Joe Biden’s White House was “directly” involved in the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation that led to the FBI’s raid on President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, leaked documents have revealed.
Despite claiming no prior knowledge of the raid on Trump’s Florida residence, Biden’s White House was intimately involved in the DOJ’s criminal probe into the 45th president.
The White House’s involvement in the investigation into Trump was revealed in government documents reviewed by Just The News.
Among the memos are several correspondences between Trump’s attorneys and members of the Biden administration.
Those docs reveal that the federal government appeared poised to waive Trump’s claims of executive privilege over documents that he kept at Mar-a-Lago until earlier this year.
Just The News reports:
The memos show then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ and National Archives as early as April, shortly after 15 boxes of classified and other materials were voluntarily returned to the federal historical agency from Trump’s Florida home.
By May, Su conveyed to the Archives that President Joe Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor’s claims to executive privilege, a decision that opened the door for DOJ to get a grand jury to issue a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over any remaining materials he possessed from his presidency.
Acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall sent a letter to Trump’s legal team on May 10 that confirms the Biden White House’s involvement in the DOJ probe against the 45th POTUS.
“On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office — affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum — formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes,” Wall wrote.
The letter continues:
The Counsel to the President has informed me that, in light of the particular circumstances presented here, President Biden defers to my determination, in consultation with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, regarding whether or not I should uphold the former President’s purported “protective assertion of executive privilege.”
…I have therefore decided not to honor the former President’s “protective” claim of privilege.
These newly-emerged documents are the strongest pieces of evidence exposing the Biden White House’s involvement in the DOJ probe.
However, the White House previously claimed to have “no advanced knowledge” of the recent FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.
“Does ANYBODY really believe that the White House didn’t know about this?” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“WITCH HUNT!” he blasted.
However, Just the News does not report that the White House had specific knowledge of the search warrant or the raid on Trump’s home.
Nevertheless, the White House’s participation, through waiving executive privilege, was crucial to the investigation that led to the raid.
In affirming its decision not to honor Trump’s claims of executive privilege, Wall relied on a Supreme Court precedent that “strongly suggests that a former President may not successfully assert executive privilege ‘against the very Executive Branch in whose name the privilege is invoked.’”
However, this case was ruled before Congress’s current Presidential Records Act was enacted, Just The News explains.
Wall’s letter to Trump’s attorneys also claimed the former president had items marked as “classified national security information” in the set of 15 boxes Trump’s team returned to the National Archives in February.
After the National Archives reviewed those documents, they told the DOJ about the potentially classified material.
That information prompted the DOJ to ask Biden to request that the National Archives turn over access of the documents to the FBI, Wall’s letter explained.
Other documents reviewed by Just The News showed that Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran spoke with then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su.
They discussed Trump’s executive privilege claim over the documents in the spring.
In a letter to National Archives General Counsel Gary Stern dated April 29, Corcoran writes:
We have requested the ability to review the documents. That review is necessary in order to ascertain whether any specific document is subject to privilege.
We would respectfully request that you restrict access to the documents until we have had the opportunity to review the documents and to consult with President Donald J. Trump so that he may personally make any decision to assert a claim of constitutionally based privilege.
Wall confirmed the Biden administration would not “honor the former President’s ‘protective’ claim of privilege” after Corcoran sent his letter to Stern.
Weeks after Wall’s letter to Corcoran, the DOJ sent Trump’s attorney a grand jury subpoena requesting the return of any national security documents left at Mar-a-Lago.
The subpoena was dated roughly two months before the FBI raid on Trump’s home.
As Slay New reported, legal scholar Alan Dershowitz criticized the Biden administration’s waiver of Trump’s executive privilege claim.
“I was very surprised,” Dershowitz said.
“The current president should not be able to waive the executive privilege of a predecessor, without the consent of the former president.
“Otherwise, [privilege] means nothing.
“What president will ever discuss anything in private if he knows the man who beat him can and will disclose it?
“The best thinking is that an incumbent president cannot waive the right of the previous president.
“It would make a mockery of the whole notion of privilege,” Dershowitz continued.
Trump has routinely criticized the FBI for conducting the “illegal” raid on Mar-a-Lago.
In addition, the 45th president has explained that he would have complied with further document requests from law enforcement had they asked.
“My attorneys and representatives were cooperating fully, and very good relationships had been established,” Trump posted on Truth social.
“The government could have had whatever they wanted if we had it.”
