2 Months Prior to Raid, FBI Had Already Secured Docs - What Changed?
After FBI agents and technicians raided his Mar-a-Lago home, former Donald Trump issued a flurry of posts on Truth Social over the course of several hours while the raid was in progress.
In one of the now-viral posts, Trump assailed the DOJ and FBI, explaining that his legal representatives had shown the boxes of documents to the authorities and agreed with them to establish a secured area within the former president’s residence for the documents to be safely stored.
“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.” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social.
“They were shown the secured area, and the boxes themselves. Then on Monday, without notification or warning, an army of agents broke into Mar-a-Lago, went to the same storage area, and ripped open the lock that they had asked to be installed. A surprise attack, POLITICS, and all the while our Country is going to HELL!”
Trump was at his Manhattan home at Trump Tower at the time of the raid according to The Daily Wire. Multiple reports have since revealed that the FBI agents broke into Trump’s safe, which they found empty, and even searched former First Lady Melania Trump‘s personal wardrobe until finally removing 15 boxes of documents from the secured storage area that they had already been apprised of as Trump stated.
This prior knowledge of the secured storage area would seem to contradict subsequent reports that the FBI was tipped off as to their location by an informant within Mar-a-Lago, according to The Washington Post.
Just the News Editor-in-Chief John Solomon reported that “While the cooperation was mostly arranged by his lawyers, Trump personally surprised the DOJ National Security Division prosecutor and three FBI agents who came to his Mar-a-Lago compound on June 3, greeting them as they came to pick up a small number of documents compliant with the subpoena.” The outlet’s sources spoke anonymously because the visit was to remain secret as part of a grand jury.
“The subpoena requested any remaining documents Trump possessed with any classification markings, even if they involved photos of foreign leaders, correspondence or mementos from his presidency. Secret Service agents were also present and facilitated the visit, officials said.”
“Trump signaled his full cooperation, telling the agents and prosecutor, ‘Look, whatever you need let us know,’ according to two eyewitnesses.” The DOJ agents were reportedly surprised by the president’s invitation and even asked for a favor: “to see the 6-foot-by-10-foot storage locker where his clothes, shoes, documents and mementos from his presidency were stored at the compound.”
The report goes on to explain that under Trump’s explicit instruction, his attorneys complied with this request, allowing the search by the FBI before the group of agents “left cordially.”
Five days after the visit, the DOJ in an official letter requested that Trump’s lawyers “secure the storage locker with more than the lock they had seen.”
Finally, the story presented a huge reveal: “The Secret Service installed a more robust security lock to comply.”
It was reportedly not Trump’s attorneys, staffers or other employees who secured the document storage room, but fellow federal agents of Trump’s Secret Service protection detail.
President Trump’s attorney Christina Bobb told NewsNation’s “On Balance: With Leland Vittert” Thursday that the raid was “a bit of a shock” given Trump’s legal team believed that the former president and his team had been cooperative with the DOJ.
She continued saying that Trump handed over everything that the investigators had asked for well before the search.
This begs the question: Why was it necessary to raid Mar-a-Lago for documents that were already secured by, and under the watchful eyes of, federal agents and a cooperating legal team? What changed?
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