President Joe Biden repeated his claim that he did not know the Department of Justice planned to raid and search Mar-a-Lago.
His spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, denied the president’s involvement in laying siege to the former president’s Florida home the next day.
“You know, the President and the White House learned about this FBI search from public reports,” she told reporters August 9. “We learned, just like the American public did yesterday, and we did not have advance notice of this activity.”
When Joe Biden was a candidate for president, he often accused former President Donald Trump of weaponizing the Justice Department. Biden claimed Trump tried to order prosecution of political opponents and he vowed to be different after he was named president.
“I will not do what this president does and use the Justice Department as my vehicle to insist that something happen,” Biden declared in November 2020. “There are a number of investigations that I’ve read about that are at a state level. There’s nothing at all I can or cannot do about that.”
The Daily Wire further reported:
The FBI raid, unprecedented in U.S. history, kicked off speculation of who knew about it beforehand, and to what extent Biden himself was involved in the law enforcement action against a potential 2024 adversary. Fox News reporter Peter Doocy put the question to Biden on Wednesday.
“I didn’t have any advanced notice. None. Zero. Not one single bit,” Biden responded, putting his thumb and forefinger together to form a zero to emphasize his answer.
Following days of silence after the raid, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in an August 11 press conference that he green-lit the raid and would request that the warrant, which was then under seal by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, be made public. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has resisted making the affidavit, which shows what evidence the FBI presented to Reinhart to obtain the warrant, public.
Reinhart on Monday ordered the DOJ to submit a redacted version of the affidavit for potential release to the public. The judge appeared partial to arguments made by media companies and watchdog groups, but granted that the DOJ raised valid concerns about keeping aspects of the document secret.
Trump filed a civil lawsuit over the raid on Monday. Trump asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida, who Trump nominated to the bench in 2020, to appoint a special master to oversee the FBI audit of the materials seized during the raid. He also asked for the court to force the FBI to return any documents that were seized that fall outside the scope of the warrant.
Cannon asked for clarity on Tuesday on what “precise relief” Trump is seeking in the suit. She asked Trump’s legal team for five points of clarity and requested a response by Friday.
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