Washington Post, 1-Mar-2023 PAYWALL BYPASS (h/t funguy2playwith)
[Late July 2022,] Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property. But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive investigation.
[Special Agent in charge] Steven M. D’Antuono, then head of the FBI Washington field office, which was running the investigation, was adamant the FBI should not do a surprise search, according to the people.
D’Antuono said he would agree to lead such a raid only if he were ordered to, according to two of the people. The two other people said D’Antuono did not refuse to do the search but argued that it should be a consensual search agreed to by Trump’s legal team. He repeatedly urged that the FBI instead seek to persuade [Trump attorney Evan] Corcoran to agree to a consensual search of the property, said all four of the people.
Ok, look. We’re also hearing about head of FBI Counterintelligence in NYC Charles McGonigal working for Russian Deripaska (and possibly being deeply implicated in the untimely re-animation of HRC’s emails before the 2016 election), and now the FBI Washington Field office refusing to raid Trump’s Mar-a-lago home where they knew there were unreported classified documents.
WTF?
Just how rife is the FBI infiltrated with Trump/Russian people?
It seriously brings into question whether the FBI is even capable of doing an investigation of Trump, the braintrust behind the insurrection, and anything involving the Republican Party.
At best, the FBI is simply afraid of what happens when the next Republican is in charge so they don’t want to investigate, and at worst they’re deeply complicit.
Which is it? Is it even possible for Garland (much less Wray) to do this investigation?
IMHO, we’re going to have to depend upon the states, not the Federal government — Jack Smith, who is running the DoJ investigation now, still has to depend upon FBI do to the execution.
For that matter, how does Garland clean this up? Is it possible and does he even want to? Isn’t it time for Christopher Wray to hit the road?