Oops! In breaking news, the FBI has admitted it “over-collected” evidence in its raid on Mar-a-Lago. John Solomon has the story, saying he’s confirmed the “Justice” Department called someone on Trump’s legal team and said they were “obligated” to return Trump’s passports and other items “outside the scope of the subpoena.” They also acknowledge that there may be privileged materials that will have to be segregated and returned.

Some FBI agents have told Solomon that this warrant was already “remarkably broad.” We see from what they took that this raid was characterized by a “lack of precision.” (Well, it was TRUMP, so who cares?)

While some top legal analysts are thinking the raid on President Trump’s home was to find “evidence” tying him to the January 6 riot, there’s something else they might have been looking for — to hide.

The DOJ and The Russia Hoax

It may be that the “Justice” Department’s interest, at least in part, was in documents involving the Russia Hoax — and their role in furthering it. This observation comes from Kash Patel, whom Trump designated as his representative to the National Archives. Patel says they’ve been locked in a “bureaucratic battle” over documents. As the Washington Examiner reported, “Because there appears to be an ‘ongoing’ investigation, [Patel] argued, ‘you will never be allowed to see the Russiagate docs or any other docs that President Trump lawfully declassified, and they will hide it from the public.’”

Trump was apparently declassifying documents relating to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, and he certainly had the authority to do so. But some are claiming he didn’t follow the “formal process.”

When Patel appeared with Devin Nunes on Sunday Morning Futures this weekend, it was noted that the same cast of characters involved in the Russia Hoax has been “promoted up” and is currently working at the White House and DOJ. Certainly those same people are behind this, too. Recall that Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and Biden domestic policy adviser Susan Rice were mentioned as the “big three,” but there are more swamp creatures, notably attorney Michael Atkinson, acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord, and John Carlin, who was chief of staff to Robert Mueller at the FBI and now reports to Lisa Monaco. Michael Atkinson is the lawyer who kicked off Trump’s first impeachment by introducing the bogus letter of complaint from “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella about Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky.

We’ve long wondered how some individuals — Chris Wray particularly — got recommended for appointments in the Trump administration. This piece explains:

…None of it could have been carried out if there was not someone very close to President Trump, someone very much participating in the effort, who was whispering in his ear about making appointments that were specifically designed to allow the effort to continue.

So…who is that? We don’t know, but surely Trump does. For when you have time, the piece is a must-read. “No action took place inside Main Justice that was not controlled by this group. Nothing,” it says.

Of course, the President is supposed to have unilateral authority to declassify documents. This report from the Washington Examiner suggests how difficult it was for Trump to get cooperation from the DOJ in the so-called declassification “process.” At one point, Trump reportedly just said, “I hereby declassify the remaining materials in the binder. This is my final determination under the declassification review and I have directed the Attorney General to implement the redactions proposed in the FBI’s January 17 submission and return to the White House an appropriately redacted copy.”

One of the items recovered in the raid of Mar-A-Lago was a binder of materials. I wonder if it was the same one?

Trump said Monday that agents confiscated three passports (two apparently were expired) during the Mar-a-Lago raid. “This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!” And, truly, what do they think he is, a flight risk?

Release the Unredacted Affidavit

We continue to see reports that Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart signed a warrant that allowed agents to search Trump’s office and “all storage rooms and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by POTUS and his staff.” In other words, the whole place. As for materials that should have been covered by attorney-client privilege, FOX NEWS reported that the “Justice” Department “denied a request by Trump’s legal counsel to have a third party review the documents.”

We join legal experts and President Trump himself in calling for the affidavit — the document that was supposed to spell out “probable cause” to Judge Reinhart — to be released, unredacted. Now we see that the “Justice” Department is still trying to keep it under seal. Assistant U.S. Attorney Juan Antonio Gonzalez said that making the underlying affidavit public would risk “the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation that implicates national security.” Sorry, Mr. Gonzalez, but it’s far too late to risk damaging the integrity of this investigation. I, for one, don’t think national security is imperiled at all. I think law enforcement is trying to protect the security of its own backside.

We’d better not complain too loudly, though, about the raid or the documents being withheld. Why, the “journalists” on CNN will go after us for “aiming to malign” the FBI. Brian Stelter said, “The reason I’m bringing it up, let’s just call it what it is, MAGA media’s hatred of government is reaching a new high. When you have a combination of these FBI stories and the IRS getting a lot more funding, this a new peak in terms of that anti-government sentiment. So it’s no wonder that there’s concerns inside government about security and about threats.”

Stelter greatly exaggerated the connection between the alleged attacker at an FBI field office and his posting on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social. Actually, he had only been on the platform for a few days.

As you know, we don’t condone violence at all. But do the idiots at CNN ever think about why there might be a surge in threats against the FBI right about now? They’ve lost their minds.

Garland and Wray — Undermining the Rule of Law

The Daily Caller also reports that a group of conservative organizations has written an open letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, rebuking both for politicizing their respective agencies. The letter demanded the release of “all documents related to the raid on President Trump’s home in Florida as well as the confiscation of Congressman Scott Perry’s cellphone,” stating both actions “undermined the rule of law in America.”

“In overseeing these actions,” the letter said, “you and FBI Director Christopher Wray have grossly failed in your mission to oversee an impartial and equal application of the law.”

‘Get Trump’ — Not the Documents

Finally, Margot Cleveland has done it again, with an amazing story tracing the raid on Trump’s home back in time, at least to the beginning of this year, when the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of materials from Mar-a-Lago, with Trump representatives “continuing to search” for more records. This retrieval, done under the direction of David Ferriero, was supposed to take only records related to the duties of the President. Records not to be included were diaries, journals or personal notes, “not prepared or utilized for, or circulated or communicated in the course of, transacting Government business.” Also not to be included were “materials relating to private political associations” or “relating exclusively to the President’s own election to the office of the Presidency.”

Cleveland’s piece goes through the negotiating (and leaking) process finally leading to the search warrant. And, just as we suspected, after the raid took place and wasn’t, shall we say, well received, DOJ leakers spun the “nuclear secrets” tale. She explains how we may deduce, in part by contrasting the treatment of Trump vs. that of Hillary and Obama, that “the DOJ’s launching of a criminal investigation — and its use of a grand jury — to target former President Trump was a political witch hunt.”

No matter the excuse provided for the raid, she says, …the reality remains that the Biden administration launched an unnecessary grand jury criminal investigation into Trump based on a referral from a partisan archivist [Ferriero]. And all Americans of goodwill see the obvious difference in the government’s treatment of Clinton, Obama and Trump, proving the purpose of the investigation was to ‘get Trump’ and not the documents.

Finally, once again, here’s where to go at FOX NEWS for updates on the aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago raid.

 

Mike Huckabee is the former governor of Arkansas and longtime conservative commentator on issues in culture and current events. A New York Times best-selling author, he hosts the weekly talk show Huckabee on TBN.

Originally published at MikeHuckabee.com. Reprinted with permission.