White House Hasn’t Been Briefed on FBI Raid on Trump: Jean-Pierre

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks to reporters during a press conference at the White House in Washington on Aug. 9, 2022. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Joe Biden and White House officials have not been briefed about the FBI’s raid of former President Donald Trump’s resort, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Aug. 9.

“We did not know about this and we have not been briefed about this,” Jean-Pierre told reporters in Washington.

Echoing a White House official’s earlier statement, the press secretary said Biden and the rest of the White House learned about the Aug. 8 raid from public reports and were not notified before it happened.

“No one at the White House was given a heads up,” Jean-Pierre said.

The White House would say little about the raid, including whether it or Biden had a response to critics who say the raid should not have been carried out because of concerns about polarization, with Trump appearing set to run against Biden in 2024.

Jean-Pierre declined to answer whether there was concern about the optics of the raid, whether Biden would still welcome running against Trump, whether the Department of Justice (DOJ), which includes the FBI, acted properly, whether Attorney General Merrick Garland himself signed off on the search of Mar-a-Lago, and whether Biden had spoken with Garland on Tuesday.

She referred questions to the DOJ, which has not responded to inquiries or commented publicly since agents went to Mar-a-Lago, executing a warrant reportedly approved by a federal judge.

Jean-Pierre did commit to no briefings on the matter occurring between the Department of Justice and the White House in the future.

“When it comes to a criminal investigation, that is the Department of Justice to investigate and deal with. We give them their independence when it comes to that,” she said.

Biden’s Event

During an event at the White House earlier Tuesday, Biden appeared to ignore questions about the raid.

Reporters shouted at Biden as he posed for photographs after signing the instruments of ratification for Finland and Sweden to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Music was playing loudly at the time, so it wasn’t clear if the president heard the queries.

Biden did not take any questions after the signing, nor did he speak with reporters after signing the United States Chips and Science Act.

Reason for Raid

While the U.S. government has not disclosed the reason for the raid, one of Trump’s lawyers told The Epoch Times that agents were looking for classified and presidential records.

“They were looking for presidential records, what they deemed to be presidential records, and anything that could potentially be classified,” Christina Bobb, the lawyer, said.

Under the Presidential Records Act, certain records automatically transfer into the legal custody of the U.S. Archivist when a president transitions out of office.

But some of the records from Trump’s time in office were at Mar-a-Lago until January, the National Archives and Records Administration has said. Fifteen boxes of the records were transferred to the National Archives in mid-January.