‘Such an Aggressive Move’: CNN Analysts Andrew McCabe and Paul Callan Agree ‘Dangerous’ DOJ Raid Must Be About More Than Documents
CNN law enforcement analysts Andrew McCabe and Paul Callan agreed that Monday’s FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is a potentially “dangerous” move by the Justice Department.
Little is known about the circumstances of the raid. According to the New York Times, the search concerned classified documents that Trump took from the White House after he left office.
On CNN Tuesday, anchor Kate Bolduan asked if the raid is only about Trump violating the Presidential Records Act, which requires the president to preserve and submit all writings to the National Archives.
Callan said such a violation wouldn’t be sufficient to justify what the FBI did:
No, it’s not enough to warrant all of this. And this is a daring and dangerous move by the Department of Justice to serve a warrant on a former president and to raid his personal residence.
So I have to think that the Department of Justice must have something more than an argument about what kind of records have to be saved for a presidential library or the Library of Congress at some future date. They must – there’s more to this than meets the eye, and I have to think that there’s something a lot more serious that they think is being withheld from the presidential collection.
The FBI and Department of Justice have declined to comment on the raid.
McCabe, former FBI deputy director, said the agencies are unlikely the weigh in with a public statement until there’s an indictment. He went on to say he agrees with Callan that the raid is “such an aggressive move” that it is likely about more than simply securing documents:
I think it’s unlikely that we’ll hear anything specific from the Justice Department until they make the decision to go public with something like an indictment or a charge, and we don’t — we are not there yet, to be very clear. We don’t know that that will ever happen. They may not decide to take any action. But this Justice Department is going to speak only through the public legal documents that might become known if this investigation goes in that direction.
And if I could, just to tag onto what Paul said, I completely agree. This is such a bold, such a disruptive, such an aggressive move. The idea they would do this simply because they weren’t getting the sort of compliance they were looking for out of securing the room with the documents, things like that, seems really unimaginable to me. It seems like they must have, I hope they have more than just that.
Watch above, via CNN.
