Former US President Donald Trump complained of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raid at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, residence, comparing it with Watergate. The feds broke into his safe, prompting the parallel from the Republican, who in his statement, said “What’s the difference between this and Watergate?”  

Garrett M Graff, a Watergate and FBI historian, however, pointed out four things that stand out in this raid that is different from Watergate, despite the 76-year-old Republican’s statements. 

“The idea the FBI launched a raid on a former president would have been approved and monitored at the highest level of the Justice Department; hard to even imagine how high the bar of probable cause must’ve been for the Bureau to initiate such a politically sensitive search”, he said. 

In Watergate, a group illegally broke into the Democratic party office building to take documents, while here the document recovery has taken place through a legal process, after getting the necessary signoffs. 

Graff continued “A search warrant means an independent federal judge ALSO signed off on the probable cause and, independently, believes evidence there was likely a crime committed AND that more evidence would be found at Mar-a-Lago. That’s huge too.”

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When MSNBC spoke to former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence Frank Figliguzzi, he said the same. No warrant would be issued unless there was a compelling case for evidence to be found. Trump’s position as the 45th President of the United States would cause greater hesitation in the judge and agents before executing a warrant, the former fed posited. 

Again highlighting the importance and integrity of the search, Graff drew lines of difference, saying “The fact the search apparently didn’t leak until basically when word came from Donald Trump himself shows the FBI and the Justice Department conducted this search by the book and a high degree of integrity. No leaks? Impressive. Surely only a small team knew inside DOJ”. 

Also Read | Donald Trump Mar-a-Lago raid: What happened and what’s next

He concluded, “Taken together, this is one of the most significant, sensitive, and politically explosive actions the US Justice Department and FBI has ever taken—one of a tiny handful of times it’s ever investigated a president. Bottom line: The FBI & DOJ must’ve known they had the goods.”

The integrity of the raid and the promise of turning up evidence make it markedly different from a shadowy break-in that spurned an investigation, eventually leading to the resignation of then-president Richard Nixon. Ironically the Mar-a-Lago raid took place on the anniversary of Nixon’s resignation.