Joe Biden’s White House was intimately involved in the DOJ’s criminal probe into former President Donald Trump, according to government documents.
The documents, reviewed by Just The News, reveal several correspondences between the former president’s attorneys and the Biden administration, where the federal government appeared to be poised to waive Trump’s claims of executive privilege over documents, which he kept at his Mar-a-Lago home.
As Just The News reported:
The memos show that then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ, and National Archives as early as April, shortly after 15 boxes of classified and other materials were voluntarily returned to the federal historical agency from Trump’s Florida home.
By May, Su conveyed to the Archives that President Joe Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor’s claims to executive privilege, a decision that opened the door for DOJ to get a grand jury to issue a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over any remaining materials he possessed from his presidency.
The White House’s involvement in the DOJ’s Trump criminal probe was confirmed in a May 10 letter from acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall to the former president’s legal team.
“On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office — affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum — formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes,” Wall wrote.
The letter continued:
The Counsel to the President has informed me that, in light of the particular circumstances presented here, President Biden defers to my determination, in consultation with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, regarding whether or not I should uphold the former president’s purported “protective assertion of executive privilege.”…I have therefore decided not to honor the former President’s “protective” claim of privilege.
Despite the Biden White House claims to have “no advanced knowledge” of the recent FBI raid on Trump’s home, the documents – reviewed by Just The News, show otherwise.
‘Witch Hunt’
“Does ANYBODY really believe that the White House didn’t know about this?” Trump posted on Truth Social. “WITCH HUNT!”
The outlet does not report that the White House also had specific knowledge of the search warrant, but they became crucial to the investigation by waiving executive privilege.
In its decision not to honor Trump’s claims of executive privilege, Wall relied on a Supreme Court precedent that “strongly suggests that a former President may not successfully assert executive privilege ‘against the very Executive Branch in whose name the privilege is invoked.'”
Just The News also highlighted that the case was ruled before Congress’s current Presidential Records Act was enacted.
In Wall’s letter to Trump’s attorneys, he claimed the former president had items marked as “classified national security information” in the 15 boxes Trump’s team returned to the National Archives in February.
After the National Archives reviewed the documents, they informed the DOJ about the potentially classified material, prompting them to ask Biden to request the National Archives turn over access of the documents to the FBI, according to Wall’s letter.
More evidence
Other documents revealed that Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran spoke with then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su about Trump’s executive privilege claim over the documents earlier this year.
Corcoran wrote to National Archives General Counsel Gary Stern in April:
We have requested the ability to review the documents. That review is necessary in order to ascertain whether any specific document is subject to privilege. We would respectfully request that you restrict access to the documents until we have had the opportunity to review the documents and to consult with President Donald J. Trump so that he may personally make any decision to assert a claim of constitutionally based privilege.
Wall confirmed the Biden administration refused to “honor the former President’s ‘protective’ claim of privilege” after the letter was sent to Stern.
Not long after Wall’s letter to Corcoran, the DOJ sent Trump’s attorney a grand jury subpoena requesting the return of any national security documents, just two months before the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.
In an interview with Just The News, Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz slammed the Biden administration’s waiver of Trump’s executive privilege claim.
“I was very surprised. The current president should not be able to waive the executive privilege of a predecessor, without the consent of the former president. Otherwise, [privilege] means nothing,” Dershowitz said. “What president will ever discuss anything in private if he knows the man who beat him can and will disclose it.”
“The best thinking is that an incumbent president cannot waive the right of the previous president. It would make a mockery of the whole notion of privilege,” Dershowitz continued.
Trump has continually criticized the FBI following the “illegal” raid on his home.
The former president said he would have complied with further document requests if asked by law enforcement.
“My attorneys and representatives were cooperating fully, and very good relationships had been established. The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it,” Trump posted on Truth social.
