Just in time for Jack Smith's closed door testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, aided and abetted by Trump, Fox "news" and others, has released some "newly declassified" documents that claim the "FBI doubted probable cause for Mar-a-Lago raid but pushed forward amid pressure from Biden DOJ."
They actually do not show anything new, as this was previously argued by Trump's legal team in court, and was shot down by Judge Aileen Cannon. Here's more on that from Joyce Vance:
The Trump administration is trying to cast doubt on the Mar-a-Lago case
Ahead of the hearing, the administration appeared to take a stab at delegitimizing Smith’s work. Fox News ran a story Tuesday headlined, “FBI doubted probable cause for Mar-a-Lago raid but pushed forward amid pressure from Biden DOJ, emails reveal.” In a story they labeled as an “EXCLUSIVE,” they reported, “The FBI did not believe it had probable cause to raid President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in 2022, but moved forward amid pressure from the Biden Justice Department, with an official saying he didn’t ‘give a damn about the optics’ of the search, newly declassified documents reviewed by Fox News Digital reveal.” The story claims that an “email revealed that the FBI’s Washington Field Office did ‘not believe (and has articulated to DOJ CES), that we have established probable cause for the search warrant for classified records at Mar a Lago.’”
[...]
But even Judge Cannon rejected any notion that some dissent within the ranks at the FBI invalidated the probable cause used to obtain the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. While the case was in progress, Trump’s lawyers asked for a Franks hearing, a process for challenging the truthfulness of statements made by an agent in the affidavit used to obtain a search warrant. If a defendant succeeds in a Franks hearing, he can ask the judge to exclude any evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches. But Cannon didn’t find in Trump’s favor in this instance, finding that there was sufficient probable cause for the search warrant despite any dissent in the FBI ranks. Cannon held that considering dissenting views by FBI agents would not have “altered the evidentiary calculus in support of probable cause,” a remarkable ruling from a Judge who leaned strongly in Trump’s favor throughout.
And, of course, the results of the search, which revealed boxes full of classified documents, confirmed that prosecutors got it right.
That didn't stop the liars on Fox Business Network from treating their audience to this latest round of revisionist history on this Wednesday's Mornings with Maria. Here's the back and forth between Bartiromo and her guests, Ashley Davis and Adam Johnson after Bartiromo initially repeated a portion of the article posted on Fox's website along with Trump's rant on Truth Social.
BARTIROMO: Well, this is an extraordinary story. It has been going on now for a decade, Ashley. I mean, we know that the Democrats came up with this wild fantasy that Trump colluded with Russia. Then when it was so obvious that it was made up from one political campaign, just trying to take down another political campaign, they wanted to make sure that they got all the reporting on the Russia collusion scam and they thought Trump had it. So they raid his home, go in through to, you know, Melania's, know, dresser and look through all of their stuff. I mean, it was absolutely disgusting. And now we get this from Chuck Grassley. Your reaction?
DAVIS: Absolutely. And well, finally we have an answer. And I think that the president has been saying this and his senior staff has been saying this for years. And it's not just Mar-a-Lago. I mean, they went after him about everything and tried to victimize him about everything. And so I think that it's a major breaking news that we should make sure that Chuck Grassley and the Judiciary Committee refers this to the Justice Department, which is what I really want to see, for some sort of criminal investigation.
BARTIROMO: Absolutely. And this is just not one thing. This is a 10-year period. I call that a conspiracy. And the reason that I believe more charges are coming for Jim Comey and all the others at the FBI who staged this ridiculous sentiment around President Trump. It was a massive smear for 10 years.
JOHNSON: Well, the corruption of the Biden administration is not only rampant but repulsive. And we just keep talking about, on the one hand, this isn't news because we just keep talking about it. And yet it is, because now we have even more details behind it. I mean, think of all of the times we've talked about what was happening in that Biden White House, from the 100 money wire transfers from China to Biden family accounts that Maria, you talked about so many times, to raiding Mar-a-Lago, when we all just looked and said, what in the world is going on? To four criminal accusations that were all ultimately dismissed or pushed out of court or nothing came of them, all in an attempt to stop Donald Trump from running for reelection. It's shocking.
BARTIROMO: And how did they get away with it? The media. This program and me, I was the first person to actually say, you know what, this Russia collusion story does not smell right to me. This is not true. I am not buying it. And I got slammed and everybody's starting to say, oh, she's nuts, she's this, she's that. And then one by one, we all started to figure out here, Fox was the only network that actually told the truth.
DAVIS: You took a lot of arrows for that, Maria, and so did Fox. And... but here's the question. What's going to happen to Jack Smith? What's going to happen to him? He was behind at least two of the big investigations.
BARTIROMO: He's got to testify behind closed doors. All of this is going to be out on the table and during that closed session. Do you want to see him then testify publicly as well?
DAVIS: Yes, but I want him significantly investigated by the Department of Justice.
BARTIROMO: And I also want to see the last 10 years and a timeline of this conspiracy from the DOJ, because this is a conspiracy to stop Donald Trump. Why? Because he's an outsider. They didn't want their cushy jobs messed with. They didn't want any outsider coming in, seeing how they were seeing corruption.
JOHNSON: Well, guess what when you tell the swamp that it's about to get drained, the swamp gets real unhappy, and that's what this whole thing was about. His message was he would drain it. He's draining it. He's gonna continue draining it, and God bless.
BARTIROMO: And he didn't care remember his first inauguration back in 2017. He had all of the swamp sitting behind him, and there he is saying drain the swamp.
If Republicans wanted the truth out on this, Smith would be testifying in public as he requested. And Bartiromo still has egg on her face.
