A newly uncovered email shows a top Justice Department official questioned whether Trump’s documents were declassified, raising concerns about the unprecedented search.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A high-ranking Biden Justice Department official, a trusted ally of then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, privately expressed legal reservations about the FBI’s August 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago, warning that former President Donald Trump may have already declassified the documents seized during the operation, according to a Just the News reported citing a recently disclosed email.
Patty Stemler, a veteran DOJ attorney with decades of experience, sent the email just two days after the August 8, 2022, search of Trump’s Florida residence. In her message to Sophia Brill, then a DOJ National Security Division attorney and later a Biden White House lawyer, Stemler wrote, “I didn’t know about this search in advance, but I have been worrying about it ever since and worrying more now. Doesn’t Trump maintain that he had the authority to declassify documents while he was still President? 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.”
The memo, uncovered as part of the DOJ’s investigation into the alleged weaponization of federal law enforcement, underscores internal unease about the raid’s legal foundation. Garland has publicly stated that he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant” for the operation, which included searching areas of the residence such as Melania Trump’s personal spaces.
Stemler’s concerns were not the first signs of hesitation within the Biden administration regarding the raid. FBI Director Kash Patel had previously provided Congress with evidence suggesting that agents involved did not believe they had met the legal standard of probable cause required for the search but proceeded regardless.
Trump’s office told Just the News in August 2022 that the materials with classified markings seized from Mar-a-Lago had been declassified under a “standing order” during his presidency. “The very fact that these documents were present at Mar-a-Lago means they couldn’t have been classified,” his office stated. “President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents, including classified documents from the Oval Office to the residence. He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified. The power to classify and declassify documents rests solely with the President of the United States.”
Stemler’s email also raised ethical questions about prosecutorial conduct, asking Brill, “I seem to recall that a prosecutor has some leeway to inform the public that we have arrested the serial killer and seized from his home evidence that ties him to the murders for the purpose of reassuring the public that they are now safe. But aren’t there ethical limits on what a prosecutor can say otherwise? I think this came up when Ashcroft was AG — post 9/11.” She referenced John Ashcroft, the attorney general under President George W. Bush, and Elizabeth Collery, a longtime DOJ veteran.
Stemler, a highly respected figure within the DOJ, was reportedly selected by Garland in 2022 to consult on Trump-related cases. Bloomberg Law described her as a “Justice Fixer” and a “discreet and publicity-shy problem solver” who had built the DOJ’s appellate section into an elite unit. She retired in February 2022 but continued working in a new capacity for several months.
The legal debate over Trump’s authority to declassify documents had been highlighted months before the raid. In May 2022, Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran sent a letter to Jay Bratt, chief of the DOJ’s National Security Division, asserting that “Under the U.S. Constitution, the President is vested with the highest level of authority when it comes to the classification and declassification of documents.” Corcoran argued that “Presidential Actions Involving Classified Documents Are Not Subject To Criminal Sanction” and that any attempt to impose criminal liability on Trump for handling classified materials would raise “grave constitutional separation-of-powers issues.”
Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official and current FBI director, told Breitbart in May 2022 that Trump had declassified entire sets of materials before leaving office. “The White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified,” Patel said. “I was there with President Trump when he said, ‘We are declassifying this information.’”
Trump himself contended on Truth Social in August 2022 that “Number one, it was all declassified. Number two, they didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago.” He later criticized the FBI for arranging seized documents on the floor for a photo, stating, “Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see. Thought they wanted them kept Secret? Lucky I Declassified!”
President Biden, when asked about Trump’s claims, scoffed at the legal defense, saying, “I just want you to know I’ve declassified everything in the world. I’m president, I can do — c’mon.”
The legal authority of a sitting president to declassify documents was also recognized under former President Barack Obama’s Executive Order 13526, which exempted the president and vice president from stringent declassification procedures. Trump lawyer Christopher Kise emphasized this authority in a September 2022 court filing, stating that “the President has absolute authority to declassify any information.”
The Biden DOJ, however, argued in court that even if Trump had declassified the documents, investigators would still need to understand “what had been declassified and why (and who has seen it) to protect intelligence sources and methods.” Judge Aileen Cannon temporarily blocked the DOJ from using the seized materials in their inquiry, a decision later overruled by a federal appeals court. Judge Raymond Dearie, appointed as special master, questioned Trump’s defense team on their claims of declassification, stating, “If the government essentially gives me prima facie evidence that these are classified documents and you, for whatever reason, decide not to advance any claims of declassification, I’m left with a prima facie case of classified documents. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it.”
The legal battle continued into 2023, with Trump referring to special counsel Jack Smith and his team as “thugs” during a CNN town hall. Smith’s office charged Trump in June 2023 with improper retention of classified documents. However, Judge Cannon dismissed the case in July 2024, ruling that Smith had been unlawfully appointed. The dismissal was upheld after Trump’s 2024 election victory. Judge Tanya Chutkan also dismissed the January 6-related case against Trump in November 2024, citing the Office of Legal Counsel’s position that a sitting president could not be prosecuted by their own DOJ.
In a separate development, a federal prosecutor involved in Smith’s case, Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, was charged with illegally emailing herself classified materials disguised as “cake recipes.” The DOJ identified Lineberger as a managing assistant U.S. attorney who faces multiple counts, including theft of government property and concealment of public records. She has pleaded not guilty.
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