The FBI raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as part of an investigation into whether he took classified records from the White House to his Florida residence late Monday.
The stunning move represents a dramatic and unprecedented escalation of law enforcement scrutiny of the former president — and there is speculation that it was meant to stop Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign before it begins.
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.”
The search is a massive escalation in the National Archive probe into how classified documents ended up in boxes of White House records located at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year. Trump and his lawyers reportedly worked collaboratively with the National Archives to secure the documents.
His lawyers were reportedly stunned by the escalation. A massive FBI raid on a former president has never before happened in American history.
“The purpose for 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,” Eric Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday.
“And my father has worked so collaboratively with them for months. In fact, the lawyer that’s been working on this was totally shocked. He goes, ‘I had such an amazing relationship with these people, and all of a sudden, on no notice, they send, you know, 20 cars and 30 agents?’ ” Eric said.
There is speculation among Trump supporters — and his detractors — that the raid could ultimately disqualify Trump from a 2024 presidential run just as he ramps up his campaign.
https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1556794749377454080
per @marceelias HUGE POINTt:the records provision they're investigating carries the penalty that someone convicted "shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States." So this could be the whole enchilada in terms of DOJ resolution.
— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) August 9, 2022
Familiar battle lines, forged during a four-year presidency shadowed by FBI and congressional investigations, quickly took shape again Monday night. Trump and his allies said the search was a weaponization of the criminal justice system and a Democratic-driven effort to keep him from the White House.
Steve Bannon, a former White House aide who was pardoned by Trump, told Fox News the raid was politically motivated.
“They are absolutely petrified Trump is going to announce in a couple of weeks, win the Republican nomination, win the White House,” Bannon said.
Democrats claimed the Biden White House had no prior knowledge of it and 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.
“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.”
“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” Trump said in his statement.
Justice Department spokesperson Dena Iverson declined to comment on the search, including about whether Attorney General Merrick Garland had personally authorized it.
Trump did not elaborate on the basis for the search, but the Justice Department has been investigating the potential mishandling of classified information after the National Archives and Records Administration said it had received from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of White House records, including documents containing classified information, earlier this year. The National Archives said Trump should have turned over that material upon leaving office, and it asked the Justice Department to investigate.
Though a search warrant does not suggest that criminal charges are near or even expected, federal officials looking to obtain one must first demonstrate to a judge that they have probable cause that a crime occurred.
Two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the search happened earlier Monday and was related to the records probe. Agents were also looking to see if Trump had additional presidential records or any classified documents at the estate.
Trump has previously maintained that presidential records were turned over “in an ordinary and routine process.”
Asked how the documents ended up at Mar-a-Lago, Eric Trump told Fox News the boxes were among items that got moved out of the White House during “six hours” on Inauguration Day, as the Bidens prepared to move into the building.
“My father always kept press clippings,” Eric Trump said. “He had boxes when he moved out of the White House.”
Trump emerged from Trump Tower in New York City shortly before 8 p.m. and waved to bystanders before being driven away in an SUV.
In his first public remarks since news of the search surfaced, Trump made no mention of it during a tele-town hall on behalf of Leora Levy, the Connecticut Republican he has endorsed in Tuesday’s U.S. Senate primary to pick a general election opponent against Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Trump gave his public backing to Levy late last week, calling her on Monday the best pick “to replace Connecticut’s joke of a senator.”
In a social media post on Monday night, he was much more unguarded. Trump blasted the search as the “weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024.”
Other Republicans echoed that message. GOP National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel denounced the search as “outrageous” and said it was a reason for voters to turn out in November.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who is considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate, said in a statement on Twitter that it was “an escalation in the weaponization” of U.S. government agencies. Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, said in a tweet that the Justice Department “has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization” and said that if Republicans win control of the U.S. House, they will investigate the department.
That Trump would become entangled in a probe into the handling of classified information is all the more striking given the 2016 presidential campaign during an active FBI investigation into his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, over whether she mishandled classified information via a private email server she used as secretary of state.
Then-FBI Director James Comey concluded that Clinton had sent and received classified information illegally, but the FBI ultimately did not recommend criminal charges because they determined that Clinton had not intended to break the law.
Trump lambasted that decision and then stepped up his criticism of the FBI as agents began investigating whether his campaign had colluded with Russia to tip the 2016 election.
He fired Comey during that probe, and though he appointed Wray months later, he repeatedly criticized him too as president.
Thomas Schwartz, a Vanderbilt University history professor who studies and writes about the presidency, said there is no precedent for a former president facing an FBI raid — even going back to Watergate. President Richard Nixon wasn’t allowed to take tapes or other materials from the White House when he resigned in 1974, Schwartz noted, and many of his papers remained in Washington for years before being transferred to his presidential library in California.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article