House Judiciary Republicans Hit DOJ, FBI with Preservation Notices After Trump Raid, Demand ‘Complete Cooperation’

Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee formalized their promise to investigate the Department of Justice and FBI, should Republicans take the majority in November, by sending “preservation notices” to both entities on Monday.

The Republicans requested in the notices, addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, an array of documents related to last week’s FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, and further requested that Garland and Wray preserve such documents for if and when Republicans have majority control and are able to conduct a formal investigation.

A third nearly identical preservation notice was also sent to White House chief of staff Ron Klain.

The Republicans began the three notices by describing the raid on Trump’s home as a “shocking escalation” of power directed against a political opponent.

“The FBI’s unprecedented raid of President Trump’s residence is a shocking escalation of the Biden Administration’s weaponization of law-enforcement resources against its political opponents,” the Republicans stated.

Read copies of the notices below:

🚨#BREAKING: Judiciary GOP sends preservation notices to Garland, Wray, and Klain on unprecedented Trump raid.

📍 Garland: https://t.co/7PEhFzhH5l

📍Wray: https://t.co/FQUZAj4L0l

📍Klain: https://t.co/kI0rMdT6Fb

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) August 15, 2022

The notices were sent in the wake of the FBI executing a warrant, which Breitbart News published Friday, by searching for and seizing items in Trump’s home last Monday. An inventory list accompanying the warrant showed the FBI had taken dozens of items, most of which were documents and some of which were labeled “classified” or “top secret.”

Trump disputed the FBI’s need for a search, saying in a statement after the raid, “Number one, it was all declassified. Number two, they didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago.”

The Republicans wrote in their notice to Garland, “Under your tenure, the Justice Department continues to shatter public confidence in the equal application of justice.”

The Republicans cited several examples in all the notices of Justice Department pursuits that occurred prior to the raid that they believed were politically motivated, such as recent FBI whistleblower reports that officials at the FBI were pressuring agents to inflate their number of “domestic violent extremism” cases.

The House Judiciary Committee has oversight jurisdiction over the Justice Department and can conduct official investigations and issue subpoenas, but committee Democrats, who have majority power, control such activity and committee chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) has already made clear he wholeheartedly supports the raid on Trump’s home.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) jumpstarted the process of sending preservation notices to various Biden administration entities back in March in anticipation of a GOP House majority.

McCarthy told Breitbart News at the time that he had warned the appropriate departments and agencies to preserve documents related to Justice Department and FBI activity, as well as the origins of coronavirus and the disastrous military evacuation from Afghanistan.