Former President Donald Trump’s passports have been returned to him a week after the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, according to multiple sources.
Trump claimed his passports were taken during the FBI’s search on Aug. 8, which he described as “an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social on Monday. The FBI acknowledged that Trump’s passports were in its possession the same day Trump claimed they were taken, and the passports have since been returned to the former president, a Justice Department official told NBC News.
The passports were returned to Trump after they were discovered by a “filter team,” which is a group of federal investigators who screened the materials taken from Mar-a-Lago, a law enforcement source told CBS. The FBI said it “follows search and seizure procedures ordered by courts, then returns items that we do not need to be retained for law enforcement purposes,” the outlet reported.
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Trump has demanded the release of the “completely unredacted” affidavit underlying the raid of the Mar-a-Lago resort, arguing that doing so would promote “transparency.” Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has also argued in favor of the affidavit’s release.
On Monday, Trump stated that his representatives have reached out to the Justice Department and have offered Trump’s assistance to bring down the “temperature” in the country caused by the raid, which has created public anger throughout the country “at a level that has never been seen before, other than during very perilous times,” Trump told Fox News.
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The Washington Examiner has contacted the Justice Department for comment.
