Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted that he “personally approved” the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s house Mar-a-Lago — which was “unannounced,” Trump noted in a statement — on Monday. This confession nullifies reporting from Newsweek that claimed Garland was not associated with permitting the forced search and remained unaware of the specific date and time of the raid until after.
Garland: "I personally approved" the Mar-a-Lago raid. pic.twitter.com/qw8HJOcsGZ
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 11, 2022
Garland initially took responsibility for authorizing the raid but later refused to acknowledge that much of the nation’s fault-finding is actually with him.
Instead, in a short speech on Thursday afternoon, he berated Americans for daring to question the DOJ and the FBI’s credibility.
Despite the fact that more than half of U.S. voters say bureaucratic agencies such as the DOJ and FBI are too big and too focused on advancing a political agenda, Garland defensively claimed that “attacks” on his agents and prosecutors are “unfounded” and “unfair.”
“Men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated patriotic public servants. Every day, they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism, and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves. I am honored to work alongside them,” Garland said.
Garland, who colluded with the National School Boards Association to target concerned parents at school board meetings and refused to prosecute threats against the U.S. Supreme Court justices and pro-life centers following the Dobbs decision, claimed that the DOJ under his watch “is applying the law evenly without fear or favor.”
“Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy. Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly without fear or favor. Under my watch, that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing,” Garland claimed.
To do that, Garland said “work is by necessity conducted out of the public eye.”
“We do that to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans and to protect the integrity of our investigations. Federal law, longstanding department rules, and our ethical obligations prevent me from providing further details as to the basis of the search at this time,” Garland continued.
In his minutes-long statement, Garland announced the Department of Justice’s plans to unseal the search warrant and property receipt that led to the Trump raid, which lasted more than nine hours.
Garland said the search warrant was authorized by a federal magistrate judge (who, incidentally, once left his job as a U.S. attorney because convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein hired him to represent his staff), “upon the required finding probable cause.” The DOJ head, however, did not disclose what that probable cause was reported to be.
Garland also claimed that “copies of both the warrant and the FBI property receipt were provided on the day of the search for the former president’s counsel, who was on-site during the search.”
That strongly contradicts Eric Trump’s claim that the FBI refused to give Trump’s legal counsel a copy of the search warrant and instead “showed it to her from about 10 feet away.” Eric also claimed that the FBI demanded Trump’s staff shut off the property’s security cameras which they refused to do.
Keeping with his department’s commitment to silence following the raid, Garland refused to answer any questions.
The White House was reportedly unaware of Garland’s speech until shortly before it started.
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Source: The Federalist
