No photo other than his mugshot is more representative of the unprecedented lawfare against Donald Trump than the photo of alleged classified documents discovered during the nine-hour armed raid of Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022.
On one hand, Democrats, the news media, and even some NeverTrumpers (clears throat, side-eyes National Review) believed the iconic picture proved Trump had absconded with secret government records and carelessly left them around his Palm Beach mansion, endangering national security.
Trump supporters, on the other hand, viewed the photo with disgust, a reminder of just how far the Biden regime and his FBI would go to finally put Trump in handcuffs.
But nearly two years later, the same Department of Justice that added the picture to a 2022 court filing for the sole purpose of ginning up media coverage, which worked like a charm, finally admitted the photo was staged.
The stunt was revealed during court proceedings last year in southern Florida in the so-called documents case. (How is it only a year ago?) In response to Trump’s accusations the FBI mishandled items taken from his home that infamous day, the DOJ—in the hands of Special Counsel Jack Smith by then—confessed FBI agents brought the colorful classified cover sheets to Mar-a-Lago.
At first, Smith said the FBI used the sheets only as “placeholders” indicating where the alleged illegal files had been found. But he finally had to fess up:
“As part of the processing of seized documents marked classified, the [evidence response team] photographed the documents (with appropriate cover sheets added by FBI personnel) next to the box in which they were located,” Smith wrote in a June 2024 brief.
But nowhere did the cover sheets indicate the attached files were evidence. In other words, the photo not only misrepresented the condition in which “classified documents” were found but proved that agents had tampered with the president’s belongings—consisting of evidence in the case—in preparation for a publicity stunt.
As Judge Aileen Cannon continued to let Smith’s team hang themselves in court hearings and briefs—she also had just busted Bratt for lying about the condition of all the evidence seized that day—the scandal became moot in July 2024 when she dismissed the case after determining Smith’s appointment violated the Constitution. And after Trump won the election, the entire case, at least in court, became moot for good.
A Dangerous Raid, Fake Cover Sheets, and a Corrupt Prosecution
But it is not, and should not be, moot for the president, his family, and the American people. While the optics of the raid made for must-watch cable news coverage, the raid itself posed a danger to individuals, including Secret Service agents and Mar-a-Lago employees, since more than two dozen FBI agents arrived armed without identification early that morning.
Further, as I broke on May 22, 2024, Chris Wray’s FBI had authorized the use of lethal force; routine or not, no such policy should have been included, or even considered, as part of the unprecedented search of a former president.
Agents rummaged through the personal belongings of Melania and Barron Trump in potential violation of the broad search warrant terms. In her 2024 autobiography, Mrs. Trump described how she felt afterwards: “I never imagined such an invasion of privacy and violation of rights could occur in my adoptive country,” she wrote in comparing the Biden regime’s tactics to those of her native Slovenia. “It was with a tremendous sense of sadness that I realized such unlawful acts were now possible here. Americans need to understand the dangers posed by a federal government that feels entitled to invade our homes and our lives.”
The ensuing investigation involved more egregious violations of privacy. The FBI obtained an extensive trove of surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago; the Trump-hating chief judge of the D.C. District Court pierced attorney-client privilege between the president and his lawyer in the matter by claiming they were covering up a potential crime. The lawyer, Evan Corcoran, was forced to turn over private documents and testify before a grand jury.
Luckily, it appears payback is in progress; recent reporting suggests the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago could constitute a seminal event in the “grand conspiracy” investigation announced this week by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Trump allies for years have speculated the purpose of the raid, ordered by then Attorney General Merrick Garland, was to retrieve documents related to the Russiagate hoax, the subject of the DOJ’s current conspiracy probe. “Why was there a raid at Mar-a-Lago?” Devin Nunes, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who blew the lid off the Russiagate hoax back in 2018, rhetorically asked during a Fox News interview last month. “What led to that raid? What led to the appointment of that special counsel? What the hell were they doing at Mar-a-Lago, what were they looking for?”
Good questions that demand answers. The raid, after all, not only represented more fruit of the poisonous Russiagate tree but also another manufactured crime against the president: the “willful retention of national defense material.”
Another Bogus ‘Crime’ With Same Agenda
When Jack Smith announced his 38-count indictment against Trump and two aides in June 2023, the special counsel took on a dire tone. “The men and women of the United States intelligence community and our armed forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people,” Smith said in a public statement. “Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced. Violations of those laws put our country at risk.”
Smith, however, never proved anything of the sort. To the contrary, Smith only proved his feckless team of Trump-hating thugs botched evidence, misled and routinely disrespected Judge Cannon—who at one point threatened to remove David Harbach, the other lead prosecutor in the case, from her courtroom for his bad behavior—and admitted the government had no evidence the boxes that had been moved around Mar-a-Lago, the basis for obstruction charges, contained any of the alleged “classified” files.
Additionally, emails showed how the Biden DOJ had been in cahoots with the National Archives and the Biden White House for months to concoct the documents case, as I covered here, in what eerily mirrors facets of what we now know happened in the Obama White House in 2016. (With at least one of the same players, Lisa Monaco, involved in both.)
Trump officials are in the process of bringing some accountability; firings of agents, investigators, and prosecutors who participated in the case remain ongoing.
But the American people—and the Trumps—deserve a full accounting of the truth.
As Mrs. Trump said in her book, “the possibility of similar abuses occurring domestically demands our attention and action, as we must safeguard our liberties before they are lost forever.”
Bravo.
