A newly uncovered email shows a top Justice Department official questioned whether Trump’s documents were declassified, raising concerns about the unprecedented search.
A high-ranking Biden Justice Department official, a trusted ally of then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, privately expressed legal reservations about the FBI’s August 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago, warning that former President Donald Trump may have already declassified the documents seized during the operation, according to aJust the News reportedciting a recently disclosed email.
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Patty Stemler, a veteran DOJ attorney with decades of experience, sent the email just two days after the August 8, 2022, search of Trump’s Florida residence. In her message to Sophia Brill, then a DOJ National Security Division attorney and later aBiden White House lawyer, Stemler wrote,“I didn’t know about this search in advance, but I have been worrying about it ever since and worrying more now. Doesn’t Trump maintain that he had the authority to declassify documents while he was still President? Has anyone in NSD or OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] looked at that? I know we have procedures for declassifying, but is the President as Commander in Chief bound by those procedures? We also have procedures for granting pardons, but the President doesn’t have to follow them.”
The memo, uncovered as part of the DOJ’s investigation into the alleged weaponization of federal law enforcement, underscores internal unease about the raid’s legal foundation. Garland haspublicly statedthat he“personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant”for the operation, which included searching areas of the residence such as Melania Trump’s personal spaces.
Stemler’s concerns were not the first signs of hesitation within the Biden administration regarding the raid. FBI Director Kash Patel had previously provided Congress with evidence suggesting that agents involved did not believe they had met the legal standard of probable cause required for the search but proceeded regardless.
Trump’s officetoldJust the Newsin August 2022 that the materials with classified markings seized from Mar-a-Lago had been declassified under a“standing order”during his presidency.“The very fact that these documents were present at Mar-a-Lago means they couldn’t have been classified,”his office stated.“President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents, including classified documents from the Oval Office to the residence. He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified. The power to classify and declassify documents rests solely with the President of the United States.”
Source: SGT Report
