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One of D’Antuono’s primary concerns was the aggressive approach taken by Justice Department prosecutor Jay Bratt, who had a history of making donations to Democratic candidates between 1993 and 2007. D’Antuono worried that Bratt “was being a little overly aggressive” in pushing for the raid, further fueling his apprehension.
According to NBC News, which cited details from David Rohde’s book “Where Tyranny Begins: The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War on Democracy,” D’Antuono and other FBI agents were keen on recovering any documents Trump might have retained without resorting to confrontation. D’Antuono advocated for a consensual search, believing it could retrieve the documents without the need for a raid. “I was trying to be a different voice in the room. Why do we have to be aggressive? We have an attorney in this case,” he explained. He believed that if negotiations with Trump’s attorney, Evan Corcoran, had failed, the FBI could have still served a search warrant without the aggressive approach.
“In my opinion, there was no harm in doing it that way,” D’Antuono said, explaining that the FBI was prepared to respond if any documents were removed. However, his advice went unheeded, leading to a highly publicized raid that he feared would damage the FBI’s reputation.
The timing of the raid and the charges being prepared, including potential efforts to bar Trump from holding office due to the unlawful possession of classified documents, only intensified suspicions. “The barring from office charge. People saw that charge as ‘Aha, is that DOJ’s effort to get Trump?’” D’Antuono remarked, acknowledging the perception that the raid was politically motivated.
During a 2023 appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, D’Antuono reiterated his concerns about the raid. He described the operation as “not completely out of the ordinary,” but admitted that the severity of the situation made it a spectacle that the FBI should have avoided. “We were asking for it,” he said, acknowledging that the raid had exposed the FBI to criticism.
From D’Antuono’s perspective, the raid represented a “reputational risk” for the FBI. He lamented that the agency had been left “holding the bag again” and that they had “cut ourselves” by proceeding with the operation in such a high-profile manner.
Carry 46 rounds concealed? (comfortably)
“I do think there was a good likelihood that we could have got a consent and then we wouldn’t have had to,” D’Antuono reflected, expressing regret over how the situation was handled. His comments paint a picture of an FBI caught between the demands of an aggressive prosecution and the need to maintain public trust—a balance that, in this case, may have tipped too far in the wrong direction.
The Mar-a-Lago raid remains a controversial chapter in the ongoing saga of investigations surrounding Donald Trump, and D’Antuono’s revelations add a new layer of complexity to the debate over the FBI’s actions and the potential political motivations behind them.
