Former US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Monday morning. It came as a shock to many as it was the first time in American history that a former President’s house had been raided by the Feds.

However, three people close to the matter have said to the New York Times that Trump had received a subpoena in the spring ahead of the raid by the FBI. The subpoena was in connection to the search of several documents that the investigators believed Trump had taken with him when he left the White House and did not turn over.

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The subpoena is evidence of the Justice Department trying to find the documents using other methods before FBI agents raided the former President’s Mar-a-Lago house on Monday.

According to the NY Times, two people who were briefed on the documents, have said that the Federal investigators believe those remain at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago house and were crucial to national security. The sensitivity related to these classified documents forced the Justice Department to act the way it did on Monday morning.

A conservative journalist named John Solomon was the first person to bring the subpoena in question to light. Solomon is also Trump’s representative at the National Archives. The subpoena is also being used by Trump supporters to establish a notion that the former President was cooperating with the Justice Department to find the missing documents, making the FBI raid unwarranted.

Neither the Justice Department nor Trump’s lawyer, Christina Bobb, commented on the subpoena in question and it is yet to be revealed what the subpoena wanted and what did Trump provide in return.

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It has also come to attention that a top Justice Department official, Jay Bratt, with a group of other officials, visited Trump’s Florida home in June and examined a basement where the former US President had kept White House materials. They later contacted one of Trump’s lawyers and told him to secure the materials.

The Justice Department also sent another subpoena to Trump asking for the CCTV footage from the club, which they received, one of NY Times’ sources said. The Justice Department officials also made contact with several of Trump’s associates, including Molly Michael, who worked as the former US President’s assistant in the outer Oval Office and later worked with him in Florida.