According to the “Wall Street Journal”, the FBI packed up and removed a respectable amount of material from Trump’s estate in Mar-a-Lago, Florida: “Around 20 boxes,” reported the US newspaper, including notes Photos, a total of eleven “series” of secret documents, some classified as “top secret”.
According to the Wall Street Journal, they really shouldn’t have done anything outside of a few government institutions, at least not on the private estate of an ex-president. In addition, according to the Washington Post, documents classified as “confidential” were confiscated.
After the raid on Trump, there was a tense wait for days for details. US Attorney General Merrick Garland had announced that he would publish the relevant search warrant. Trump himself said he would not block the publication. According to a Washington Post report, US federal police searched Trump’s Florida residence for documents related to nuclear weapons.
Vertrauliches Material in Mar-a-Lago
Until recently, it was only known that the background to the search was apparently Trump’s handling of documents from his tenure. The Washington Post reported Thursday, citing anonymous sources, that FBI agents were looking for classified documents on nuclear weapons, among other things. The newspaper did not say whether the nuclear weapons were US or another country.
Earlier this year it became known that the National Archives, which is responsible for storing presidential correspondence, suspected several boxes with confidential material in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. Trump finally gave the authority several documents in January.
After that, according to consistent US media reports, there was a further exchange between investigators and Trump’s legal team. The officials suspected that Trump and his team were continuing to withhold important documents, the Washington Post wrote, citing anonymous sources.
Garland personally authorized the search
There is no official information about the reasons for the raid. US Attorney General Garland also did not comment on this on Thursday and referred to “ethical obligations”. However, he stated that he “personally authorized” the search. “The search warrant was granted by a federal court following the necessary determination of reasonable suspicion,” Garland said Thursday at a late-breaking address in Washington.
Trump: “Support release of the documents”
According to US media, Trump announced on Thursday that he would not block the publication. “Not only will I not oppose the release of documents (…). I’m taking it a step further by supporting the immediate release of these documents,” he said. On Friday he wrote that the “nuclear weapons affair” was a “hoax”.
Unprecedented event in US history
The federal police FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in the US state of Florida on Monday. The process is considered unprecedented in US history. The pressure on Garland to take a stand had grown since then. Trump was not at his home during the search.
He and other Republicans had heavily criticized the search and accused Democratic US President Joe Biden of politicizing the FBI. Biden did not know in advance about the search of the Trump home, according to the White House.
Search “out of nowhere”
Trump wrote on Thursday on the social network Truth Social, which he co-founded, that he had given the government whatever it wanted. Then it came “out of nowhere and without warning” to the FBI search.
The ex-president continued to write that items belonging to former first lady Melania Trump were also affected. “I just learned that agents searched the first lady’s closets and ransacked her clothing and personal belongings. Surprisingly, they left the area in relative chaos. Wow!” In general, the truthfulness of Trump’s statements is disputed. Fact checkers from the Washington Post had proven Trump made more than 30,000 false or misleading statements during his tenure.
National Archives contradict claims about Obama
The US National Archives contradicted Trump’s claims that his predecessor Barack Obama kept secret documents after his departure. According to the legal requirements after Obama’s departure from office in 2017, “the exclusive legal and physical custody of the Obama presidential documents has been assumed,” the state institution said on Friday. Around 30 million pages of non-secret documents are kept in the Chicago area. Classified information would be kept in Washington.