Thread by @sarahposner

There's something odd about this piece. It's the source(s).

https://twitter.com/NormEisen/status/1557394378037018624

Piece says sources are "two senior government officials" who "have direct knowledge of the FBI's deliberations."

One, "a senior Justice Department official who is a 30-year veteran of the FBI," said that FBI's goal was to deprive Trump of a photo op or chance to grandstand, so raid was timed for when he wasn't there.

"The effort to keep the raid low-key failed: instead, it prompted a furious response from GOP leaders and Trump supporters. 'What a spectacular backfire,' says the Justice official."

This is odd to me. I'm sure no one failed to anticipate that Steve Bannon and Sean Hannity would go crazy.
"Spectacular backfire" sounds to me like someone who's trying to undermine the investigation.

That source goes on: "They wanted to punctuate the fact that this was a routine law enforcement action, stripped of any political overtones, and yet [they] got exactly the opposite."

They got the opposite because of the (entirely predictable and impossible to prevent) motivations and structure of the far-right media/political/social media ecosystem. But this source seems to want to blame DOJ/FBI. 🤔

Second source: "a senior intelligence official who was briefed on the investigation and the operation"

Second source: "So even though everything made sense bureaucratically and the FBI feared that the documents might be destroyed, they also created the very firestorm they sought to avoid, in ignoring the fallout."

Back to first source, the DOJ official. "The grand jury concluded that there had been a violation of the law, according to the Justice Department source."

Uh.... grand jury secrecy, anyone? On what planet would a 30 year veteran of the Department do this?

The whole article reads like it was sourced from people who want to make the FBI look bad for request and executing the search warrant. "It really is a case of the Bureau misreading the impact," the DOJ official says in the kicker.

The ostensible "scoop" in the story is that the search warrant was obtained based on a human source who knew Trump had the docs and where he was keeping them. But the whole of the article is a big anonymous slam on the FBI. Hmmm.