Lightly redacted emails published Tuesday by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee provide new insight into the Biden administration’s internal deliberations over the search warrant that authorized the FBI’s raid on President Trump’s private residence in August 2022. The emails, which were sent in the preceding months, indicate that FBI career employees seriously doubted whether they had enough evidence to prove probable cause (“PC”) for the search warrant, even as Biden political officials in the DOJ plowed ahead anyway.

In an email dated June 1, 2022, an FBI agent at the Washington Field Office (WFO), whose name was redacted, described interviews “suggesting that there may be additional boxes (presumably of the same type as were sent back to NARA in January) at Mar-a-Lago. WFO has been drafting a search warrant affidavit related to these potential boxes,” the agent wrote, “but has some concerns that the information is single source, has not been corroborated, and may be dated.”

Despite the concerns from career employees about the strength of the evidence, the email added that “DOJ CES [Department of Justice, Counterintelligence and Export Control Section] opines, however, that the SW’s [search warrant] meet the probable cause standard.”

“Even as we continue down the path towards a search warrant, WFO believes that a reasonable conversation with the former president’s attorney … ought not to be discounted,” the career official urged.

Over the next six weeks, it seems that DOJ officials had pressured the Washington Field Office to draft a search warrant, even though the FBI employees were still unsure about its legitimacy.

An email dated July 12, 2022 (with the sender again redacted) discussed the conflict over the scope of the warrant. “However, WF[redacted] does not believe we have PC for the 45 [Trump] Office or the bedroom due to recency and issues of boxes versus classified information. Therefore, as we are in disagreement on the SW [search warrant] and its scope, we are not yet finalizing a SW as we are missing relevant logistics and details.”

In other words, DOJ officials wanted to search every inch of Mar-a-Lago, but career FBI employees weren’t sure the evidence supported such an invasive warrant.

A July 13 email also highlighted the disputed draft. “WF[redacted], DOJ/CES, and SDFL [the FBI office, Southern District of Florida] continue to pass versions back and forth after our pause and concern about PC for any of the locations outlined in para 67,” said a redacted FBI employee. “What is the guidance for continuing to work on this document without any new information?”

Two hours later, another employee, whose name was also redacted, forwarded that email on to higher-ups. “[Redacted] asks a fair question,” the email stated. “We haven’t generated any new facts, but keep being given draft after draft after draft. Absent a witness coming forward with recent information about classified on site, at what point is it fair to table this? It is time consuming for the team, and not productive if there are no new facts supporting PC?”

At no point would the Biden administration “table this.” Their whole political strategy for the 2024 election relied upon hanging these legal charges around Trump’s neck.

Over the next two weeks, its seems that the DOJ won the argument over the scope of the search warrant.

In a Friday, July 29, 2022 email, CES Deputy Chief Julie Edelstein circulated a nearly final draft of the warrant. “As just discussed with [redacted], here is the SW draft with revisions, including to seek authorization to search the entire premises.”

After the Washington Field Office reviewed the new draft on Monday, August 1, WFO Special Agent-in-Charge Anthony Riedlinger still cautioned against it. “WFO ADIC [assistant director in charge] has advised we will not do the SW unless direction is received by DD [FBI deputy director],” he wrote in an August 1 email. “WFO would like to propose a second path.”

Once again, these concerns were overruled, and the FBI raided former President Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022.

The decision met a chorus of criticism for breaking norms and weaponizing justice, long before the details of the raid were publicly known. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) argued on “Washington Watch” that it represented “the overreach, the politicization and the weaponization for political purposes of the police state apparatus and all the other institutions in America today.”

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) called it “very fishy,” noting that “It’s never happened before in American history that they would raid the home of a chief political adversary, who happens to be the former president of the United States of America. And to this day, [Attorney General] Merrick Garland and [FBI Director] Christopher Wray have not given an adequate response or a reason why.”

In public, Garland and Wray insisted that everything was above board. “Much of our work is by necessity conducted out of the public eye,” Garland said. “We do that to protect the constitutional rights of all.” FBI Director Christopher Wray similarly insisted, “We don’t play favorites.”

However, Garland also admitted that “it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken.”

The newly published emails suggest that, in President Trump’s case, Garland’s DOJ was pushing rank-and-file FBI agents to pursue more intrusive means and conduct a search with a broad scope, no matter what the evidence said.

This is an important caveat. The newly released emails do not indicate whether the FBI turned up more evidence between June 1 and July 12, or between July 13 and July 29, that set the search warrant on firmer foundation. It does provide select snapshots which depict the Biden administration massaging the evidence they did have into the greatest possible case against Trump.

In normal law enforcement, authorities are confronted with evidence of a crime and seek to figure out who did it. In weaponized, politicized prosecution, authorities identify the target, then investigate to seek whether he has done anything that can be charged as a crime.

The emails released Tuesday provide yet further evidence — as if more were needed — that the Biden administration weaponized federal law enforcement agencies against President Trump. What the country does not need is retaliatory weaponization, leading to an endless cycle of political prosecutions whenever power changes hands in Washington.

What is needed is an honest assessment of American federal law enforcement and its squandered public trust. As FRC President Tony Perkins said after the Mar-a-Lago raid, “Who trusts the FBI to pursue justice? The agency has become so politicized that even if their actions were justified half the nation still would not trust them.” For an agency that operates in power, secrecy, and apparent impunity, restoring trust may require real, structural change.