On Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) demanded that top officials provide details of the meeting.
But the interview — of a career White House staffer who had worked for both the Trump and Biden administrations — was a standard part of the investigation, according to two people familiar with the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the criminal probe. The session focused on events that occurred during the Trump administration and, according to one of the two people, was about the handling of boxes while Trump was president.
Federal prosecutors charged Trump in June with improperly keeping sensitive government documents related to national security at his Florida residence after he left office — and allegedly thwarting government efforts to retrieve them. The indictment says Trump haphazardly co-mingled classified materials with mementos like newspaper clippings and photographs in boxes at the White House and then brought some of those boxes home after he lost the 2020 election.
The March meeting at the White House involved Jay Bratt, a senior counterintelligence supervisor at the Justice Department who is working full time on the classified documents investigation; an FBI agent; and the White House staffer, whose name has not been made public.
After the New York Post reported this past weekend on the meeting, Trump took to social media calling it a form of “election interference.” Biden is running for reelection in 2024, and Trump is leading the pack of Republican contenders by a wide margin.
“If this is so, which it is, that means that Biden and his Fascist Thugs knew and APPROVED of this Country dividing Form of Election Interference, despite their insisting that they ‘knew nothing,’” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. “It’s all a BIG LIE, just like Russia, Russia, Russia, & not knowing about son’s business dealings. DISMISS CASE!”
A spokesman for special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor leading the documents investigation, described the session as a “case-related interview” and declined to comment.
Legal experts said prosecutors typically interview government workers about cases involving their work at their offices, including if those offices are on White House grounds.
“It is completely standard that when you are interviewing someone who works in the White House to do the interview at the White House,” said David Aaron, a former federal prosecutor who worked on national security cases. “When you are interviewing someone who works at the NSA [National Security Agency], you go to NSA. It has nothing to do with a power move; it’s a courtesy.”
The New York Post reported that Bratt and the FBI agent met with Caroline Saba, then the deputy chief of staff for the White House Counsel’s Office. The people familiar with the meeting, however, said that Saba was simply the point of contact for Bratt and was listed on the White House visitor log because she coordinated the meeting. Saba, who has since left the White House to attend law school, declined to comment.
The New York Post, citing visitor logs, also reported that Bratt had meetings at the White House at least twice in 2021. Those visits were before the Justice Department’s criminal probe began and were related to other matters Bratt dealt with as a Justice Department prosecutor working on national security cases, a person familiar with the matter said.
In letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Biden chief of staff Jeff Zients, Jordan said: “This new information raises serious concerns regarding the potential for a coordinated effort between the Department and the White House to investigate and prosecute President Biden’s political opponents.”
Trump is facing four criminal cases in all — the classified documents case, federal and state indictments related to his efforts to undo Biden’s 2020 victory, and a New York state fraud case. He has repeatedly tried to portray the cases as illegitimate and politically motivated.
Biden has said that the Justice Department operates independently, and Garland has said he appointed Smith as special counsel to ensure independent decision-making in the federal investigations.
“I have never once, not one single time, suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do relative to bringing a charge or not bringing a charge,” Biden told reporters in June.
Jacqueline Alemany contributed to this report.
