The warrant issued to the FBI that authorized the agency to raid President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home has been released.
On Monday, August 8, FBI agents raided the Mar-a-Lago home of former President Trump to confiscate classified documents that were allegedly held improperly, as reported by The Dallas Express.
In response to the public backlash to the raid, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) requested that the sealed warrant and supporting documents be opened. The department explained that the “public’s clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances weighs heavily in favor of unsealing.”
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed that he directly green-lighted the operation. He defended himself by claiming, “The department does not take such a decision lightly.”
Although Trump originally had until August 25 to object to the records being unsealed, he wrote on August 11, “Not only will I not oppose the release of documents … I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents.”
Trump also claimed that the FBI had been aware of the documents for months and was even shown precisely where they were in the house.
“In early June, the DOJ and FBI asked my legal representatives to put an extra lock on the door leading to the place where boxes were stored in Mar-a-Lago. We agreed. They were shown the secured area and the boxes themselves,” Trump asserted.
After the raid, people from across the political spectrum denounced or conveyed concerns about the conduct of the FBI and the federal government.
Even long-time Trump adversaries such as former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo expressed significant apprehensions.
He tweeted, “The DOJ must immediately explain the reason for its raid & it must be more than a search for inconsequential archives, or it will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future investigations.”
Similarly, politician Andrew Yang expressed, “I’m no Trump fan. I want him as far away from the White House as possible. But a fundamental part of his appeal has been that it’s him against a corrupt government establishment. This raid strengthens that case.”
The Search and Seizure Warrant was issued on August 5, with Judge Bruce Reinhart giving the FBI until August 19 to conduct the raid. The Bureau has not commented on why it waited several days to launch the raid.
The included inventory list, which itemizes the items the FBI seized, is vague, listing things such as a “leatherbound box of documents” and several entries that read “binder of photos.” However, several item lines claim agents recovered miscellaneous “confidential,” “secret,” and “top secret” documents.
Trump responded, claiming, “Number one, it was all declassified. Number two, they didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics. … It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request.”
This comes as FBI insiders have increasingly claimed that the agency and the intelligence establishment actively engage in partisan interference, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.