Trump and the FBI

The way conservatives tell it, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a hive of anti-Trump villainy, filled with agents looking for any excuse to hound the former president with investigative witch hunts. But the thing to understand about Donald Trump’s legal troubles is that they exist not because federal agents are out to get him, but despite the fact that the FBI is full of Trump supporters who would really like to leave him alone.

  The Atlantic

The reason that's a surprise is because Trump talks that "hive of villainy" shit about the FBI.  

FBI investigators clashed with federal prosecutors over the decision to search the former president’s residence, where highly classified documents were found despite Trump’s insistence that he had none.

“Some of those field agents wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June,” the Post reported, adding that FBI agents were “simply afraid” and “worried taking aggressive steps investigating Trump could blemish or even end their careers.”

I've always heard that the New York office of the FBI is full of MAGA supporters. I don't have any proof, of course, but it does seem likely since law enforcement people tend toward conservative politics.

A simple but obvious fact has been lost over the past few years, amid Trump’s direct attacks on the FBI, and liberal defenses of the FBI against those attacks: FBI agents are cops.

[...]

As one agent told the reporter Spencer Ackerman in 2016, “The FBI is Trumpland.”

[...]

There are liberal and moderate cops, but they are not close to comprising a majority. Simply put, the FBI is full of people who would prefer not to investigate Donald Trump. He remains under federal investigation only because of his own inability to stop criming.

[...]

The FBI did not exhibit this worry in 2016, when it publicly announced that it was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified documents, an announcement that, even with all the other mistakes her campaign made, likely cost Clinton the election. That decision was made in part because then-Director James Comey feared that pro-Trump FBI agents would leak the details if The federal investigation into the Trump campaign, by contrast, was properly kept confidential until after the election. he did not announce them publicly.

[...]

The irony of all Trump’s legal problems, however, is that the FBI desperately wants to leave him alone—if only he would let them.

Months of disputes between Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents over how best to try to recover classified documents from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and residence led to a tense showdown near the end of July last year.

[...]

Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property. But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property.

[...]

Prosecutors ultimately prevailed in that dispute.

[...]

Starting in May, FBI agents in the Washington field office had sought to slow the probe, urging caution given its extraordinary sensitivity.

[...]

Some of those field agents wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June, after Trump’s legal team asserted a diligent search had been conducted and all classified records had been turned over.

[...]

The idea of closing the probe was not something that was discussed or considered by FBI leadership and would not have been approved.

[...]

On one side, federal prosecutors in the department’s national security division advocated aggressive ways to secure some of the country’s most closely guarded secrets, which they feared Trump was intentionally hiding at Mar-a-Lago; on the other, FBI agents in the Washington field office urged more caution with such a high-profile matter, recommending they take a cooperative rather than confrontational approach.

[...]

The disagreements stemmed in large part from worries among officials that whatever steps they took in investigating a former president would face intense scrutiny and second-guessing by people inside and outside the government.

  WaPo

Snowflakes.

The FBI agents’ caution also was rooted in the fact that mistakes in prior probes of Hillary Clinton and Trump had proved damaging to the FBI, and the cases subjected the bureau to sustained public attacks from partisans.

[...]

Prosecutors countered that the FBI failing to treat Trump as it had other government employees who were not truthful about classified records could threaten the nation’s security.

[...]

Prosecutors in the Justice Department’s national security division needed to answer two immediate questions: Was national security damaged by classified records being kept at Trump’s Florida club, and were any more sensitive records still in Trump’s possession?

[...]

Prosecutors and FBI agents were set on a collision course in April, when Trump through his lawyers tried to block the FBI from reviewing the classified records the Archives found. That set off alarm bells for prosecutors because it signaled he might be seeking to hide something.

And I don't expect we'll ever know whether that was true, but it sure seems the most likely conclusion.

Had the criminal investigation been closed in June, as some FBI field agents discussed, legal experts said it’s unlikely agents would have yet recovered the items found in the FBI’s raid of Trump’s residence.

The article describes a "heated" meeting during which prosecutors and FBI officials argued about whether a "raid" on Mar-A-Lago was warranted. FBI officials wanted to consult with Trump's lawyer, Evan Corcoran, to arrange a consensual search. Prosecutors believed Trump could not be trusted, and notifying his attorney could lead to him further hiding - or using - national secrets.  

Evan Corcoran was the one who instructed flunky attorney Christina Bobb to sign the document saying everything was turned over rather than signing it himself.  I don't know about you, but that seems a little suspicious to me.

Prosecutors remained somewhat on guard until the day of the raid, as they continued to hear rumblings of dissent from the Washington field office, according to three people familiar with the case. Some of the people said prosecutors heard some FBI agents wanted to call Corcoran once they arrived at Mar-a-Lago and wait for him to fly down to join them in the search; prosecutors said that would not work.

[...]

Just days before the scheduled search, prosecutors got a request from FBI headquarters to put off the search for another day, according to people familiar with the matter. The FBI told prosecutors the bureau planned to announce big news that week — charges against an Iranian for plotting to assassinate former national security adviser John Bolton — and did not want the impact of that case to be overshadowed or complicated by media coverage of the Mar-a-Lago raid. It is common for the Justice Department and FBI to fine-tune the timing of certain actions or announcements to avoid one law enforcement priority competing with another. But prosecutors, fatigued by months of fighting with agents in the FBI’s field office, wanted no delay, no matter the reason.

"Big news" that someone plotted to assassinate John Bolton. Right. THAT couldn't wait.

FBI agents found ways to make the search less confrontational than it otherwise could have been, according to people familiar with the investigation: The search would take place when Trump was in New York and not in Palm Beach; the Secret Service would receive a heads-up a few hours before FBI agents arrived to avoid any law enforcement conflict; and agents would wear white polo shirts and khakis to cut a lower profile than if they wore their traditional blue jackets with FBI insignia.

[...]

Some [of the more than 100 recovered] documents were classified at such a restricted level that seasoned national security investigators lacked the proper authorization to look at them, leading to consternation on the prosecution team. They involved highly restricted “special access programs” that require Cabinet-level sign-off even for officials with top-secret clearances to review. The documents described Iran’s missile program and records related to highly sensitive intelligence aimed at China.

Remember, Trump's lawyer had already certified that all such documents had been returned (without signing the cert himself). Also, the other disturbing fact is that the Trump family ever had access to these national security secrets in the first place. They now have either personal knowledge of them, or possibly even copies, to say nothing of information they may have already sold or disseminated.

It's possible Trump only knew of things in his possession that he wanted to keep for bragging or blackmailing rights, and the rest were things that were inadvertently carelessly handled. But that seems much less likely when we learn that an aide working for Trump's Save America PAC still had some classified documents on a thumb drive and computer. No telling where THOSE got to.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 07:09 am: