WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice held off on searching President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents until then-President Joe Biden could receive a “brief” and officials could “coordinate” with the White House Counsel’s office, according to unclassified emails obtained by The Post.
The emails undercut Biden’s claim that he had no prior knowledge of the FBI raid on his political rival’s home. They also reveal the desire by at least one top DOJ official to charge ahead with a dramatic search, saying he didn’t “give a damn about the optics.”
The communications, which were first reported by Fox News, with DOJ and FBI officials took place between April 2022 and the days immediately following the Aug. 8 execution of a search warrant that year on Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Fla.
“This event is dependent upon the timeline of President Biden’s brief, decision, and coordination between WH Counsel and DOJ,” an unidentified FBI official wrote in a May 10 email to others in the bureau’s Washington Field Office.
The message underscored how Trump’s attorney Evan Corcoran could potentially seek “an injunction to prevent access” or assert the former president’s executive privilege.
The FBI officials also noted, “Coordination with DOJ and WH Counsel are in work to start the process to confirm and interview current administration employee Walt Nauta,” naming Trump’s valet who was later indicted as a co-conspirator in the classified documents case brought by ex-special counsel Jack Smith.
Chad Mizelle, who served until recently as chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, told The Post in December additional emails between officials in Biden’s White House Counsel’s Office, Merrick Garland’s DOJ and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) also discussed the Trump search warrant.
When reached for comment Wednesday, Mizelle noted the FBI communications were separate from those emails he had previously reviewed.
Just three months away from the notorious raid, DOJ and FBI officials were also at odds over the degree to which probable cause had been established, per the bureau emails that were unclassified on Dec. 17.
“WFO does not believe (and has articulated to DOJ CES), that we have established probable cause for the search warrant at Mar a Lago,” an assistant special agent in charge focused on counterintelligence wrote to FBI officials Anthony Riedlinger, Lisa Gentilcore and others.
The “disagreement” about the scope, the bureau agent wrote, would bar the FBI from searching the 45th president’s office and bedroom “due to recency and issues of boxes versus classified information.”
Surveillance video footage reviewed by the bureau as of July 2022 also found “very little activity that actually in involved the area of the door and boxes going in and out.”
Another Aug. 4 email showed that Smith’s deputy Jay Bratt had “built an antagonistic relationship” with Trump’s lawyer in the months leading up to the search, and FBI officials wanted to be first to contact the attorney on the morning of the raid to “set the tone for the day.”
“The FBI intends for the execution of the warrant to be handled in a professional, low key manner, and to be mindful of the optics of the search,” the FBI assistant special agent in charge told then-Washington Field Office assistant director in charge Steven D’Antuono and Riedlinger.
“Since we heard Mr. [George] Toscas say yesterday in the call that ‘he frankly doesn’t give a damn about the optics’ and Mr. Bratt already has built an antagonistic relationship with FPOTUS’s attorney [redacted], I think it is more than fair to say that the DOJ contact with Mr. Corcoran just prior to the execution of the warrant will not go well,” the bureau agent emphasized.
“Safety of the search team is always of a concern during any such operation,” the agent added. “I understand that this request may not go well at DOJ, however, it is FBI serving and executing the search and it will be our personnel who will have to deal with the reaction to that first contact.”
It’s unclear if Toscas still works at the DOJ. Last year, he was transferred out of the DOJ’s National Security Division to a task force focused on so-called “sanctuary” cities, CBS News reported.
Garland ultimately gave the green light for the execution of the search warrant — despite the concerns raised by D’Antuono and others in the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
FBI agents found 102 classified documents in the August search, which ultimately led to Smith’s indictment of Trump on 40 counts related to the alleged retention of sensitive national security files and obstruction of justice, among other charges.
Trump erupted on Truth Social that day Trump that his home had been “raided, and occupied” and was “currently under siege.”
A federal judge tossed the case in July 2024 when Smith was determined to have been improperly appointed special counsel without a vote from Congress.
That same jurist, Fort Pierce US District Judge Aileen Cannon, permanently blocked the Justice Department this past Monday from publicly revealing Smith’s report on the classified documents case, dubbing it a “brazen stratagem.”
“The Court strains to find a situation in which a former special counsel has released a report after initiating criminal charges that did not result in a finding of guilt,” she wrote.
The day of the search, Biden White House aides said the president learned of the raid at the same time as the public. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Aug. 8, 2022, “the president was not briefed, was not aware of it,” adding that the White House learned of the FBI’s search “just like the American people did.”
Jean-Pierre declined to comment 18 times on the raid of Biden’s primary political opponent.
In court filings, Smith’s prosecutorial team claimed it only had “formal and limited” involvement with the Biden White House Counsel’s Office to discuss the missing records with NARA and the White House Office of Records Management in 2021 before the DOJ was officially involved.
Reps for Biden, DOJ and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
