Retired FBI boss disassembles Trump search warrant: Feds ‘going to regret this’
August 27, 2022
Retired Assistant Director Kevin Brock says FBI didn't exhaust other means or appear to have established probable cause for search.
The FBI's former intelligence chief declared Friday the agency should not have criminalized the records dispute between Donald Trump and the National Archives and that the bureau appears to have failed to meet the probable cause standard for the invasive search of the former president's Florida estate.
"I think they're going to regret this," retired Assistant Director Kevin Brock told the "Just the News, Not Noise" television show after reviewing a heavily redacted affidavit the FBI used to persuade a judge to allow the Aug. 8 search at Mar-a-Lago.
Brock, ordinarily an ardent defender of his former agency, has raised concerns for several days that the bureau did not exhaust other means to resolve the dispute over presidential and alleged classified records Trump kept. He said he did not believe the FBI adequately considered the possibility that Trump had wide latitude to declassify records and declare them personal.
He said Friday his concerns were only heightened by the court-ordered release of the search warrant affidavit, which he noted was still heavily redacted.
"I will caveat all of this by saying we can only see what we can see, but the first thing that jumped out to me is that the probable cause statement focuses on the nature of the documents, and where they are," said Brock, a respected three-decade agent who rose to become the bureau's first intelligence chief under Director Robert Mueller. "But it doesn't, at least in the unredacted portion, address the main element of the criminal federal statutes that they cite.
"The FBI should not have participated in this investigation. It is something that needs to be settled along established routes in that regard that we traditionally used. There was no need for law enforcement involvement in this. And there was certainly no need for an invasive search for the residence. I think they're going to regret this."
Moar: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/fbis-former-intel-chief-raid-trump-home-i-think-they-are-going