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Newly released internal FBI records show that agents themselves doubted they had enough evidence to justify the August 2022 raid on President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, but were pushed forward anyway by senior officials inside the Biden Justice Department — a decision that Republican lawmakers now say confirms a grave abuse of federal power.

The documents, made public Tuesday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, reveal weeks of internal frustration inside the FBI as agents struggled to establish probable cause that classified material remained at Trump’s Palm Beach estate. In one July 13, 2022 email from the FBI’s Washington Field Office, an official complained that investigators had spent six “counterproductive” weeks chasing a warrant without uncovering any new evidence. “We haven’t generated any new facts, but keep being given draft after draft after draft,” the official wrote, questioning how long the effort could continue without a witness or fresh intelligence to justify a search. Despite those concerns, the DOJ pressed ahead.

Grassley called the disclosures “shocking,” writing on X that the records show the “FBI DID NOT BELIEVE IT HAD PROBABLE CAUSE to raid Pres Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home but Biden DOJ pushed for it anyway.” The Iowa Republican said the emails and memoranda point to a “miscarriage of justice” driven from the top down, not a careful law-enforcement decision grounded in evidence. According to the records, witness interviews conducted after Trump returned classified documents on June 3, 2022 failed to produce proof that sensitive materials were still being concealed at the resort.

Emails exchanged in the week leading up to the Aug. 8 raid show FBI officials actively searching for what they described as a “second path” to obtain a warrant, while also warning about how the operation would look if carried out against a former president. Washington Field Office counterintelligence chief Tony Riedlinger and then-assistant director Steven D’Antuono were included on the discussions, which stressed the need for a “professional, low key” approach and cooperation from Trump attorney Evan Corcoran — a plan that agents cautioned “may not go well at DOJ.” Internal correspondence shows that senior Justice Department officials were unmoved by those concerns. One DOJ official later told colleagues he “frankly [didn’t] give a damn about the optics.”

The records also indicate the DOJ had been preparing for a raid far earlier than previously acknowledged. Emails from early June 2022 show prosecutors wanted a search warrant ready within days of a meeting with Corcoran, anticipating noncompliance and refusing to grant extensions for document production. By July, the scope of the proposed search had expanded dramatically, covering Trump’s office, storage rooms, owner’s quarters, and any other spaces that might have held government records — with only guest rooms explicitly excluded.

When the warrant was finally executed, it bore little resemblance to the restrained operation agents had discussed internally. Trump was not in Florida at the time, having traveled to his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, leaving behind only a small staff. Dozens of FBI agents arrived with lights and sirens, searched multiple areas of the property, entered Melania Trump’s bedroom, and cracked open a safe in Trump’s office. Agents remained on site for most of the day. Trump condemned the action on Truth Social, calling it unprecedented and unnecessary after months of cooperation. “Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” he wrote.

Attorney General Merrick Garland ultimately approved the raid over objections raised within the FBI. The search later became the foundation for special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump in June 2023 on multiple counts related to classified documents. That case collapsed when U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that Smith had been unlawfully appointed without congressional authorization.

In a cover letter accompanying the document release, FBI Assistant Director Marshall Yates said the bureau was turning over the records in the interest of transparency and restoring public trust. For Grassley and other Republicans, the emails instead reinforce what Trump supporters have argued for years — that the Mar-a-Lago raid was not the product of neutral law enforcement, but a politically driven decision imposed by a Justice Department willing to override its own investigators to target a sitting president’s chief political rival.