The Justice Department pushed for an aggressive approach to search for classified documents at Donald Trump’s home after overruling agents who wanted to try to gain the former president’s cooperation, a senior FBI official said.
Steven D’Antuono, who ran the FBI’s Washington field office until his retirement late last year, said in a deposition released last week by congressional Republicans that he and his agents recommended a “consent” approach: have government attorneys talk with the former president’s attorneys about turning over the documents.
He said higher-ups decided that they wouldn’t get cooperation, so they approved the search. Thirty FBI agents swooped into Mar-A-Lago to pore through the former president’s home, including the closet of former first lady Melania Trump.
It was a different story for Hunter Biden, the current president’s son, when FBI and IRS agents wanted to execute a search for documents that they felt would build their tax evasion case. According to testimony by Gary Shapley, a senior IRS agent, they were stymied by prosecutors who told them to wait and tipped off Mr. Biden’s attorneys to the agents’ interest.
“The legal counsel for [Hunter] Biden was given all kinds of heads-up and notices, and they worked with him where that wasn’t extended to President Trump,” Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told The Washington Times.
Mr. Jordan, Ohio Republican, spoke just after Mr. D’Antuono’s testimony was made public and after Attorney General Merrick Garland faced lawmakers for hours of grilling over the two cases on Wednesday.
The juxtaposition of the two approaches fueled Republicans’ sense that the government machinery is treating one of the two top presidential candidates differently from the other.
Mr. Garland fended off those accusations, though he acknowledged the comparison. Indeed, he even confused the two searches at one point in the hearing.
“I’m sorry, I thought you were asking about Mar-A-Lago,” he told Rep. Andy Biggs, Arizona Republican, who was asking about the Justice Department’s tipoff to Hunter Biden’s attorneys that effectively scuttled agents’ search attempt in that case.
Mr. Garland said the facts factor into the decision to go in heavy or light in each search.
“There’s no policy on this question. The strategy and tactics to be used to preserve evidence are left up to the investigators and offices on the ground. Sometimes, it would be a serious mistake to call up. Sometimes it would not,” he said.
He demurred on questions about the heads-up to Mr. Biden’s team. David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who led the investigation, made those decisions, he said.
Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Weiss as U.S. attorney.
The former president now faces 40 federal charges stemming from the classified documents and his interactions with the government over their return.
Mr. D’Antuono said the Justice Department took an aggressive approach toward Mr. Trump despite agents’ sense that more conciliatory methods would work.
“I don’t know where it switched or at what point in time, but DOJ had an opinion that they weren’t going to get cooperation out of the attorney, which I still think you have to give it the college try because that — to me it’s about the narrative,” he said.
He said the heavy-handed approach didn’t violate law or policy but he thought there was “a good likelihood that we could have got a consent.”
The aggressive approach ignited a backlash.
“I think the bureau — we were left holding the bag again, right, and we cut ourselves,” Mr. D’Antuono said.
The searches were not the only differences in the Justice Department’s approaches to the two cases.
IRS and FBI agents assigned to the Hunter Biden investigation said the process was taking too long. The probe was opened in 2018, but charges weren’t brought until this year. Republicans said the statute of limitations had expired on years of some of the most severe tax evasion.
In Mr. Trump’s case, the Justice Department pushed for speedy action, including pressure to execute their search on a specific day, Mr. D’Antuono said.
Mr. D’Antuono said the department might have been worried that the risk to national security increased the longer the classified documents remained in Mr. Trump’s possession.
Mr. Jordan told Mr. Garland that the aggressive approach seemed odd because Mr. Trump had been cooperating. He allowed the FBI access to Mar-A-Lago a first time. He then turned over documents that were found and locked away other documents in a storage room.
“Everything they asked him to do, he did. And then what’s the Justice Department do?” Mr. Jordan said. “They raid President Trump’s home.”
Rep. Glenn Ivey, Maryland Democrat, challenged that version of events.
“In fact, the allegations are he in fact moved documents and tried to hide them so the Department of Justice couldn’t get them,” Mr. Ivey said.
He said that was the reason the FBI executed the unannounced search.
“There’s no surprise, and there’s certainly no two tiers of justice with respect to what was done in that instance,” he said. “In fact, the fact that they took so long to do it, I think, is based entirely on the fact that he had been president.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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