As we previously reported, Judge Aileen Cannon granted the request of President Donald Trump to appoint a special master to review the material that the FBI had seized from his house to separate out the personal things, and potentially privileged material subject to claims of attorney-client and/or executive privilege. Documents seized from Mar-a-Lago included Trump’s “medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information.”
In the order, the Court blocked the FBI from continuing to review any of the material until the special master is appointed and has reviewed the material. While it’s good that the Court blocked the FBI from continuing to review likely privileged documents, the Court didn’t stop the “classification review” of the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines. The judge likely is thinking that Haines is “objective” but as a Biden appointee and a protege of John Brennan, that’s a bit like letting the fox inside the hen house. In my opinion, it might negate the whole decision to have a special master.
The FBI raid was ridiculously broad — even going through 16-year-old Barron Trump’s bedroom according to Donald Trump, as well as Melania Trump’s closet. The order noted that the FBI seized 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items.
But I also wanted to note how the order once again revealed how Joe Biden and his team lied about not being involved in the matter against President Donald Trump.
As we previously reported, Joe Biden claimed that he didn’t have any notice of the FBI action against Trump.
“I didn’t have any advance notice. None. Zero. Not one single bit,” Biden protested far too much, also flashing the symbol that leftists wrongly think is a white power sign.
But in fact, as we previously reported, the White House Counsel’s office and Biden had been involved, according to the NARA Archivist Debra Steidel Wall’s letter.
“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.
Wall said:
“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,'” Wall wrote. “… I have therefore decided not to honor the former President’s ‘protective’ claim of privilege.”
Now, the Judge’s order puts an even finer point on the involvement of Joe Biden when talking about the records that Trump had already turned over to NARA.
NARA told Trump it would proceed with “providing the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President, beginning as early as May 12, 2022,” according to the order.
Contrary to Biden’s claims, per the order, it was Biden who requested that the documents that had been turned over to NARA be provided to the FBI.
While Biden might not have known of the moment of the raid, he knew of the involvement of the FBI because he had requested the documents be turned over to them. He was directly involved in the FBI action.
It’s hard to get around this and it screams banana republic when it’s aimed at his once and possibly future opponent.