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The debate over a possible “standing order” during former President Donald Trump’s administration that could have prevented the FBI from raiding Mar-a-Lago last week intensified on Wednesday.
Trump’s office argued that all documents taken to the Florida estate were declassified under an order by the then-president. In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump argued the documents were “all declassified.”
“The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago was a continuation of the witch hunt,” Trump said. “All of the materials seized have been fully declassified and all of the materials are now available to the public.”
However, some experts contend that a “standing order” issued by Trump could have prevented the FBI from taking the documents.
“There is a debate raging within the intelligence community about whether or not a ‘standing order’ was put in place during the Trump administration that would have prevented the FBI from raiding Mar-a-Lago,” said former CIA officer John Sipher.
Sipher, who is now a senior advisor at CrossLead, a strategy, and technology firm, told MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that the order could have been issued by Trump or former Attorney General William Barr.
“The problem is we don’t know,” Sipher said. “There’s a lot of people within the intelligence community, people that I trust, that say yes, they were told there was a standing order. Other people say no, they weren’t.”
“I think it’s important for us to find out because if there was a standing order, that would have been inappropriate,” he added. “That would be politicizing the intelligence community in a way that would be very, very dangerous.”
Sipher noted that the order would have had to come from “pretty high up” in the Trump administration.
“I think it’s important that we get to the bottom of this because if there was an order like that, that would be a real problem,” he said.
Former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa also weighed in on the debate, tweeting that if such an order existed, it would be “unprecedented.”
“I’ve never heard of a ‘standing order’ that restricts FBI agents from executing a lawful search warrant,” Rangappa wrote. “If true, this is unprecedented interference by a President in an investigation, and would be yet another count of obstruction of justice.”
The Mar-a-Lago raid is part of an ongoing criminal investigation into possible illegal activity at the Florida estate.
Trump’s office on the matter: “As we can all relate to, everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time. American presidents are no different. President Trump, to prepare the work the next day, often took documents including classified documents to the residence. He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.
“The power to classify and declassify documents rests solely with the president of the United States. The idea that some paper-pushing bureaucrat with classification authority delegated by the president needs to approve the declassification is absurd.”
The FBI has not commented on the matter.
