Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff was unable to explain what took the FBI so long to raid former President Donald Trump’s home in South Florida’s Mar-a-Lago Club if the documents Trump had in his possession were so sensitive, making the issue yet another one of the many questions surrounding this inexpiable police-state action.
Schiff’s inability to explain the matter was on full display this weekend during his visit to the CBS Sunday morning show “Face the Nation,” when host Margaret Brennan asked him that one, key question.
“If there was that sensitive level of information being held, why did Justice Department officials wait 18 months after the end of the Trump presidency? What changed that made this immediate?” Brennan asked the California congressman.
Curiously, Schiff, who, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, usually parades as one of the party’s most knowledgeable officials, was utterly unable to answer the question.
“I don’t know. But if the Trump people represented that they provided all the classified or national security information and didn’t, that’s a serious problem,” Schiff told Brennan.
“I can tell you, anyone in the intelligence community that had documents like that, marked ‘Top Secret,’ ‘SCI’ [‘sensitive compartmented information’] in their residences after authorities went to them, they would be under serious investigation.”
Why did the DOJ wait 18 months to retrieve the sensitive documents Trump kept? “I don’t know, but if the Trump people represented that they provided all the classified or national security information and didn’t, that’s a serious problem,” Rep. Schiff tells @margbrennan pic.twitter.com/4ntVrqtaaR
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) August 14, 2022
Schiff is well known, of course, for propagating every single conspiracy theory that Democrats and the mainstream media have floated about Donald Trump — from the “Russia collusion” hoax to the Steele dossier hoax and any manner of other lies.
Do you think the raid on Donald Trump’s home was politically driven?
It isn’t surprising he is willing to throw out claims about secret documents that he has no way of verifying.
But the timing question about the raid is an important one. If the feds were so alarmed by the documents that they claimed that Trump had without authorization, then why did they wait until just before the 2022 midterm elections to suddenly launch a raid on the ex-president’s personal residence?
Indeed, Trump has publicly stated that he and his legal team have been trying to work for months with federal authorities concerning the material in question, and that the FBI and other authorities have been in and out of Mar-a-Lago several times already with Trump’s full cooperation.
Last week, Trump attorney Taylor Budowich, blasted the FBI’s raid as “brazen” and “unnecessary.”
“President Trump and his representatives have gone to painstaking lengths in communicating and cooperating with the appropriate agencies — something that is routine for all similar instances,” Budowich said Tuesday, according to CBS News.
Trump himself expressed shock at the raid, noting that he and his representatives were already working with the government over the document question.
“My attorneys and representatives were cooperating fully, and very good relationships had been established,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it. They asked us to put an additional lock on a certain — DONE!
“Everything was fine, better than that of most previous Presidents, and then, out of nowhere and with no warning, Mar-a-Lago was raided at 6:30 in the morning by VERY large numbers of agents, and even ‘safecrackers.’ They got way ahead of themselves. Crazy!” he added.
Indeed, since the raid, Trump called for the release of all the documents related to it.
“Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my home in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents, even though they have been drawn up by radical left Democrats and possible future political opponents, who have a strong and powerful vested interest in attacking me, much as they have done for the last 6 years,” Trump said in a statement.
Trump not opposing warrant release pic.twitter.com/HjlarShXIg
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 12, 2022
Thus far, the Department of Justice, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and the FBI have failed to reveal the full details about the raid, including the 18-month gap between when the oh-so-sensitive documents were taken from the White House and when the raid to retrieve them was conducted.
This lack of transparency, and wild overreach, is worrisome. After all, if federal agencies can do this to a man who was president of the United States, what can they do to a normal, everyday American they’ve decided to target?
