A former FBI special agent speculated that the Justice Department may have pushed hard for the bureau to raid Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago complex earlier this month and hinted that they did so at the behest of the Biden administration.
On Thursday, former special agent Maureen O’Connell, who specialized in forensics, gang and cartel-level narcotics in the Los Angeles area between 1991 and 2016, said the Department of Justice (DOJ) was “trying to push “to the FBI to issue a warrant for the search of Trump’s residence in Palm Springs, Florida.
“Sometimes I think it’s a really good idea to sit back and let the chips fall where they may,” O’Connell said on the Fox News special reporting panel, hosted by the channel’s former White House chief correspondent Bret Bayer.
“But when I look at the totality of the situation here, I really think that when we talk about lively conversations for a couple of weeks, and the Justice Department, it seems to me that the Justice Department is the heaviest in this situation. They were trying to push the [FBI] to make this order. They were trying to put pressure on the Bureau to really hit this situation hard.
“And I guess the Bureau was the one that stood up to the Justice Department in this particular situation, because when you consider which entity has the most to lose, the FBI clearly has the most to lose in this situation,” he added.
Former FBI Special Agent Maureen O’Connell, who specialized in cartel-level narcotics, gang and forensics in the Los Angeles area between 1991 and 2016, told Fox News’ ‘Special Panel’ that the FBI was ‘ pressed hard’ by the The Department of Justice will execute a warrant to search the home of former President Donald Trump on August 8
FBI agents were inside the 128-room Florida property (pictured) for nine hours on August 8, with 30 agents roaming the 3,000-square-foot private quarters.
“My guess is that the Bureau was the one that stood up to the Justice Department in this particular situation, because when you consider which entity has the most to lose, the FBI clearly has the most to lose in this situation,” O’Connell added. Pictured: Authorities highlight Mar-a-Lago, the residence of Donald Trump, where a search for classified documents from the Oval Office took place.
O’Connell’s comments come after another retired FBI special agent said a raid of this level of sensitivity would have to be approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“I think there was insider information, call it an informant if you want,” Michael Tabman, who served in the FBI for 24 years, told DailyMail.com exclusively.
“I think someone told them something or they stumbled across some other information, which was kind of conclusive in their minds that they had to go now to get that or they wouldn’t get it.”
He further asserted that while there was cooperation between Trump and the FBI at one point, the agency may have had a sense that the former president and his team were “telling them what they want to tell them, with limited information.”
Retired FBI Special Agent Michael Tabman told DailyMail.com that an “informant” may have disclosed information to the FBI that led to the August 8 raid on Trump’s home.
The FBI’s protocol, according to Tabman, is to move forward with seizing information once they feel obtaining it ‘voluntarily’ is no longer feasible.
“You know, it could all go away,” Tabman said. ‘You have evidence you need to get before it disappears or moves and you can’t see it anymore.’
To get a warrant for a raid, the FBI would need to prove probable cause and conduct the search in a timely manner. Agents can’t just ‘rummag’ through someone’s home in a case like this, Tabman added.
He also claimed that the FBI may have gotten a sense that Trump was simply no longer “fully cooperative” with the investigation, which led them to see the raid approved.
The former president was at Trump Tower in New York City when the FBI raided his Florida property. His son Eric Trump told Fox News that he was the one who told his father about the raid.
Trump and his allies quickly tried to portray the search as a weapon of the criminal justice system and a Democratic-driven effort to prevent him from winning another term in 2024, even though the Biden White House said it had no prior knowledge and current FBI director. Christopher Wray was appointed by Trump five years ago.
Trump spoke about the search in a lengthy statement late on the day of the search, describing it as an “unannounced raid” that he likened to “prosecutorial misconduct.”
“These are dark times for our nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” he said.
“I took on America’s bureaucratic corruption, restored power to the people, and truly delivered for our country like we’ve never seen it before.
The establishment hated him. Now, as they watch my endorsed candidates win big victories and see my dominance in every poll, they are trying to stop me and the GOP once again. Lawlessness, political persecution and witch hunts must be exposed and stopped.”
Former US President Donald Trump was at his New York City residence, Trump Tower, when the FBI raided his Florida estate.
After the raid was made public, Trump said in a lengthy statement shared on Truth Social that FBI agents had broken into a safe and left his office a mess.
Tabman told DailyMail.com that in order to obtain the search warrant, the FBI would need to prove probable cause and conduct the search in a timely manner. He also claimed that the FBI may have gotten a sense that Trump simply wasn’t “fully cooperative” with the investigation anymore, leading them to see the Mar-a-Lago raid (pictured) approved.
Trump’s home in Florida was raided by the FBI, believed to have been carried out to recover documents the former president took from the White House when he left in January 2021.
By law, all presidential correspondence and documentation must be turned over to the National Archives, but it has been reported that the former president did not comply.
FBI agents were reportedly inside the 128-room Florida property for nine hours on August 8, with 30 agents roaming the 3,000-square-foot private accommodations.
Investigators have been said to have ransacked his office for several hours, even going so far as to search Melania’s wardrobe, Trump revealed in a social media post days later.
He wrote that they “went through the First Lady’s closets and rifled through her clothing and personal items,” adding, “Surprisingly, they left the area in relative disarray.”
Agents also searched a locked basement storage room in which 15 cardboard boxes of White House material were stored, the New York Post reported.
Sources told the outlet that Trump’s attorneys, led by Evan Corcoran, were “fully cooperating” with federal authorities to arrange for the return of the documents, with the process beginning in May 2021, when it was noted that some records were missing. .
The timeline above highlights just a few of former President Trump’s battles with the National Archives since leaving office, including a court battle unrelated to the committee on Jan. 6.
In January, some of the documents were returned, but apparently not all of them. Then, in early June, four top Justice Department officials traveled to Mar-a-Lago to speak with the former president’s attorneys about the documents.
DOJ Export Control and Counterintelligence Section Chief Jay Bratt was reportedly among the group who sat down with Trump’s lawyers.
At one point, the former president himself reportedly stopped to say hello and “talk a bit” before leaving again, CNN reported.
During the visit, Trump’s team showed government officials where he kept the documents: in a basement.
Days later, the FBI reportedly sent a letter to its staff asking them to secure the room where they observed the documents being stored. Attendees then padlocked the area, according to CNN.
It’s unclear what happened between June and this month that federal investigators decided to forcibly reclaim the documents.
DailyMail.com has contacted the FBI and the Justice Department for comment.
