In the wake of the FBI's raid on Donald Trump's Palm Beach resort searching for classified materials that he allegedly mishandled, supporters of the former president are circulating unproven claims that the FBI "planted" evidence during the raid.
In an op-ed for POLITICO, former United States Attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg contends that FBI Director Christopher Wray didn't get ahead of the claims soon enough.
Rosenberg writes that while federal agents can't comment on ongoing investigations, Wray could have easily made an effort to counter the claims while withholding comment on the raid.
"I spent most of my professional career in federal law enforcement, including two stints at the FBI. Am I biased in its favor? Absolutely," Rosenberg writes. "But I believe to my core that it is inconceivable the FBI would have planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago. That is not the way it operates, that is not the FBI I know and admire, and it did not happen. How certain am I? Pretty damn certain. Might I be wrong? I often am, but not on this."
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Rosenberg writes that false claims about planted evidence harms "the work of the FBI, the morale of the professionals at the FBI and the confidence of citizens in the remarkably important mission of the FBI," and cites the recent shooting deaths of two FBI agents in Miami.
"Is there any value to Wray categorically denying the 'planted' evidence accusation? At the very least, it would support the Miami agents who executed the search, 13,000 other FBI special agents and the remaining 24,000 professionals who work for the FBI in hundreds of offices, small and large. Is it useful to anyone else? Yes. It is the type of thing that the press and the public should hear, too, because agents did not plant evidence."