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and now the rest of the story
Posted on: March 2, 2023 at 12:52:01 CT
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Starting in May, FBI agents in the Washington field office had sought to slow the probe, urging caution given its extraordinary sensitivity, the people said.
Some of those field agents wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June, after Trump’s legal team asserted a diligent search had been conducted and all classified records had been turned over, according to some people with knowledge of the discussions.
The idea of closing the probe was not something that was discussed or considered by FBI leadership and would not have been approved, a senior law enforcement official said.
This account reveals for the first time the degree of tension among law enforcement officials and behind-the-scenes deliberations as they wrestled with a national security case that has potentially far-reaching political consequences.
The disagreements stemmed in large part from worries among officials that whatever steps they took in investigating a former president would face intense scrutiny and second-guessing by people inside and outside the government. However, the agents, who typically perform the bulk of the investigative work in cases, and the prosecutors, who guide agents’ work and decide on criminal charges, ultimately focused on very different pitfalls, according to people familiar with their discussions.
On one side, federal prosecutors in the department’s national security division advocated aggressive ways to secure some of the country’s most closely guarded secrets, which they feared Trump was intentionally hiding at Mar-a-Lago; on the other, FBI agents in the Washington field office urged more caution with such a high-profile matter, recommending they take a cooperative rather than confrontational approach.
Both sides were mindful of the intense scrutiny the case was drawing and felt they had to be above reproach while investigating a former president then expected to run for reelection. While trying to follow the Justice Department playbook for classified records probes, investigators on both sides braced for Trump to follow his own playbook of publicly attacking the integrity of their investigation, according to people with knowledge of their discussions.
The FBI agents’ caution also was rooted in the fact that mistakes in prior probes of Hillary Clinton and Trump had proved damaging to the FBI, and the cases subjected the bureau to sustained public attacks from partisans, the people said.
Prosecutors countered that the FBI failing to treat Trump as it had other government employees who were not truthful about classified records could threaten the nation’s security. As evidence surfaced suggesting that Trump or his team was holding back sensitive records, the prosecutors pushed for quick action to recover them, according to the people familiar with the discussions.
While the people who described these sensitive discussions disagreed on some particulars, they agreed on many aspects of the dispute.
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment for this story. Attorney General Merrick Garland, asked about this report at a Senate hearing Wednesday, said he could not describe the investigation but added that in his experience as a prosecutor “there is often a robust discussion and it’s encouraged among investigators and prosecutors.”
It is not unusual for FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors to disagree during an investigation about how aggressively to pursue witnesses or other evidence. Often, those disagreements are temporary flare-ups that are debated, decided and resolved in due course.
While the FBI tends to have great discretion in the day-to-day conduct of investigations, it is up to prosecutors to decide whether to file criminal charges — and, like the prosecutors, the director of the FBI ultimately reports to the attorney general. The Mar-a-Lago case was unusual not just for its focus on a former president, but in the way it was closely monitored at every step by senior Justice Department officials. Garland said he “personally approved” the search of Trump’s property.
The FBI often conducts raids of properties without advance notice when investigators have reason to believe evidence is being withheld or could be destroyed. Some prosecutors saw guideposts in a related case a decade earlier, when Army Gen. David H. Petraeus lied to FBI agents about whether he had given classified information to a book author with whom he was having an affair. Agents executed a search warrant at Petraeus’s house and retrieved a cache of notebooks in which the prominent general improperly had stored extensive amounts of classified information.
But FBI agents viewed a Mar-a-Lago search in May as premature and combative, especially given that it involved raiding the home of a former president. That spring, top officials at FBI headquarters met with prosecutors to review the strength of evidence that could be used to justify a surprise search, according to two people familiar with their work.
Encountering resistance, Bratt agreed for the time being to subpoena Trump. On June 3, Bratt and a small number of FBI agents visited Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump’s lawyer and collect any classified records the Trump team had found to comply with the subpoena. That day, Trump’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran, handed over an expandable envelope containing 38 classified records and produced a letter signed by another lawyer, Christina Bobb, asserting that a diligent search had been conducted and all classified records had been turned over.
Some FBI field agents then argued to prosecutors that they were inclined to believe Trump and his team had delivered everything the government sought to protect and said the bureau should close down its criminal investigation, according to some people familiar with the discussions.
But they said national security prosecutors pushed back and instead urged FBI agents to gather more evidence by conducting follow-up interviews with witnesses and obtaining Mar-a-Lago surveillance video from the Trump Organization.
The government sought surveillance video footage by subpoena in late June. It showed someone moving boxes from the area where records had been stored, not long after Trump was put on notice to return all such records, according to people familiar with the probe. That evidence suggested it was likely more classified records remained at Mar-a-Lago, the people said, despite the claim of Trump’s lawyers. It also painted for both sides a far more worrisome picture — one that would soon build the legal justification for the August raid.
By mid-July, the prosecutors were eager for the FBI to scour the premises of Mar-a-Lago. They argued that the probable cause for a search warrant was more than solid, and the likelihood of finding classified records and evidence of obstruction was high, according to the four people.
But the prosecutors learned FBI agents were still loath to conduct a surprise search. They also heard from top FBI officials that some agents were simply afraid: They worried taking aggressive steps investigating Trump could blemish or even end their careers, according to some people with knowledge of the discussions. One official dubbed it “the hangover of Crossfire Hurricane,” a reference to the FBI investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible connections to the Trump campaign, the people said. As president, Trump repeatedly targeted some FBI officials involved in the Russia case.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/showdown-before-the-raid-fbi-agents-and-prosecutors-argued-over-trump/ar-AA185mOL
Some of those field agents wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June, after Trump’s legal team asserted a diligent search had been conducted and all classified records had been turned over, according to some people with knowledge of the discussions.
