White House Visitors Logs Raise Eyebrows
Former White House counsel Stuart Delery has resigned amid questions over a meeting held between a top aide to Special Counsel Jack Smith and an FBI agent approximately two months before Smith charged former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents.
White House visitor logs show that on March 31, Jay Bratt - Smith’s top aide - met with Caroline Seba, deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel’s office, together with Danielle Ray, an FBI agent in the Washington, D.C., field office.
The visitor logs do not provide any information on what was discussed at the meeting, but former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani is sounding the alarm, noting that it “looks like a coordinated prosecution of the former president, who is also Biden’s chief political rival.”
Trump was indicted on June 8 on 40 counts relating to his handling of classified documents that were seized during an FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida in July. Bratt reportedly visited the estate in June 2022, two months prior to the raid, and interacted with Trump. He was later found to have been the one to propose a warrant for the unannounced raid. Smith also indicted Trump on additional felony charges for his alleged role in seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election, pointing to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot as an “unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy.”
Speaking to The New York Post, George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley said the meeting between Bratt, the White House, and the FBI “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,” he added.
A spokesman for the Special Counsel told The Post that Bratt was at the White House for a “case-related interview,” whereas the FBI declined to comment.
The recent resignation of Stuart Delery, former White House counsel, has salt to the wound: the move coming as Washington grows ever more concerned over the meeting between Bratt, Seba, and Ray.
Delery had held the position of White House counsel since 2017 and was praised for his successes in overcoming legal challenges during the Trump Administration.
The Justice Department is yet to make a formal statement in regard to the meeting between the aide to the special counsel, the White House, and the FBI. Whatever the reason for the meeting, however, remains to be seen.