- The FBI raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home to recover classified documents in August 2022.
- Before the search, FBI agents were reluctant to make a surprise attack, per The Washington Post.
- Some agents want to believe Trump’s lawyer’s claims that they’ve done a thorough search.
Two months before the FBI carried out an unprecedented raid on the home of a former president, seizing more than 100 classified documents, some agents wanted to believe that the lawyers Donald Trump has done a thorough search of the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. .
A Wednesday report from The Washington Post revealed how FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors are fighting over how to proceed with a criminal probe into Trump’s handling of classified records. not yet the months leading up to the Mar-a-Lago attack on August 8, 2022 .
While some FBI officials are pushing to get permission from Trump to search his property, other field agents want to close the criminal investigation in early June after Trump’s lawyers claimed they conducted in a “diligent search” at Mar-a-Lago, according to people familiar. with the discussions and who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive investigation.
On June 3, 2022, several FBI agents and a DOJ official gathered at Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the remaining classified documents in Trump’s possession. Christina Bobb, one of Trump’s lawyers, signed a letter confirming that a thorough search had been completed, according to a court filing.
That admission convinced some at the FBI that the criminal case should be closed, people with knowledge of the matter told the Post.
A senior law enforcement official told the publication that the closure of the investigation was not considered by FBI leadership and should not have been approved.
Despite doubts from some FBI agents about the investigation, prosecutors are pressing for more evidence and have told the FBI to conduct more witness interviews and obtain Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage, The Post reported.
Video obtained by investigators showed a man moving boxes away from an area where documents were kept, alarming prosecutors, according to The Post report. The New York Times previously reported that security footage showed a longtime Trump staffer moving boxes from a storage room before and after the DOJ issued a subpoena in May that requested all classified documents.
Legal experts told The Post that FBI agents may not be able to recover the classified documents if the criminal case ends as early as June.
The FBI declined to comment.