By John Ikani
The FBI has searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Residence in Florida, with the former president claiming his home was “raided” and “under siege”, and that agents broke open a safe.
The search, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation, appeared to be focused on boxes contained many pages of classified documents that Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence, when he left the White House.
The Florida raid, which sources said took “hours,” resulted in the seizure of paper records.
No former president — particularly one who is openly considering another bid for the Oval Office — has faced such a public law enforcement action, which immediately led to calls among his allies for recriminations and even the elimination of federal law enforcement agencies.
Trump, disclosing the search in a lengthy statement, asserted that agents had opened up a safe at his home and described their work as an “unannounced raid” that he likened to “prosecutorial misconduct.”
“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” Trump said in a statement. “They even broke into my safe!”
Trump said the search Monday amounted to a “weaponization of the justice system” and an “attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for president in 2024.”
The search, which the FBI and Justice Department did not immediately confirm, marks a dramatic escalation in a months-long probe into how classified documents ended up in more than a dozen boxes located at Mar-a-Lago.
It occurred amid a separate but intensifying investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and added to the potential legal peril for Trump as he lays the groundwork for another presidential run.
The former president was not at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the raid and was at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, one of the sources said. By the time Trump issued the statement, suggesting the raid was ongoing, the FBI had already left the property.
During his presidency, Mar-a-Lago was known as Trump’s “winter White House”. Trump and his wife, Melania, returned to the Florida resort after leaving Washington and since then, the president has made it the center of his political dealings.
The search began early Monday morning and law enforcement personnel appeared to be focused on the area of the club where Trump’s offices and personal quarters are, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The FBI’s search included examining where documents were kept, according to another person familiar with the investigation, and boxes of items were taken.
In January 2021, as the National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) prepared to transfer records from the Trump White House to the House select committee investigating January 6, it found around 15 boxes worth of materials had been improperly taken to Mar-a-Lago.
The records were eventually returned to Nara after negotiations with Trump’s lawyers – only for officials to then discover that the former president had taken with him some documents clearly marked as classified and sensitive for national security.
Also in the boxes: a letter left for Trump by his predecessor as president, Barack Obama, “love letters” from Kim Jong-un of North Korea, and a model of Air Force One with red-white-and-blue livery Trump chose but was scrapped by the Biden administration.
“Because Nara identified classified information in the boxes,” the chief archivist David Ferriero said in a letter to Congress at the time, “Nara staff has been in communication with the Department of Justice.”
The saga also prompted the House oversight committee, led by congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, to open a separate investigation that noted “removing or concealing government records is a criminal offense”. Trump must be held accountable, the New York Democrat said.
The news appeared set to inflame Trump supporters and add fuel to Republican claims that the former president is being unfairly targeted.
A small group of Trump supporters were seen gathering outside Mar-a-Lago on Monday evening after the news broke.
