What was the FBI actually looking for when they raided Mar-a-Lago, taking unprecedented action against a former president? Kash Patel, who served in the Trump administration claims to know what was really going on.

Patel appeared on Fox News on Friday, speaking with Martha McCallum, said he doesn’t buy the story about “nuclear documents” that the government leaked to the press. He also provided his first-hand testimony of Trump giving a “standing declassification order,” which would run counter to the FBI’s claim that they seized multiple classified documents in the raid.

Kash Patel: Documents were already declassified pic.twitter.com/g6MnjJiFZ6

— Benny Johnson 🍊 (@bennyjohnson) August 12, 2022

Patel went further on Truth Social, the former president’s social media site, saying that the FBI was out to recover declassified documents exposing the Russian collusion hoax. If that’s what they were after, it takes the corruption up another level.

PJ Media has the report.

For his part, Patel says he believes the FBI wants to scrub all of the documents approving the Hillary Clinton election scam about Trump being a Russian secret agent. The FBI, Department of Justice, Perkins Coie law firm, Fusion GPS, and CIA knew the Russiagate narrative was a Hillary Clinton-approved hoax but put their offices in the service of pushing it and “investigating” it to keep Trump out of the White House. Now they’re back to do it again in 2024.

On his Truth Social account, Patel wrote, “DOJ and FBI – and vindictive librarians at NARA – continue to perpetuate the Russia hoax by ‘seizing’ documents that President Trump declassified and the American people need to see. … Bottom line, they never want you to see their corrupt Russia Gate documents and will use any and all power to keep them from the American people.”

According to Patel, Trump is in possession of documents that show the FBI and DOJ orchestrated a political hit against him during the 2016 election and beyond. But while I’d love for that to be the case, I’m just not sure that makes sense. Let’s game it out a bit.

Trump spent years calling for the immediate and total release of all documents related to the Russian collusion hoax. He also signed an order declassifying all the documents related to the weaponization of federal law enforcement against him. The former president even oversaw a release of some of those documents before the clock ran out and the government reverted to playing keep away.

With all that in mind, am I really to believe that Trump has had bombshell Russian hoax documents sitting at Mar-a-Lago for a year-and-a-half and hasn’t shared them? I just don’t buy it. That would go against everything he’s said about transparency on the issue, and given what’s been going on with the January 6th committee, Trump would have had every reason to blow up the bureaucracies chasing him by now.

Others have suggested he’s waiting on John Durham to finish his investigation, but that also doesn’t add up. Trump was releasing Russian collusion hoax documents while president. He didn’t suddenly become concerned with keeping things secret for Durham after leaving office, nor would the release of the documents matter to Durham’s investigation.

In short, I’m sticking with the simpler explanation that what was seized were mostly personal effects like letters, itineraries, visitors lists, and napkins (yes, that’s one of the things we know was taken). I still believe the FBI and DOJ wanted an excuse to raid Trump because they are fishing for January 6th information. The tie-in with the Russian collusion hoax doesn’t pass the smell test, mainly because the government clearly has no fear of accountability over the issue anyway.