Former US President Donald Trump announced in a lengthy statement that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had raided his Mar-a-Lago residence. Trump even compared the incident of agents breaking into his safe to Watergate, where a group broke into the Democratic party offices and the subsequent investigation resulted in then-president Richard Nixon stepping down.
A NewsNation national correspondent, Brian Entin, detailed what happened during the raid, and what comes next.
Quoting sources, the senior journalist stated that the Mar-a-Lago search warrant was related to retaining classified documents. “FBI showed up at 9am and left at 6:30pm”, he said. Notably, MSNBC spoke to former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence Frank Figliguzzi, who said that how long the raid lasted would be indicative of whether the feds knew where to look, or were spending time going through the entire property. Considering they broke Trump’s safe, as the Republican complained, it is likely they were operating on some solid intel.
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Since the agents were in plainclothes, staff likely thought they belonged to the Secret Service, which is why news of the raid didn’t leak earlier.
As per Entin, the FBI didn’t notify the Secret Service of the raid and three Trump lawyers showed up while they were carrying out the search. The safe Trump referred to, was in his office, which is the old bridal suite above the ballroom.
The feds broke open the hotel-style safe.
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Entin continued that the FBI only took documents related to the search warrant, indicating that they knew what they were looking for. The evidence will initially be taken to the South Florida FBI office.
Interestingly, the search, which Trump compared to Watergate, was carried out on the anniversary of Nixon announcing his resignation amid the scandal where the then-president was accused of taping conversations and instructing the CIA to block the FBI investigation.
