09/01/22

9/1/2022

Many Donald Trump supporters—maybe most of them—decry as a political hit job the FBI’s search for sensitive government documents at Trump’s golf resort/home at Mar-a-Lago. 

President Biden, they claim, ordered Attorney General Merrick Garland to unleash the FBI on the former President’s Florida retreat for no valid reason. The search, according to Trump, was completely unnecessary because the former President had cooperated fully with government requests to return all government documents that he had taken with him when he left the White House back in mid-January 2021.

That claim is untrue. 

By federal law, all government documents must pass to the National Archives upon a change in administrations. A former President may not retain them.

Many months ago the National Archives asked the FBI to retrieve valuable government documents from Trump that the Archives strongly suspected the former President had taken with him when he left office and still had in his possession. 

The FBI asked Trump to return them. No response. They asked again. Still no response. Finally 15 boxes of documents were turned over to the National Archives this past January, a year after Trump left office. Archivists discovered those boxes contained 150 items marked classified, from the CIA, the FBI, and the National Security Agency. 

Multiple sources report that Trump himself had gone through the boxes in December 2021, not long before the 15 boxes were turned over to the government the next month.

The classified nature of some of the returned documents justifiably raised great concern in government circles. So the FBI asked again, repeatedly, if there were more, and in June 2022 Trump’s aides returned some more, claiming those were the only ones remaining.

But based on their examination of the second batch, government personnel suspected more highly sensitive stuff still was missing. When even subpoenas failed to produce, FBI agents on August 8, 2022, showed up at Mar-a-Lago with warrants to reclaim any documents still remaining at the resort/home. They hauled away a third trove of papers and other items, contained in something like a dozen more large boxes.

All in all, the government recovered more than 300 documents with sensitive markings among the 26 boxes in the three batches: some marked classified, some marked secret, and some marked top secret. 

As of today it’s not known if any more classified material remains in Trump’s possession at Mar-a-Lago or elsewhere, or if illegal copies have been made, or if any have passed to other unauthorized hands.

Merrick Garland reportedly waited weeks, considering the gravity of the situation, before he directed the FBI to conduct the August 8 search-and-retrieve operation at Mar-a-Lago. He now has the weighty challenge of deciding whether to charge the former President with violation of security laws, illegal possession of government documents, or other crimes.

It’s not an easy decision. Garland has stated publicly that the Justice Department will defend the laws, regardless of who may have broken them. The fact that he made the statement leads to the conclusion that even a former President is not immune.

That’s where Trump supporters rise to his defense. President Biden says he had no advance knowledge of the August 8 Mar-a-Lago search, a claim MAGA Republicans dispute. If Biden speaks true, then the decision was Attorney General Garland’s alone.

Some Republicans even claim it’s Garland’s revenge for being passed over for a Supreme Court seat back in 2016 by Trump’s supporters in the U.S. Senate when President Obama nominated him.

As more information about the classified documents and Trump’s handling of them comes to light, the picture will come more into focus. Republican criticism of the FBI and Garland has already become more muted, as more members of Trump’s team testify to investigators about details surrounding the withheld documents. 

A question for accusers of the FBI: if not Biden administration officials, then who? Trump was asked for more than a year to return the documents he took; he didn’t do so. Would Trump have been more eager to turn them over to a Senate or House committee? Or to the Democratic National Committee, or the Republican National Committee? Or to the local county attorney? Did any Republican organization demand that he return them?

In the United States, federal officers have the duty to defend the law and to decide how to prosecute crimes. In this case it’s the FBI’s responsibility. With national security in potential jeopardy, should that agency have ignored the fact that Trump kept classified material in his possession for more than 1 ½ years despite repeated requests and subpoenas? 

This wasn’t like a bunch of overdue library books, and it wasn’t like a server that Hillary Clinton reportedly scrubbed back before the 2016 election. These were documents that gave heartburn to the FBI, CIA, and National Security Agency so long as they remained outside government possession and control. 

Trump and his team should have to explain why this stuff was so important to him in the first place and why he refused to give it back for so long. Once out of office he had no need or responsibility for material that involved national security.

Merrick Garland is known for doing due diligence before taking legal action. The situation at hand especially demands such deliberation. He will make and announce his decisions only when he’s sure his case is airtight. Democrats and Republicans alike should take a deep breath and just wait.