The Department of Justice (DOJ) affidavit that was partially unsealed on Friday, and which was used to obtain a search warrant to raid former President Donald Trump’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago, is very weak, given the target and tactics.
Though much of the affidavit was redacted, the general argument of the DOJ for “probable cause” is clear:
1. When President Trump provided the government — voluntarily — with 15 boxes of materials taken from the White House, the boxes were disorganized and included documents with classified markings, mixed among clippings and memorabilia.
2. Based on those boxes, the DOJ believed that there might be other poorly stored documents at Mar-a-Lago. The DOJ did not have evidence those included “defense information” and other sensitive materials, but assumed that there might have been.
3. The DOJ disagreed with assertions that President Trump had declassified all of the materials before leaving the White House, and disagreed with the legal opinion that the president has unlimited classification and declassification authority.
That’s it. Trump’s boxes were messy; there might have been secrets in them; and the DOJ disagreed with Trump’s lawyers.
At best, those arguments justify going to a federal court to seek, and to enforce, a subpoena to seize the documents. As a case for a unprecedented search warrant and surprise raid against a former President of the United States, it is alarmingly weak.
The raid looks more like a fishing expedition than a legitimate search — that is, the DOJ did not have evidence of a crime, but hoped to find some. Given the recent political dalliances of the DOJ and the FBI, that is a very bad impression to create.
The affidavit will raise more questions about the Mar-a-Lago raid. But it should also raise questions about Attorney General Merrick Garland, and his claim to have acted fairly in this case. That claim looks far less credible after the affidavit’s release.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.