FBI deferred to Trump
Contrary to the accusation from four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump and his supporters that the FBI acted like stormtroopers when it executed a search warrant on Trump’s Florida estate, the evidence to date in the Mar-a-Lago document case suggests timidity bordering on dereliction of duty. A new report should heighten concerns about the FBI’s diligence.
ABC News reported Thursday that “special counsel Jack Smith’s team has questioned several witnesses about a closet and a so-called ‘hidden room’ inside … Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago that the FBI didn’t check while searching the estate in August 2022.” In other words, Trump could still be in possession of highly sensitive documents.
“According to sources, some investigators involved in the case came to later believe that the closet, which was locked on the day of the search, should have been opened and checked,” ABC noted. “As investigators would later learn, Trump allegedly had the closet’s lock changed while his attorney was in Mar-a-Lago’s basement, searching for classified documents in a storage room that he was told would have all such documents.” Changing the locks would be powerful evidence to show what is known as “consciousness of guilt,” which could be used in court to prove that any alleged obstruction was intentional and willful.
The allegation of such slipshod conduct by the FBI leaves experienced prosecutors dumbfounded. Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance wrote on Substack, “On the face of the reporting, it’s difficult to figure out why FBI agents held off. The reporting seems to suggest agents encountered the closet, couldn’t find the key, and decided to let it go.” She added, “It’s not clear they were even aware of the hidden area, although the Secret Service would have had a complete floor map for the area Trump resided in, and agents are trained to be alert for concealed spaces.”
As Vance pointed out, it is not as if the search warrant limited the scope of the search. To the contrary, it covered any area where documents “could be stored.” She found it “inexplicable that agents didn’t insist on being provided with a key or break the lock in order to look into the space.” Other former prosecutors share her dismay.
Such an error might not raise suspicions had not reporting previously suggested that some inside the FBI objected to and foot-dragged on conducting any search. “Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property,” The Post reported in March. “But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property, according to … four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive investigation.”
The FBI was so averse to conducting a search that some agents “wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June after Trump’s legal team asserted that a diligent search had been conducted and all classified records had been turned over, according to some people with knowledge of the discussions,” The Post reported.
Institutional aversion to a search might well have trickled down to the agents conducting the search, making them more inclined to tread carefully. If so, it would appear that Trump, far from being treated more harshly than other suspects, received kid-glove treatment.
The latest report raises more questions than it answers for a law enforcement group that has been roundly and justifiably criticized for failing to recognize and anticipate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack — and apparently never conducting an after-action report to review its own errors.
First, did the agents conduct a thorough search, and, if they were uncertain about their authority, why did they not obtain clarification of the search parameters? It is not clear if agents who conducted the search reported their failure to thoroughly complete the search. (That arguably should have resulted in disciplinary action.)
Second, did investigators ever go back to Mar-a-Lago to determine what documents might remain? If investigators obtained information showing documents were “missed” in the search, someone should have determined if the documents were subsequently moved or destroyed.
Third, and most important, if these areas were never searched, we don’t have a complete picture of the scope of the potential damage to national security. It boggles the mind to think we still might not know what documents went missing and what measures need to be taken as a result of compromised information.
Though Congress cannot and should not meddle in an ongoing investigation, this report, at the very least, should trigger an internal FBI investigation or a probe by the inspector general or both. If the allegations are substantiated, it is hard to imagine the FBI and its director would avoid serious consequences. Unless and until the matter is thoroughly resolved, suspicion about the institutional culture, competence and leadership of the FBI will only deepen.