Mulvaney to Newsmax: Garland Didn't Answer Vital Questions

Attorney General Merrick Garland may have provided a "little bit of information" with his press conference about Monday's raid at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, but his comments didn't answer "any of the questions that people are quite rightfully asking," Mick Mulvaney, Trump's former chief of staff, said on Newsmax Thursday.

"What I didn't hear is when we're going to see the information and what's in the affidavit," Mulvaney said on Newsmax's "American Agenda." "Why was it so important to do a search warrant? Why was the subpoena not sufficient? I didn't hear an answer to that."

Garland said Thursday that he had "personally approved" that the FBI search Trump's home, while condemning "unfounded attacks" on the agency after the unprecedented search took place.

He didn't explain the reason behind the search but said there was "probable cause" for making it and that he'd asked a court to open the case's documents to the public.

"With the first two points it makes sense," Mulvaney said. "There's no way he didn't approve of this ... I'm glad he put that to rest. If this had been made by a lower-level functionary, that would have been a huge breakdown. I would expect nothing less of an attorney general to not take lightly the issue of invading a former president's home."

He added that he also heard that the Department of Justice had tried to narrow the scope of the warrant, but still, he questions why a search warrant was necessary.

"All the evidence we have, at least publicly available, shows that Trump was cooperating and that he was doing what the FBI had asked him to do," said Mulvaney.

Meanwhile, there has been speculation that the rate was done in connection with the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 investigation, but Mulvaney rejected that.

"Everybody needs to recognize that is a political process," he said of the committee and its investigation. "It is nowhere near being similar to what's happening at the Department of Justice. The Jan. 6 committee is a political thing run entirely by politicians who hate Donald Trump. It is not an evenhanded sort of investigation. It also cannot put anybody in jail. It can damage you politically. But that's the only sanction that they have."

There may be some information shared between the committee and the DOJ, Mulvaney conceded, but he said that "you need to put everything from Jan. 6 committee in one column and everything in the Department of Justice in another ... the two processes are entirely different."

As far as Garland's comments about probable cause, "that is not news," he added.

"That's the standard you have to have in order to get a search warrant," said Mulvaney. "You must show probable cause that a crime has been committed. Probable cause is evidence in a particular location [claims] that if you don't get it right away, the evidence will disappear."

Garland, though, did not shed any light on why it was believed the evidence would disappear, said Mulvaney.

"He could have been the first to get a subpoen,a but it's that third piece that got him to get permission to go to Donald Trump's house," said Mulvaney. "He didn't shed any light on that to the last."

Garland, in his comments, guaranteed the equal application of justice, regardless of political affiliation, but Mulvaney pointed out that has not happened in recent events with the DOJ.

"That did not happen for Donald Trump in 2016 when the DOJ gave false information to the FISA court," said Mulvaney. "It did not happen on Hunter Biden's laptop in 2020 when the FBI was involved in putting out the narrative that the information was Russian disinformation ... the Department of Justice does not have the best history when it comes to dealing with Republicans in general and Donald Trump in specific."

About NEWSMAX TV:

NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!