Really? An operation this sensitive and this important wound up collecting items that were not listed as part of the warrant?
To say the FBI and Justice Department have been sloppy in their explanations and handling of the “spectacular backfire” raid on former President Donald Trump’s private Florida residence is an understatement.
Before the FBI ever admitted it, Trump went public on Truth Social and accused the agency of “theft” of his personal and diplomatic passports.
Apparently many days went by before Justice Department officials noticed this and said materials that were accidentally collected would be returned:
Passports belonging to Donald Trump have been returned to the former president after last week’s FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home, a Justice Department official told NBC News on Monday.
The FBI acknowledged it had had the passports the same day Trump said on his social media platform that FBI agents who conducted the search on Aug. 8 took them.
In a statement on Truth Social, Trump said agents “stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else.” He did not provide further details or specify whether the travel documents were personal or government passports. (Presidents receive diplomatic passports when they take office.)
A Justice Department official said Trump’s passports have been returned.
Why were they collected in the first place?
The question then begs to be asked, what else did the FBI collect from Mar-a-Lago that was outside the scope of the warrant? It Took Trump publicly accusing the FBI of theft before it even acknowledge it might’ve collected passports accidentally or intentionally. No one will really know since the level of transparency continues to be nil.
To make things murkier, the FBI originally claimed it did not have Trump’s passports before admitting that it actually did:
On Monday evening, O’Donnell tweeted: “NEW: According to a DOJ official, the FBI is NOT in possession of former President Trump’s passports. Trump had accused the FBI of stealing his three passports during the search of his Mar-a-Lago home.”
In a follow-up tweet, O’Donnell hedged: “We are also learning tonight that if any items not contained in the warrant were retrieved during the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, they will be returned.”
For all the fuss and indignation from Attorney General Merrick Garland about anyone accusing the FBI of less-than-stellar work on this raid, the points keep adding up against them.
There was no way that this was ever going to be a low-key event and no way that this was going to go quietly into the night as a non-story considering how much the entirety of the DC establishment has been attacking Donald Trump since his escalator ride in 2015.
The other question worth asking is, why now? If the National Archives thought classified documents were missing, why did it leave them out there for over a year and a half since Trump left office? Suddenly, in August, weeks before the midterms, the hammer drops, and 30 FBI agents raid Mar-a-Lago for what is basically a clerical dispute between a former president and the federal government. There are still no answers or explanations to excuse such conduct on behalf of the Justice Department.
In some ways, it seems as if the FBI is backing down somewhat after retracting its previous statements about not having the passports. Did they not check the items they collected very thoroughly? Did some random agent decide to grab them along the way as another dig at the former president? We’ll never know and Merrick Garland will never tell us.
