Julie Kelly 🇺🇸@julie_kelly2
Fascinating scoop here. One of AG Garland's hand-picked advisors on J6 investigation and Trump cases raised serious concerns over the Mar-a-Lago raid.
Garland had tasked Patty Stemler, a longtime, well-connected DOJ official, to advise on the political matters. (She had retired as head of the DOJ's top criminal appellate attorney in Feb 2022 and was named "senior counsel" at DOJ.) A few days after the raid, Stemler sent an email to a DOJ NSD attorney with questions.
“I didn’t know about this search in advance, but I have been worrying about it ever since and worrying more now,” Stemler wrote in an Aug. 10, 2022 email. “Doesn’t Trump maintain that he had the authority to declassify documents while he was still President?"
She continued: "Has anyone in NSD or OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] looked at that? I know we have procedures for declassifying, but is the President as Commander in Chief bound by those procedures? We also have procedures for granting pardons, but the President doesn’t have to follow them. I don’t know if we intend to charge anyone with respect to the classified documents seized yesterday, but if we disclose that we found X classified documents before we seek an indictment, will that trench on any fair trial rights or violate the ethical obligations of a prosecutor?"
Stemler, known as the DOJ's "fixer" in tough cases, had more questions.
She represents yet another top DOJ official expressing not just concerns about the raid (add WFO chief Steve D'Antuono, who fought Jay Bratt and others for weeks) but the basis for an investigation into a former president's holding of classified files.