EXCLUSIVE: FBI Probed Actions Of Trump's Legal Team While He Was Still In Office
G-men scrutinized an 'election matter' 16 months before Arctic Frost
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second story in a series on FBI assessments. Read the first story here.
A confidential government report exposing the reach of an FBI dragnet of arbitrary spying published by Racket News last week did not detail specific matters that fell into its web, but new documents reveal that the legal team of President Donald Trump fell under the watchful gaze of the bureau while he remained the sitting president in 2020.
The FBI flexed its investigative muscle in the tense period between Election Day and the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, not bothering to wait for the formal transition of power to President Joe Biden before it began digging.
About a month after Americans cast their ballots, while Trump remained in the Oval Office as a lame duck, then-FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich urged the FBI Field Office in Atlanta to start interviews “as soon as possible” into what the bureau branded an “election matter,” a Dec. 8, 2020 memo reveals.
FBI agents sprung into action, alerting the public corruption unit and opening an assessment into a Georgia hearing five days earlier in which Rudy Giuliani, acting as Trump’s attorney, aired suspicions of fraudulent voting and other irregularities.
So-called “assessments” allow the bureau to deploy a range of prying methods including warrantless surveillance and confidential informants without a court order. These assessments do not require proof of wrongdoing or even suspicions of criminality.
The FBI’s assessment into that hearing also followed by seven days Giuliani publicly ripping Attorney General William Barr for dismissing concerns about voting irregularities in comments to the Associated Press. Barr said that the Justice Department and FBI followed up on various election complaints and found nothing that would change the final result.
“With all due respect to the attorney general, there hasn’t been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation,” Giuliani had responded in a statement.
Giuliani’s wish for an investigation was granted, but far differently than he had imagined.
About six months after the FBI opened its assessment, in April 2021, the FBI raided Giuliani’s home and office.
