It’s only a week, but already there seems to be a ton of questions about the FBI raid against President Donald Trump.
Another one?
There was already the question of the warrant being overly broad, applying to every document made during Trump’s presidency, which is ridiculous. However, they might have done more than what they were allowed to.
Fox reports that the FBI took documents protected by attorney-client privilege and documents possibly covered by executive privilege.
Sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News Saturday that the former president’s team was informed that boxes labeled A-14, A-26, A-43, A-13, A-33, and a set of documents—all seen on the final page of the FBI’s property receipt —contained information covered by attorney-client privilege. [….]
Fox News sources told Fox News that executive privilege could protect some records. This gives the President of the United States, and any other executive officials the power to withhold sensitive advice or consultations between him and his senior advisors. [….]
Sources told Fox News that, due to attorney-client privilege, Trump’s team asked the Justice Department for their position on whether they would support a third party, independent special master to review those records, but sources told Fox News that the DOJ notified Trump’s team that they would oppose that request.
This begs the question: Would they not oppose the request to a special master independent of their actions? If they were concerned about transparency and objectivity, why would they not oppose this request? The action will be even more suspect.
We already talked about the raid being a fishing expedition, but it’s very concerning if they took documents subject to attorney-client privilege. That may give them a window into the potential defense actions that Trump and his lawyers are taking in cases — something which should never happen. Former presidents could be eligible to claim executive privilege in cases. That would create another issue with the actions they might have taken.
Trump says that even though the property receipt contains classified documents or top-secret documents it does not show, he claims they would have been released. As we noted, however, the underlying criminal statutes don’t require that the documents in question be classified for them to apply.
Fox News
The government conducted the search in response to what it believes to be a violation of federal laws: 18 USC 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information; 18 USC 2071 — Concealment, removal or mutilation; and 18 USC 1519 — Destruction, alteration or falsification of records in Federal investigations.
They may not be of any relevance even though they are declassified. The statutes enable the FBI to use as many resources possible to get Trump on something.
But, as we also noted, if the concern was “national security,” the FBI waited for three days after getting the warrant before conducting the raid. The FBI was also in contact with Trump 18 months ago about the documents. That doesn’t make it seem like things were very urgent. The DOJ has yet to explain themselves as to why they couldn’t just have asked for the items since Trump had already turned over many boxes to them in June.
Fox reports that the FBI took around 20 boxes from the house during the raid.
The source questioned whether the federal magistrate judge who signed off on the warrant for the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago Monday was aware of Trump’s “past compliance with the subpoena,” adding that, if the FBI was looking for additional documents, another subpoena could have been issued, as Trump and his team were “cooperative” and turned over documents and records responsive to the subpoena issued in the spring.
That’s also a good point — whether the FBI told the judge all the facts. We’ve seen in the past during the Russia probe how the FISA Court was misled by a false document filed by the FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.
So add another question to the many already raised about the FBI’s actions in this case.