By ERIC TUCKER and MICHAEL BALSAMO
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property as a part of an investigation into whether or not he took categorized data from the White House to his Florida residence, folks accustomed to the matter mentioned Monday, a transfer that represents a dramatic and unprecedented escalation of legislation enforcement scrutiny of the previous president.
Trump, disclosing the search in a prolonged assertion, asserted that brokers had opened up a protected at his dwelling and described their work as an “unannounced raid” that he likened to “prosecutorial misconduct.”
The search intensifies the months-long probe into how categorized paperwork ended up in additional than a dozen packing containers positioned at Mar-a-Lago earlier this yr. It happens amid a separate grand jury investigation into efforts to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election and provides to the potential authorized peril for Trump as he lays the groundwork for an additional run.
Familiar battle strains, cast throughout a a four-year presidency shadowed by FBI and congressional investigations, shortly took form once more Monday night time. Trump and his allies sought to forged the search as a weaponization of the legal justice system and a Democratic-driven effort to maintain him from profitable one other time period in 2024 — though the Biden White House mentioned it had no prior information of it, and the present FBI director, Christopher Wray, was appointed by Trump 5 years in the past 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 mentioned in his assertion.
Justice Department spokesperson Dena Iverson declined to touch upon the search, together with about whether or not Attorney General Merrick Garland had personally licensed it.
Trump didn’t elaborate on the premise for the search, however the Justice Department has been investigating the potential mishandling of categorized info after the National Archives and Records Administration mentioned it had retrieved from Mar-a-Lago 15 packing containers of data containing categorized info earlier this yr. The National Archives mentioned Trump ought to have turned over that materials upon leaving workplace, and it requested the Justice Department to research.
There are a number of federal legal guidelines governing the dealing with of categorized data and delicate authorities paperwork, together with statutes that make it a criminal offense to take away such materials and retain it at an unauthorized location. Though a search warrant doesn’t counsel that legal fees are close to and even anticipated, federal officers seeking to get hold of one should first exhibit to a decide that they’ve possible trigger {that a} crime occurred.
Two folks accustomed to the matter, who spoke on situation of anonymity to debate an ongoing investigation, mentioned the search occurred earlier Monday and was associated to the data probe. Agents had been additionally seeking to see if Trump had further presidential data or any categorized paperwork on the property.
Trump has beforehand maintained that presidential data had been turned over “in an ordinary and routine process.” His son Eric mentioned on Fox News on Monday night time that he had spent the day along with his father and that the search occurred as a result of “the National Archives wanted to corroborate whether or not Donald Trump had any documents in his possession.”
Asked how the paperwork ended up at Mar-a-Lago, Eric Trump mentioned the packing containers had been amongst objects that received moved out of the White House throughout “six hours” on Inauguration Day, because the Bidens ready to maneuver into the constructing.
“My father always kept press clippings,” Eric Trump mentioned. “He had boxes, when he moved out of the White House.”
Trump emerged from Trump Tower in New York City shortly earlier than 8 p.m. and waved to bystanders earlier than being pushed away in an SUV.
In his first public remarks since information of the search surfaced, Trump made no point out of it throughout a tele-town corridor on behalf of Leora Levy, the Connecticut Republican he has endorsed in Tuesday’s U.S. Senate main to choose a common election opponent in opposition to Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Trump gave his public backing to Levy late final week, calling her on Monday the most effective decide “to replace Connecticut’s joke of a senator.”
But in a social media put up Monday night time, he was far more unguarded, calling the search 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.”
Other Republicans echoed that message. GOP National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel denouncing the search as “outrageous” and mentioned it was a motive for voters to prove in November.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who is taken into account a possible 2024 presidential candidate, mentioned in a press release on Twitter that it was “an escalation in the weaponization” of U.S. authorities companies. Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, mentioned in a tweet that the Justice Department “has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization” and mentioned that if Republicans win management of the U.S. House, they are going to examine the division.
That Trump would develop into entangled in a probe into the dealing with of categorized info is all of the extra putting given how he tried through the 2016 presidential election to use an FBI investigation into his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, over whether or not she mishandled categorized info through a non-public e-mail server she used as secretary of state. Then-FBI Director James Comey concluded that Clinton had despatched and acquired categorized info however the FBI didn’t suggest legal fees as a result of it decided that Clinton had not meant to interrupt the legislation.
Trump lambasted that call after which stepped up his criticism of the FBI as brokers started investigating whether or not his marketing campaign had colluded with Russia to tip the 2016 election. He fired Comey throughout that probe, and although he appointed Wray months later, he repeatedly criticized him too as president.
Thomas Schwartz, a Vanderbilt University historical past professor who research and writes concerning the presidency, mentioned there is no such thing as a precedent for a former president dealing with an FBI raid — even going again to Watergate. President Richard Nixon wasn’t allowed to take tapes or different supplies from the White House when he resigned in 1974, Schwartz famous, and lots of of his papers remained in Washington for years earlier than being transferred to his presidential library in California.
“This is different and it is a sign of how unique the Trump period was,” mentioned Schwartz, creator of “Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography.” “How his behavior was so unusual.”
The probe is hardly the one authorized headache confronting Trump. A separate investigation associated to efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election — which led to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol — has additionally been intensifying in Washington. Several former White House officers have acquired grand jury subpoenas.
And a district legal professional in Fulton County, Georgia, is investigating whether or not Trump and his shut associates sought to intrude in that state’s election, which was received by Democrat Joe Biden.
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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Meg Kinnard, Michelle L. Price and Will Weissert contributed to this report.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”