WASHINGTON – Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday that he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant” at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and that the Justice Department filed a motion before that day to make the order public.
Speaking about his decision at a brief press conference, Garland said the department “does not take these actions lightly” and is first looking for “less intrusive” means to recover material. Garland noted that it was Trump’s “right” to disclose the FBI’s search of his property on Monday and that all Americans are entitled to a presumption of innocence.
Garland added that the Justice Department has asked to release the property receipt detailing the agents they found inside Trump’s property.
Trump received a federal grand jury subpoena this spring over sensitive documents the government believed he kept after he left the White House, a source familiar with the matter confirmed.
Garland’s nod to “less intrusive” avenues for retrieving documents appeared to be a reference to the subpoena and suggested Trump had not turned over all the material the Justice Department was seeking.
Trump defended himself in a statement posted on his social media platform Truth after Garland’s comments, saying his lawyers were “fully cooperating” and had developed “very good relationships” with Justice Department officials.
“The government could have had whatever it wanted, if we had it,” he wrote. “Out of the blue, and without any warning, Mar-a-Lago was raided” by “a HUGE number of agents, and even ‘safecrackers.’ They made a lot of progress. Crazy!”
Conservative journalist John Solomon reported for the first time Thursday afternoon Trump received the subpoena months before the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Monday.
The source familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the subpoena was related to documents Trump’s legal team discussed with Justice Department officials in a previously reported June 3 meeting. .
Federal officials who went to Mar-a-Lago for the June meeting were “going down to retrieve the documents that were being requested” in the subpoena, the source familiar with the matter said, adding that the meeting was arranged with the Trump team. understanding that handing over the relevant documents that day would fulfill the subpoena.
Citing “two sources briefed on the classified documents” requested in the subpoena, The New York Times reported On Thursday, federal officials were asked to search Mar-a-Lago because the uncollected material was particularly sensitive to national security.
The source familiar with the matter told NBC News that Trump’s lawyers last heard from the Justice Department before the FBI search shortly after the June meeting, when federal officials requested additional security in the storage facility where the documents were kept. Trump’s team added a second lock to the basement storage area, the source said.
During Thursday’s remarks, Garland also defended the Justice Department from “baseless” attacks by Trump and his allies.
“I will not remain silent when his integrity is unfairly attacked,” he said. “Every day they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while protecting our civil rights.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump, echoed those sentiments in a statement Thursday night.
“The baseless attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and do a great disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others. Violence and threats against law enforcement , including the FBI, are dangerous and should deeply concern all Americans,” he said.
“Every day I see the men and women of the FBI doing their jobs professionally and with rigor, objectivity, and a fierce commitment to our mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. I am proud to serve in their side,” added Wray. .
Earlier this week, Trump attacked the FBI in a Truth Social post, with similar comments from his allies.
“Everyone was asked to leave the premises, he wanted to be alone, with no witnesses to see what he was doing, grabbing or, hopefully, ‘planting,'” he wrote. “Why did they STRONGLY insist that no one look at them, everyone out?”
Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, a friend of the former president, said that while the two men had not discussed the investigation, “I guess he’s pretty surprised.” Ruddy echoed Trump’s attacks on the FBI, calling the search a “publicity stunt” and describing the Justice Department as politicized.
“The baseless attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and do a great disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others. Violence and threats against law enforcement , including the FBI, are dangerous and should deeply concern all Americans. Every day I see the men and women of the FBI doing their jobs professionally and with rigor, objectivity, and a fierce commitment to our mission to protect the American people and defend the Constitution. I am proud to serve alongside them.”
Garland’s appearance Thursday followed a flurry of criticism from Justice Department officials and alumni who faulted him both for his reluctance amid the unprecedented search of a former president’s home and for failing to defended federal agents against unfounded claims that they had planted evidence.
A former Justice Department official told NBC News: “In a normal investigation, secrecy is important and justified. But when you’re talking about sending dozens of FBI agents into the bedroom of the former president of the United States to go through their drawers, you have to explain what’s going on.”
Otherwise, this person added, “everyone will assume the worst.”
“This is a completely unprecedented move by US law enforcement, and I’m frankly amazed that no one has bothered to explain it or justify it in any way.”
The White House was not given advance notice of Garland’s comments, a senior White House official said.
Garland on Thursday put the onus on Trump to reveal more about the search, deflecting criticism that the Justice Department has been too secretive. According to the motion filed by prosecutors, Trump now has two options: He can allow the order to be made public, or he can keep it secret and risk looking like he has something to hide.
“I thought it was completely appropriate and absolutely brilliant to ask the president’s lawyers to weigh in on the decision to unseal,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and FBI official who has served in both Democratic and Republican administrations. . “If it’s not there, hopefully the president will agree.”
Trump’s representatives and lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether he planned to fight Garland’s motion to unseal the search warrant.
The Justice Department’s motion does not seek to make public the probable cause affidavit, which includes the FBI’s justification for searching Mar-a-Lago.
According to the court filing, a federal judge signed the search warrant last Friday. The filing notes that Trump and his lawyers have copies of both the warrant and a “redacted Property Receipt listing the items seized as a result of the search” and may object to the public release of ‘these documents.
“Given the intense public interest presented in the search of a former president’s residence, the government believes these factors support the opening of the search warrant” and related materials, the filing says. “That said, the former president should be given an opportunity to respond. to this motion and file objections, including with respect to any ‘legitimate privacy interests’ or the possibility of other ‘injury’ if these materials are they make public”.
The next step is for Justice Department officials to meet with Trump’s lawyers and determine whether he intends to fight disclosure of the warrant and receipt of the property, according to an order issued by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart Thursday. The Justice Department must file a notice by 3 pm ET on Friday to inform the judge of the Trump team’s intentions.
An irony of the research is that it focuses on paper records. As president, Trump had an aversion to reading the briefing material that staff members would hand him, former administration officials said. David Shulkin, the former veterans affairs secretary, said that when he met with Trump in the Oval Office or in an adjacent private dining room where the former president often worked with the television tuned to Fox News, he was struck by the absence of paperwork. .
“President Trump never wanted any role from us,” Shulkin said. “At first I would go to his office and say, ‘Mr. President, I have a briefing for you. And he was literally pushing it with his hands and saying, “I don’t want this.” I didn’t want to read any of that stuff. When you walk into the Oval Office, my memory of President Trump was that there was no paper anywhere. His desk was a Diet Coke and nothing else.
John Kelly, a former Trump White House chief of staff, said he would instruct cabinet secretaries to brief Trump in person. “I would say that to the members of the cabinet,” Kelly told NBC News. “Instead of giving him something to read, tell him.”
Kelly, the longest-serving chief of staff in Trump’s presidency, said that when he took the job in the summer of 2017, he was told that Trump had been briefed on the Presidential Records Act and its requirement to retain the documents .
He also said he would talk to Trump about the importance of keeping records. The message didn’t sink in, Kelly said, and aides sometimes retrieved crumpled or torn pieces of paper from a trash can and tried to reassemble them so they could eventually be given to archivists.
Still, Trump clearly valued some of the paper records that landed on his desk. He would open a Resolute Desk drawer in the Oval Office and show guests the letter he received from former President Barack Obama when he left office in January 2017, a former White House official said. Or he would show visitors an executive order or letter he had received from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
At his Mar-a-Lago home, he would greet dinner guests and have an aide retrieve an executive order to show them, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the practices Trump’s
