FBI email communications dating back to the August 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago appear to contradict the Biden administration’s claim that then-President Joe Biden had no prior knowledge of the search of President Donald Trump’s property. The records also shed more light on how aggressively the Justice Department pushed for a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, despite FBI objections over a lack of evidence to justify it.
The partially redacted emails, obtained by the Washington Examiner, include internal FBI communications from Aug. 3, 2022 — just five days before the raid — suggesting the search was tethered to the timing of when Biden would be briefed about the matter, and in “coordination between” the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice.
“This event is dependent upon the timeline of President Biden’s brief, decision, and coordination between [White House] Counsel and DOJ, and in turn, Evan Corcoran’s position on the override of privilege assertion and whether or not he seeks an injunction to prevent access,” according to one line of communication in the memos, reported by Fox News. Corcoran was a lawyer for Trump at the time.
The August 2022 electronic communication, labeled “FPOTUS Atty call script,” outlined plans to contact Trump’s legal team to seek cooperation and consent to search for additional classified material, after 15 boxes of records had already been voluntarily returned earlier that year.
Although they contain redactions, the emails appear to show an official from the FBI’s Washington Field Office communicating with an official within the Biden White House Counsel’s Office about Trump’s attorney Corcoran, who was tasked with handling responses over the return of both classified documents and Presidential Records Act materials.
The emails revealed the Biden White House Counsel’s office held multiple discussions with the FBI, the DOJ, and the National Archives and Records Administration in the months leading up to the search as officials assessed how to proceed.
At the time, however, the Biden administration said publicly and definitively the president and the White House at large had no advanced knowledge about the raid.
Then–press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Aug. 8, 2022, the day of the raid, that “the president was not briefed, was not aware of it,” adding that the White House learned of the search “just like the American people did.”
Other portions of the material reveal disagreement between FBI officials and DOJ leadership over the strength of the legal basis for a search warrant.
One passage states that the Washington Field Office did “not believe … that we have established probable cause for the search warrant,” even though DOJ officials supported seeking a broader search covering the residence, office, and storage areas. The Washington Examiner previously reported in December that officials in the DOJ under former Attorney General Merrick Garland expressed doubts about probable cause for the raid.
The new records describe alternative approaches that agents considered, including reaching out to Corcoran to request additional voluntary cooperation and asking NARA to pursue additional presidential records that might lead to the identification of more classified material.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Friday evening that the disclosures add to already-existing concerns about how the Biden administration handled its investigation into Trump.
Emails show Biden’s DOJ coordinated with Biden’s White House leading up to the Mar-a-Lago raid against @POTUS Trump@AGPamBondi: “The more we learn about Department of Justice weaponization under the prior administration, the worse the story gets. President Trump was targeted… pic.twitter.com/YwWN1LN0Xa
— Chad Gilmartin (@ChadGilmartinCA) February 21, 2026
“The more we learn about Department of Justice weaponization under the prior administration, the worse the story gets,” Bondi said. “President Trump was targeted at every level by a corrupt system that sought to remove him from politics entirely.”
It is not the first time the former White House’s assurance that Biden was not briefed ahead of the raid has been called into question. In a May 2022 NARA letter to Trump’s legal team, identified by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon just weeks after the raid, the archives noted: “NARA will provide the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President, beginning as early as Thursday, May 12, 2022.”
The “incumbent president” at that time was Biden.
The latest revelations of White House coordination in the raid on Mar-a-Lago come as the classified documents case continues to unravel.
On Monday, Cannon, a Trump appointee, permanently blocked the DOJ from releasing Smith’s final report on the case. Barring any reversals on appeal, the result means the public will not see Smith’s comprehensive rationale and basis for the case, unlike his separate 2020 election-related indictment report that was allowed to be released by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee.
JUDGE PERMANENTLY BLOCKS RELEASE OF TRUMP CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS REPORT
Cannon previously dismissed the classified documents case in the summer of 2024, ruling Smith had been unlawfully appointed, and wrote in a 15-page decision that making the report public would create a “manifest injustice.”
The Mar-a-Lago search formed the basis of Smith’s now-terminated prosecution, accusing Trump of retaining classified records and obstructing federal efforts to recover them. Trump pleaded not guilty, and the case ended before trial.
