spoke with the Daily Mail. He shared that agents told the president’s local lawyers to leave the property, and the agents refused to hand over the warrant for the attorneys to review. Agents forced the attorneys to stand at the end of the driveway in 91-degree heat. They only showed them the warrant from about 10 feet away.
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Eric also shared that the security cameras were still active, and the film shows agents in areas they should not have entered. Local Trump lawyer Christina Bobb said, “No, there is no security that something wasn’t planted. I’m not saying that’s what they did.” She added, “This was a completely unnecessary power flex. It was a weird flex. It’s quite honestly sad to see what they have done to our country.”
According to The New York Post, one of the areas agents entered was the First Lady’s bedroom. Precisely what documents did they expect to find in Melania Trump’s private things?:
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.
How does this description square with Giuliani’s assertion that all records were padlocked in a room by the FBI a few weeks ago? It doesn’t. So when Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tells Attorney General Merrick Garland to save his communications and clear his calendar, this disconnect should be one of the first questions that get cleared up. Because it sure sounds like a fishing expedition. Or someone was planting a garden.
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