Biden WH coordinated on Mar-a-Lago raid before taking conversation 'offline': Ex-DOJ official
WASHINGTON, DC: Former President Joe Biden's White House coordinated with the Justice Department about an FBI raid for classified documents at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago before taking their conversation "offline,"Attorney General Pam Bondi’s former chief of staff Chad Mizelle revealed.
Mizelle told The New York Post on Wednesday, December 17, that he reviewed emails between officials in Biden’s White House Counsel’s Office, Merrick Garland’s DOJ, and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in the months before the raid at the Palm Beach resort.
Ex-DOJ official says Biden’s White House was 'very much involved' in the raid
Chad Mizelle told the outlet, "We have concrete evidence that Biden’s White House was very much involved in the most unprecedented, unjust and improper law enforcement act, really in the history of our country, which is to use the FBI to raid the home of a political rival and former president of the United States."
The former DOJ official recalled, "They were talking about it. They’re talking about documents. They were looping in NARA, essentially the archives, who is the custodian for these documents, and continuing to talk about it until at one point, somebody says — 'I think it was the White House person. Hey, why don’t we take this offline.'"
"And then all of a sudden every email communication on this thing stops", he added, while continuing, "It made it very clear that the White House was involved. The White House knew about it. The White House not only knew about it, they were coordinating it. They were putting DOJ in touch with NARA specifically regarding these documents in Mar-a-Lago."
Meanwhile, a source familiar with the emails confirmed to The New York Post that the conversations the ex-DOJ official referenced did exist.
Moreover, Internal FBI and DOJ communications released on Tuesday, December 16, by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) highlighted how the bureau, in the weeks before the search, did not believe agents had probable cause to execute the search warrant, and DOJ officials and former special counsel Jack Smith’s team overrode them in dispute.
The FBI recovered 102 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago
The FBI recovered a total of 102 classified documents that led to a June 2023 indictment. However, Smith’s case was dismissed in July 2024 after a judge ruled he had been improperly appointed special counsel without a vote from Congress.
Meanwhile, the emails, described by Mizelle, clash with the Justice Department's purported independence from the POTUS as well as a memo put out by former Attorney General Garland, which limits officials’ interactions with the White House.
The July 21 memo states, "The Justice Department will not advise the White House concerning pending or contemplated criminal or civil law enforcement investigations or cases unless doing so is important for the performance of the President’s duties and appropriate from a law enforcement perspective."
Moreover, Biden White House aides insisted that the POTUS was not aware of the FBI’s planned search in advance, as former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment 18 times on the action the day after the raid.
Meanwhile, Mizelle said about the memo, "If they have a memo that they’re violating, that’s a problem. If they tell the American people they’re not involved and they were in fact involved, that’s a problem."
