The judge who signed off the FBI raid on Donald Trump's Florida home reportedly donated thousands of dollars to Barack Obama's 2008 election fund and hundreds to a Trump GOP rival, all while working for sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
According to the New York Post, which has seen publicly-filed documents, Florida Magistrate Bruce Reinhart donated $1,000 to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and another $1,000 to the Obama Victory Fund.
Reinhart later donated a further $500 to the 2016 primary campaign of Jeb Bush, one of Trump's main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination.
His signature led to a raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago mansion on Monday in search of official classified documents the former president allegedly took with him when he left the White House in January 2021.
Agents reportedly went through Melania Trump’s wardrobe, as well as spending hours in the former president's private office.
Amidst the widespread backlash, the White House claimed that it was unaware of the raid by the FBI, which reports to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
But Trump alleged on his social media channels that "Biden knew all about this, just like he knew all about Hunter’s 'deals'."
"We are no better than a third world country, a banana republic. It is a continuation of Russia, Russia, Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax # 2, the no collusion Mueller Report, and more," Trump posted on Tuesday.
"To make matters worse it is all, in my opinion, a coordinated attack with Radical Left Democrat state & local D.A.’s & A.G.’s [district attorneys and attorneys-general]," he wrote.
The Epstein Connection
On November 28, 2018, around the time of Reinhart's appointment as a federal magistrate, the Miami Herald reported how he quit his job as assistant US attorney ten years earlier to work for Jeffrey Epstein, representing several of his staff who were later to be co-accused in his child sex abuse and trafficking case. The staff included Epstein’s pilots, his diary secretary Sarah Kellen and another woman named Nadia Marcinkova.
"He left the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Jan. 1, 2008, and went to work representing Epstein’s employees on Jan. 2, 2008," the report read.
Another report by the same newspaper alleges that Reinhart was making plans to defect from the prosecution to the defense even as the US attorney's office was negotiating a plea bargain that would see Epstein sentenced to just 18 months in a low-security jail — complete with day-release privileges — on reduced charges of child prostitution.
"On Oct 23, 2007, as federal prosecutors in South Florida were in the midst of tense negotiations to finalize a plea deal with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a senior prosecutor in their office was quietly laying out plans to leave the U.S. attorney’s office after 11 years," it read. "On that date, as emails were flying between Epstein’s lawyers and federal prosecutors, Bruce E. Reinhart, now a federal magistrate, opened a limited liability company in Florida that established what would become his new criminal defense practice."
Epstein's victims later sued Reinhart for allegedly using his inside knowledge of the case to benefit his new client.
"In 2011, Reinhart was named in the Crime Victims’ Rights Act lawsuit, which accused him of violating Justice Department policies by switching sides, implying that he leveraged inside information about Epstein’s investigation to curry favor with Epstein."