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| AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana |
In November 2022, Joe Biden indicated that he would use his power as president to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president agent.
“I’m making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next President again,” Biden told a reporter. Nevertheless, the White House has insisted that the federal investigations of Donald Trump have been completely independent.
Now there appears to be evidence that Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has indicted Donald Trump twice, may have coordinated with the White House Counsel’s office mere weeks before Trump was indicted over the alleged mishandling of classified documents.
According to a report from the New York Post, White House visitor logs show that Jay Bratt, who is on Smith’s staff, met with then-deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel’s office Caroline Saba at 10 a.m. on March 31, 2023, and were joined by an FBI agent in the Washington field office named Danielle Ray. Just over two months later, Trump was indicted.
Bratt and Saba previously met at the White House in November 2021, while Trump was negotiating the return of classified documents with the National Archives.
Bratt had a third meeting in the White House in September 2021, this time with Katherine Reily, an advisor to the White House chief of staff’s office.
The logs offer no information about what was discussed at the meetings.
Critics and legal experts questioned why Bratt was taking meetings at all with the White House counsel’s office while part of an active investigation into President Biden’s likely 2024 Republican opponent.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says that these meetings are suspicious. “There is no legitimate purpose for a line [DOJ] guy to be meeting with the White House except if it’s coordinated by the highest levels,” he told the Post. Giuliani was formerly a top federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.
Giuliani believes that the meetings prove the White House and special counsel were coordinating Trump’s prosecution.
“You’re damn right I do,” Giuliani said.
George Washington University law professor and constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley also believes the March meeting is suspicious and that it “raises obvious concerns about visits to the White House after [Bratt] began his work with the special counsel.”
“There is no reason why the Justice Department should not be able to confirm whether this meeting was related to the ongoing investigation or concerns some other matter,” Turley argues.
The White House has been somewhat evasive on the issue.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel, said Bratt was at the White House for a “case-related interview” but declined to comment further.
The FBI declined to comment.
A person with knowledge of the 2023 visit insisted that it was “an interview of a career official who was also working at the White House during the Trump Administration.”
The same individual said the 2021 visits were “national security related.”
I’ve never believed the White House narrative on this situation, and these new revelations further demonstrate they cannot be trusted.
