Donald Trump Jr. surmised that it would “probably be good” if the nuclear codes had been kept a Mar-a-Lago while stumping for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) Monday.
Alluding to reports that FBI agents had been on the hunt for documents pertaining to nuclear weapons during the raid earlier this month, Trump Jr. mocked the notion that his father would’ve held on to such documentation. He then argued that the enemies of the United States would be fearful if the former president had, in fact, kept the nuclear documentation.
‘WEAPONIZING THE JUSTICE SYSTEM’: TRUMP FAMILY REACTS TO FBI RAID OF MAR-A-LAGO
“Donald Trump has the nuclear codes!! In the linen closet at Mar-a-Lago!!” the younger Trump joked.
“By the way, for the record, I’d say that if Donald Trump actually still had the nuclear codes, it’d probably be good,” he said. “Our enemies, our enemies, might actually be, like, ‘OK, maybe, let’s not mess with them.’ I’m, like, when they look at Joe Biden, then they say, ‘You know what, we should attack now.'”
“If Donald Trump actually still had the nuclear codes, it’d probably be good.”
— Donald Trump Jr. with the latest Republican defense of Trump keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago pic.twitter.com/kAhNahMqFn
— The Recount (@therecount) August 22, 2022
Trump Jr. made his remarks at a campaign event for Gaetz, in which he also shot down speculation that the congressman had been the informant that prompted the FBI raid. Rumors have swirled that someone close to former President Donald Trump informed the FBI about the classified material at Mar-a-Lago. Gaetz is facing a primary election Tuesday night in his bid for another term in Congress.
It is unclear if federal authorities recovered any nuclear documentation. Reports indicate that they recovered over 300 classified documents from the resort in Palm Beach, Florida, since January. The batch retrieved during the Aug. 8 search and seizure included 26 boxes, which had 11 sets of material with classified markings, according to the New York Times.
Trump is under investigation for possibly flouting the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice, according to a warrant for the search unsealed Friday. The Justice Department had been in court resisting the release of the full affidavit for the raid that would shed additional light on why the raid at Mar-a-Lago was conducted.
A judge ordered the DOJ to produce a redacted version of the affidavit and a few additional documents to the court by Thursday.
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The former president has denounced the Mar-a-Lago raid as an “unAmerican break-in,” among other insults, while maintaining that he declassified the documentation stashed in his Mar-a-Lago resort.
DOJ officials have been investigating Trump’s handling of presidential material, particularly classified material, after the National Archives and Records Administration recovered sensitive information from Mar-a-Lago in January.
On Monday, Trump filed a motion in court aimed at blocking the DOJ from reviewing the evidence it collected from the August raid.
