Armed Secret Service agents stand outside an entrance to former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, late Monday, Aug. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. Trump said in a lengthy statement that the FBI was conducting a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate and asserted that agents had broken open a safe. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
On the night of Aug. 8, the Federal Bureau of Investigations conducted a raid on former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part of an investigation into whether he took classified records from the White House.
Almost immediately, Trump released a lengthy statement slamming the search. According to Trump, agents broke into a safe at his home and described their work as an “unannounced raid” that he likened to “prosecutorial misconduct.”
The FBI executed a search warrant in search of missing White House documents. It was part of an ongoing probe into how classified documents ended up in boxes and were allegedly taken by Trump to Mar-a-Lago. After the documents were received, the National Archives said Trump should have turned over that material upon leaving office, and it asked the Justice Department to investigate, the Associated Press reported.
Trump’s son, Eric, told Fox host Sean Hannity that “the purpose of the raid, from what they said, was because the National Archives wanted to, you know, corroborate whether or not Donald Trump had any documents in his possession.”
The National Archives is responsible for collecting and sorting presidential material. The Achieve had previously revealed that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort — including some that were classified.
If the documents–and any others–were purposely taken from the White House, it could be a violation of federal law, The New York Post reported.
The President Joe Biden White House said it had no prior knowledge of the raid, and the administration pointed out that the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, was appointed by Trump five years ago and served as a high-ranking official in a Republican-led Justice Department.
Trump continued to speak out against the raid on his social media platform Truth Social.
“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump wrote. “Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before.”
Photo: Armed Secret Service agents stand outside an entrance to former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, late Aug. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
