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Former President Donald Trump allegedly sent a private message to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him what he needed to do to cool things off.
The New York Times reported that Trump sent Garland a message asking him just before the Department of Justice news conference Thursday afternoon asking what he could do to bring down political tensions after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
The Times reported that the message Trump wanted to be passed to Garland was: “The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?”
“The investigation into the former president centers around several potential criminal violations, including violations of the Espionage Act, the unlawful taking of government records, and obstruction of justice related to destroying documents,” The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra reported. “Multiple sources told The New York Times that at least one of Trump’s lawyers signed a written statement to the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this summer that claimed that all classified material and boxes in a storage area on the property had been returned to the federal government. Agents searched the storage area and Trump’s office and residence on the property.”
While speaking to reporters last week at the Department of Justice, Garland announced that the DOJ filed a motion to unseal the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago.
Garland said he “personally approved” the matter against the former president.
“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,” Garland said.
“Much of our 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,” he said.
“The search warrant was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause,” he told reporters.
“Copies of both the warrant and the FBI property receipt were provided on the day of the search to the former President’s counsel who was on-site during the search,” he added.
AG Merrick Garland says he "personally approved" the search warrant.
— Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) August 11, 2022
Last Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray refused to directly address questions about the raid.
While speaking with reporters, Wray did find the time to denounce “deplorable” threats against law enforcement in his first public comments since the search in Florida.
Asked to respond to Trump’s suggestion, Wray declined to jump into the fray. “As I’m sure you can appreciate, that’s not something I can talk about,” he said. Wray then referred such a question to the Department of Justice.
Wray did answer a question from a reporter asking about threats made against agents.
“Any threats made against law enforcement, including the men and women of the FBI, as with any law enforcement agency, are deplorable and dangerous,” the FBI director said.
WATCH:
Last week, a federal judge ordered the Biden Justice Department to produce a copy of a search warrant executed at his Mar-a-Lago estate, where the FBI conducted a nine-hour-plus search on Monday.
Federal Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the DOJ to “file a Response to the Motion to Unseal” the warrant after requests were made by the Times-Union, a newspaper located in Albany, N.Y., as well as the conservative legal group Judicial Watch.
The judge said that the DOJ must respond no later than Aug. 15, reports said.
Reinhart signed off on the FBI’s warrant to search the former president’s palatial home in South Florida in what he said was an “unannounced raid on my home.”
He took a leave of absence from a local U.S. Attorney’s office more than 10 years ago to represent employees of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein after they had gotten immunity during the lengthy probe of the now-late financier for sex trafficking.
Trump attorney Lindsey Halligan said that the warrant was “sealed” when agents showed up to search Trump’s estate.
Another Trump lawyer, Christian Bobb, meanwhile, told streaming network Real America’s Voice: “When I arrived and kind of announced myself as the legal representation for President Trump. I asked to see a copy of the warrant.”
