Donald Trump‘s Florida residence and club Mar-a-Lago was raided by FBI officials on Monday, a statement from his office claimed. While the FBI has not officially stated why the search was carried out, the former President has been taking his own guesses.
Trump, the 45th US President, released a statement shortly after the raid. The Republican businessman-turned-politician argued that the “radical left” wanted to limit his party’s success in the upcoming midterm elections and restrict him from running the 2024 presidential elections.
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“It is prosecutorial misconduct, weaponization of the justice system and an attack by radical left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024”, Donald Trump said in a statement. He also said the FBI search was “not necessary or appropriate.”
According to news agency AP, citing unnamed sources, the FBI raid was conducted to investigate if Trump had taken classified records from the White House to his Florida residence. No official statement has been released by authorities so far.
Trump did not elaborate on the basis for the search, but the Justice Department has been investigating the potential mishandling of classified information after the National Archives and Records Administration said it had retrieved from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of records containing classified information earlier this year.
The National Archives referred the matter to the Justice Department. Trump has previously maintained that presidential records were turned over “in an ordinary and routine process.”
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Trump and his allies immediately sought to cast the search as part of a Democratic-driven effort to keep him from winning another term in 2024. The White House said on Monday it had no prior knowledge of the search.
Christopher Wray, the current head of the FBI, was appointed by Trump roughly five years ago and served as a high-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice.