Donald Trump’s spouse’s daughter On Thursday morning, Lara Trump accused President Joe Biden of lying after the vice president claimed he had “zero” prior warning of the FBI’s unauthorised investigation of Mar-a-Lago.
She said on Fox & Friends, “I don’t think anybody believes Joe Biden.” “We are aware it is a falsehood.”
She spoke only a few hours before Biden’s Justice Department was required to turn in a redacted copy of the affidavit that was used to secure the search warrant that was the basis for the raid.
The former president and his friends have been demanding the publication of the affidavit with no redactions because they believe it would show that the search was conducted for political reasons. However, federal prosecutors cautioned that the disclosure of the document might seriously impede their current investigation into Trump’s handling of secret materials.
The choice of whether to disclose the affidavit with the Justice Department’s redactions or to add his own will subsequently be made by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart.
However, Lara Trump stated earlier on Thursday, “It’s absurd to think that the current president did not know about an FBI raid from his own Department of Justice on the previous president—and a person he may be competing against in the forthcoming 2024 election.”
At the White House the day before, the president vehemently denied having any prior knowledge of the FBI’s raid on Donald Trump’s Florida mansion after a recently released document showed archival officials getting in touch with White House lawyers regarding information the ex-president had previously turned over.
I was not given any prior warning. None. Zero. Not even close,’ Biden said, forming the number zero with his palm.
On Thursday morning, Lara Trump called Biden’s remark “outrageous.”
I don’t think anybody holds it to be true. Who is in command at the White House, if you really think that, she questioned.
She advocated for the full publication of the affidavit, joining other members of Trump’s close circle.
I believe we should get an unredacted, fully transparent version for the sake of America’s future, she added. I don’t have much faith that will be what we receive. They will undoubtedly make every effort to hide as much as they can.
The Florida judge overseeing the case reiterated his desire to make the affidavit public earlier this week, but he issued a caution that any information the government chooses to leave unredacted may render it “meaningless.”
Nevertheless, he made a mistake by not making the full document public, as he justified in his Monday filing: “Given the public notoriety and controversy about this search, it is likely that even witnesses who are not expressly named in the Affidavit would be quickly and broadly identified over social media and other communication channels, which could lead to them being harassed and intimidated.”
Biden’s claim that he was unaware of the raid echoes what White House officials stated earlier this month after the unusual search in which FBI agents removed 10 boxes of documents, some of which the agency claims were at the highest classified levels.
The White House has maintained time and time again that Biden was unaware of the impending operation, which Attorney General Merrick Garland had approved.
The dispute for access to records that Trump had previously turned up after storing them at Mar-a-Lago for about a year is revealed through a fresh paper trail, however.
The most recent update is a letter from the interim director of the National Archives dated May 2021 to Trump’s attorney Evan Corcoran. It describes the FBI’s efforts to examine 15 boxes of evidence that Trump brought back from Mar-a-Lago.
Invoking presidential privilege in a protected manner was what Trump was attempting to do.
Debra Steidel Wall, acting archivist of the United States, wrote that the current president was the only one who could claim privilege. She also disclosed correspondence with the White House counsel’s office about the situation.
According to the Counsel to the President, President Biden defers to my judgement in this case after consulting with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, she wrote.
This has led to fresh inquiries about the breadth, if any, of knowledge White House counsel had of the FBI’s inquiry, which has grown to include whether the Espionage Act’s handling and removal of documents sections were in play.
The most recent letter, published by Trump-supporting journalist John Solomon, suggested that the White House will be involved in decisions on privilege. The archivist denied the Trump campaign’s request after determining that the privilege decisions must be made by the current president and not by his predecessor.
On Wednesday, Trump retaliated further by sending out an email that included a link to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal with the heading, “The Trump Warrant Had No Legal Basis.”
The Washington Post said that some of the information that agents collected during the operation on August 8 is “extraordinarily sensitive” and may include information about how the United States gathers intelligence. It was described as “among the most sensitive secrets we have” by a source.
According to Steidel Wall’s letter dated May 10, the first batch of papers that Trump ultimately returned after months of negotiating included 700 pages of records and 100 documents that were classified.
How items in boxes that had been at the White House ended up to Mar-a-Lago, the resort in Florida where Trump spent his time as president, is still a mystery.
According to the Post, the president personally handled the process and “did so with extreme secrecy, refused to share certain materials even to senior advisers.”
The day following the search, on August 9, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated, “The Justice Department conducts investigations independently, and we leave any law enforcement concerns to them.” Biden was not informed of or aware of the raid.