The idea of closing the probe was not something that was discussed or considered by FBI leadership and would not have been approved, a senior law enforcement official said.
This account reveals for the first time the degree of tension among law enforcement officials and behind-the-scenes deliberations as they wrestled with a national security case that has potentially far-reaching political consequences.
The disagreements stemmed in large part from worries among officials that whatever steps they took in investigating a former president would face intense scrutiny and second-guessing by people inside and outside the government. However, the agents, who typically perform the bulk of the investigative work in cases, and the prosecutors, who guide agents’ work and decide on criminal charges, ultimately focused on very different pitfalls, according to people familiar with their discussions.
On one side, federal prosecutors in the department’s national security division advocated aggressive ways to secure some of the country’s most closely guarded secrets, which they feared Trump was intentionally hiding at Mar-a-Lago; on the other, FBI agents in the Washington field office urged more caution with such a high-profile matter, recommending they take a cooperative rather than confrontational approach.
Both sides were mindful of the intense scrutiny the case was drawing and felt they had to be above reproach while investigating a former president then expected to run for reelection. While trying to follow the Justice Department playbook for classified records probes, investigators on both sides braced for Trump to follow his own playbook of publicly attacking the integrity of their investigation, according to people with knowledge of their discussions.
The FBI agents’ caution also was rooted in the fact that mistakes in prior probes of Hillary Clinton and Trump had proved damaging to the FBI, and the cases subjected the bureau to sustained public attacks from partisans, the people said.
Prosecutors countered that the FBI failing to treat Trump as it had other government employees who were not truthful about classified records could threaten the nation’s security. As evidence surfaced suggesting that Trump or his team was holding back sensitive records, the prosecutors pushed for quick action to recover them, according to the people familiar with the discussions.
While the people who described these sensitive discussions disagreed on some particulars, they agreed on many aspects of the dispute.
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment for this story. Attorney General Merrick Garland, asked about this report at a Senate hearing Wednesday, said he could not describe the investigation but added that in his experience as a prosecutor “there is often a robust discussion and it’s encouraged among investigators and prosecutors.”
It is not unusual for FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors to disagree during an investigation about how aggressively to pursue witnesses or other evidence. Often, those disagreements are temporary flare-ups that are debated, decided and resolved in due course.
While the FBI tends to have great discretion in the day-to-day conduct of investigations, it is up to prosecutors to decide whether to file criminal charges — and, like the prosecutors, the director of the FBI ultimately reports to the attorney general. The Mar-a-Lago case was unusual not just for its focus on a former president, but in the way it was closely monitored at every step by senior Justice Department officials. Garland said he “personally approved” the search of Trump’s property.
The FBI often conducts raids of properties without advance notice when investigators have reason to believe evidence is being withheld or could be destroyed. Some prosecutors saw guideposts in a related case a decade earlier, when Army Gen. David H. Petraeus lied to FBI agents about whether he had given classified information to a book author with whom he was having an affair. Agents executed a search warrant at Petraeus’s house and retrieved a cache of notebooks in which the prominent general improperly had stored extensive amounts of classified information.
But FBI agents viewed a Mar-a-Lago search in May as premature and combative, especially given that it involved raiding the home of a former president. That spring, top officials at FBI headquarters met with prosecutors to review the strength of evidence that could be used to justify a surprise search, according to two people familiar with their work.
Encountering resistance, Bratt agreed for the time being to subpoena Trump. On June 3, Bratt and a small number of FBI agents visited Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump’s lawyer and collect any classified records the Trump team had found to comply with the subpoena. That day, Trump’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran, handed over an expandable envelope containing 38 classified records and produced a letter signed by another lawyer, Christina Bobb, asserting that a diligent search had been conducted and all classified records had been turned over.
Some FBI field agents then argued to prosecutors that they were inclined to believe Trump and his team had delivered everything the government sought to protect and said the bureau should close down its criminal investigation, according to some people familiar with the discussions.
But they said national security prosecutors pushed back and instead urged FBI agents to gather more evidence by conducting follow-up interviews with witnesses and obtaining Mar-a-Lago surveillance video from the Trump Organization.
The government sought surveillance video footage by subpoena in late June. It showed someone moving boxes from the area where records had been stored, not long after Trump was put on notice to return all such records, according to people familiar with the probe. That evidence suggested it was likely more classified records remained at Mar-a-Lago, the people said, despite the claim of Trump’s lawyers. It also painted for both sides a far more worrisome picture — one that would soon build the legal justification for the August raid.
By mid-July, the prosecutors were eager for the FBI to scour the premises of Mar-a-Lago. They argued that the probable cause for a search warrant was more than solid, and the likelihood of finding classified records and evidence of obstruction was high, according to the four people.
But the prosecutors learned FBI agents were still loath to conduct a surprise search. They also heard from top FBI officials that some agents were simply afraid: They worried taking aggressive steps investigating Trump could blemish or even end their careers, according to some people with knowledge of the discussions. One official dubbed it “the hangover of Crossfire Hurricane,” a reference to the FBI investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible connections to the Trump campaign, the people said. As president, Trump repeatedly targeted some FBI officials involved in the Russia case.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/showdown-before-the-raid-fbi-agents-and-prosecutors-argued-over-trump/ar-AA185mOL
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and now the rest of the story - Ace A - 3/2 12:52:01
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