Earlier this year it was reported that Joe Biden was angry that his Attorney General had not begun a criminal investigation into President Trump over January 6th.
That all changed in July, but before that the White House was actively working with the Attorney General behind the scenes to get this criminal probe of Trump started.
Last night John Solomon reported that the White House waived Trump’s declassification of his records in order to get the investigation going:
Long before it professed no prior knowledge of the raid on Donald Trump’s estate, the Biden White House worked directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to instigate the criminal probe into alleged mishandling of documents, allowing the FBI to review evidence retrieved from Mar-a-Lago this spring and eliminating the 45th president’s claims to executive privilege, according to contemporaneous government documents reviewed by Just the News.
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.
The machinations are summarized in several memos and emails exchanged between the various agencies in spring 2022, months before the FBI took the added unprecedented step of raiding Trump’s Florida compound with a court-issued search warrant.
The most complete summary was contained in a lengthy letter dated May 10 that acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall sent Trump’s lawyers summarizing the White House’s involvement.
“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 Trump defense attorney Evan Corcoran.
That letter revealed Biden empowered the National Archives and Records Administration to waive any claims to executive privilege that Trump might assert to block DOJ from gaining access to the documents.
“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.”
The memos provide the most definitive evidence to date of the current White House’s effort to facilitate a criminal probe of the man Joe Biden beat in the 2020 election and may face again as a challenger in 2024. That involvement included eliminating one of the legal defenses Trump might use to fight the FBI over access to his documents.
This memo that Solomon cites was confirmed by CBS News this morning, as reported by Steve Portnoy:
Via @costareports, CBS News has confirmed the text of a May 10th letter the acting Archivist of the US sent to Trump’s legal team, first posted by John Solomon last night.
It contains several important revelations… 🧵
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) August 23, 2022
1) NARA determined that “Special Access Program” material was in the 15 boxes turned over by Trump last winter. That’s more secret than TS/SCI.
2) There was a back-and-forth on the question of “protective” executive privilege between Trump, NARA and the Biden WH in the spring.
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) August 23, 2022
3) According to the archivist, Biden WH determined that it would allow NARA to say whether any material at Mar-a-Lago might be covered by exec privilege.
4) Trump lawyers asked NARA to hold off on transferring the “15 boxes” to the FBI for a nat sec damage assessment.
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) August 23, 2022
5) NARA and DOJ jointly determined that request should be denied.
6) The letter establishes that Biden administration believes firmly that there is no executive privilege that Trump could assert here, and that it’s not even close.
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) August 23, 2022
Since when are there limits on what a president can declassify? I’m no expert but this sounds like a bogus argument to me to justify the investigation and the raid of Trump’s home.
Biden will clearly do anything he can to stop Trump from running in 2024, even if it means using the DOJ to target him. Meanwhile, the media is acting like all of this is normal. But we all know if Trump had done something like this to Biden in 2019 or 2020, especially with what we know about Hunter Biden, there would have been outrage at all levels of society.
As there should be here. Trump has done nothing wrong to necessitate this investigation and it’s absolutely egregious that he’s being targeted by Joe Biden and his DOJ attack dog.
By the way, whatever happened to the White House’s claim that they don’t interfere with the DOJ, that they are independent?