FBI agents appear to have been on the hunt for classified documents related to nuclear weapons during their raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Monday, according to a report.
Sources told the Washington Post that such classified information was among the items agents look for in the search but declined to speak about any other materials that may have been sought. It remains unclear whether they found any nuclear documents, but experts cited in the report said this adds credence to fears by government officials that they could be obtained by bad actors.
The report said the Justice Department and FBI declined to comment. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre appeared on MSNBC shortly after the report was published and said, “It would not be appropriate for us to speak to this, or comment on this. And so we leave it to the Department of Justice.” Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law to the former president, was asked about it on Fox News, and she denied seeing any such nuclear documents strewn across the private club.
Trump attorney Christina Bobb cast doubt on there being nuclear records at Mar-a-Lago but could not say for certain when pressed Thursday evening by Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “I have not specifically spoken to the president about what nuclear materials may or may not have been in there. I do not believe there were any in there,” she said, noting that Trump’s legal team has been thorough in finding documents to hand over to the Biden administration.
Amid a political firestorm in which Donald Trump has decried the raid as being politically motivated, Attorney General Merrick Garland did announce Thursday that he had personally approved the FBI’s decision to seek a search warrant. He also revealed that the Justice Department requested permission from a federal court to unseal the court-approved search warrant that authorized the bureau’s raid.
LARA TRUMP REVEALS WHAT SHE KNOWS ABOUT MAR-A-LAGO ‘MOLE’
Federal investigators served a grand jury subpoena in June and collected documents believed to contain sensitive national security information stashed in the basement of the resort, CNN reported. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that “someone familiar with the stored papers” told investigators there were still possibly more classified materials at the private club, and it noted there was doubt among Justice Department officials that Donald Trump’s team was being truthful about what records remained at Mar-a-Lago.
All this took place months after the National Archives and Records Administration collected about 15 boxes worth of material from Mar-a-Lago that officials said should have been turned over after Donald Trump left office. Officials at the National Archives said they found classified material in the trove and referred the matter to the Justice Department.
FBI agents took about a dozen boxes in the latest raid, Donald Trump’s lawyer said.
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In a flurry of Truth Social posts on Thursday, Donald Trump complained of being targeted in the raid without warning.
“My attorneys and representatives were cooperating fully, and very good relationships had been established,” Donald Trump said. “The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it. They asked us to put an additional lock on a certain area — DONE! Everything was fine, better than that of most previous Presidents, and then, out of nowhere and with no warning, Mar-a-Lago was raided, at 6:30 in the morning, by VERY large numbers of agents, and even ‘safecrackers.’ They got way ahead of themselves. Crazy!”
