Note: This article is not meant to claim that the FBI raided Trump’s residence for any particular reason. I don’t know enough to be certain, and have no interest in misleading anyone. Rather, it’s just meant to present the central points of a claim that certain figures/publications on the right, from Newsweek to Conservative Treehouse, are claiming.
There’s a big question that’s been floating around recently, one given more credence than such theories usually are after Newsweek published an article on the subject: Was the FBI after documents at Mar-a-Lago that included information about the Crossfire Hurricane scandal that involved the FBI? Was the raid on Mar-a-Lago an FBI cleanup operation?
Well, while we so far do not know, and thus this article is not claiming that that either did or didn’t happen, there are a few sources that have commented on the matter, some of which are more reputable and others less.
Leading the charge on the generally reputable side of the scale is Newsweek, which claimed that:
The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago last Monday was specifically intended to recover Donald Trump’s personal “stash” of hidden documents, two high-level U.S. intelligence officials tell Newsweek.
To justify the unprecedented raid on a former president’s residence and protect the source who revealed the existence of Trump’s private hoard, agents went into Trump’s residence on the pretext that they were seeking all government documents, says one official who has been involved in the investigation. But the true target was this private stash, which Justice Department officials feared Donald Trump might weaponize.
“They collected everything that rightfully belonged to the U.S. government but the true target was these documents that Trump had been collecting since early in his administration,” says the source, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
The sought-after documents deal with a variety of intelligence matters of interest to the former president, the officials suggest—including material that Trump apparently thought would exonerate him of any claims of Russian collusion in 2016 or any other election-related charges.
Later in the excellent article, Newsweek added that:
The two U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the situation tell Newsweek that while some of the intelligence documents might have dealt with nuclear weapons, that was not the main focus. “Donald Trump kept documents that interested him,” one of those officials says, “sometimes Iranian or North Korean nukes, sometimes Ukraine or Russia, some foreign leaders.” It wasn’t the subject matter per se that was of interest to Justice as it was fear that Trump might “weaponize” the information, including for personal gain, the official says.
“Trump was particularly interested in matters related to the Russia hoax and the wrong-doings of the deep state,” one former Trump official tells Newsweek. “I think he felt, and I agree, that these are facts that the American people need to know.” The official says Trump may have been planning to use them as part of a 2024 run for the presidency.
Sundance over at The Conservative Treehouse expanded on the theory in a deep dive. Though we don’t know as of yet how accurate any of this is and my inclusion of it should not be taken as a statement of fact or argument that it’s true, it’s a well-written argument and worth reading and examination:
- Part 1 – Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump – The Story Behind the Documents
- Part 2 – Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump – The Evidence Within the Documents
- Part 3 – Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump – A Culmination of Four Years of Threats and Betrayals
- Part 4 – What Was in The Trump Documents Creating Such Fear in DOJ and FBI
For reference, here is the official posting at the White House of the Memorandum on Declassification of Certain Materials Related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation. That release provides in part that:
At my request, on December 30, 2020, the Department of Justice provided the White House with a binder of materials related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Portions of the documents in the binder have remained classified and have not been released to the Congress or the public. I requested the documents so that a declassification review could be performed and so I could determine to what extent materials in the binder should be released in unclassified form.
I determined that the materials in that binder should be declassified to the maximum extent possible. In response, and as part of the iterative process of the declassification review, under a cover letter dated January 17, 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation noted its continuing objection to any further declassification of the materials in the binder and also, on the basis of a review that included Intelligence Community equities, identified the passages that it believed it was most crucial to keep from public disclosure. I have determined to accept the redactions proposed for continued classification by the FBI in that January 17 submission.
I hereby declassify the remaining materials in the binder. This is my final determination under the declassification review and I have directed the Attorney General to implement the redactions proposed in the FBI’s January 17 submission and return to the White House an appropriately redacted copy.
So, at the very least, the idea that Trump declassified those documents and could have had them in his position appears to be true. That is important because it lends credence to the idea that Trump had the documents related to the Russia/Crossfire Hurricane situation with him, central to the idea that the FBI raided his house to recover them.
We’ll see if any of that proves to be true and we’ll keep you updated on where this goes.
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Facebook and Subscribe to My Email List
