Internal FBI Memos Warned Biden DOJ ‘No Probable Cause’ To Raid Mar-A-Lago: Report

by Tyler Durden

Tuesday, Dec 16, 2025 – 02:40 PM

The FBI warned the Biden Justice Department that there was no probable cause to raid President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, but prosecutors decided to do it anyway, Just the News reports, adding that AG Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel are about to turn over ‘bombshell emails’ revealing the warning. 

The emails are expected to be turned over as early as today to the Senate and House Judiciary committees ahead of the planned Wednesday deposition from ex-special prosecutor Jack Smith, who took over the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case months after the August 2022 raid of Trump’s home. 

According to the memos, the FBI’s Washington field office “does not believe they established probable cause” prior to the raid seeking classified documents at the request of the National Archives. They also chronicle specific concerns that Biden’s DOJ proceeded with the raid despite not meeting the standard for a search warrant, while some FBI agents disagreed with the decision altogether. 

The raid became a flashpoint in the battle between Biden and Trump ahead of the 2024 election, leading to two federal indictments against Trump that were ultimately dismissed in what Republicans argue were politically weaponized acts by a Democrat-run DOJ designed to influence the 2024 election.

The House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena recently compelling Smith to give a closed-door deposition Wednesday as part of the committee’s probe into the federal prosecutions of Trump. -Just the News

“The Committee on the Judiciary is continuing to conduct oversight of the operations of the Office of Special Counsel you led — specifically, your team’s prosecutions of President Donald J. Trump and his co-defendants,” wrote House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan in a letter accompanying Smith’s subpoena. “Due to your service as Special Counsel, the Committee believes that you possess information that is vital to its oversight of this matter.” 

While Democrats are definitely going to protect Smith throughout the deposition, let’s not forget that the FBI’s Chris Wray authorized the use of lethal force for the raid, while court documents showed that the agency brought props to stage photos for the press, before eventually returning 33 boxes to Trump earlier this year.

As journalist Julie Kelly wrote in August; 

[N]early two years later, the same Department of Justice that added the picture to a 2022 court filing for the sole purpose of ginning up media coverage, which worked like a charm, finally admitted the photo was staged.

The stunt was revealed during court proceedings last year in southern Florida in the so-called documents case. (How is it only a year ago?) In response to Trump’s accusations the FBI mishandled items taken from his home that infamous day, the DOJ—in the hands of Special Counsel Jack Smith by then—confessed FBI agents brought the colorful classified cover sheets to Mar-a-Lago.

At first, Smith said the FBI used the sheets only as “placeholders” indicating where the alleged illegal files had been found. But he finally had to fess up:

“As part of the processing of seized documents marked classified, the [evidence response team] photographed the documents (with appropriate cover sheets added by FBI personnel) next to the box in which they were located,” Smith wrote in a June 2024 brief.

But nowhere did the cover sheets indicate the attached files were evidence. In other words, the photo not only misrepresented the condition in which “classified documents” were found but proved that agents had tampered with the president’s belongings—consisting of evidence in the case—in preparation for a publicity stunt.