Former President Donald Trump revealed in a statement that the
FBI was raiding his home at his Mar-a-Lago club.
"They even broke into my safe," Trump revealed in a statement released.
Speaking to MSNBC, former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade explained that something like this is generally an effort that begins well in advance.
She also predicted that given the size of Mar-a-Lago it was likely dozens and dozens of agents conducting the search. McQuade also noted that a judge doesn't issue a warrant simply on the presumption that something might be there, there must be proof or information that is known to be there. So, likely someone close to the former president who gave the information to the investigators.
The New York Times reported that it is related to the classified documents that ended up at Mar-a-Lago when the president left the White House. Some of those documents were so classified that they were marked for the president's eyes only. Raw Story's sources confirmed that the raid was related to classified documents.
You can see the comments from legal experts in the tweets below:
\u201cOk so theft of federal property likely involved\u201d— KSelk (@KSelk) 1660001894
\u201c@ecrire831 It is\u201d— KSelk (@KSelk) 1660001439
\u201cRaid-a-lago\u201d— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1660000616
\u201cCount the ways in which this is not at all like Watergate\u201d— Lawrence Hurley (@Lawrence Hurley) 1659999863
\u201cI would pay good money right now to see the search warrant they used to raid MAL.\u201d— Bradley P. Moss (@Bradley P. Moss) 1659999942
\u201cPlease retweet if your home or office wasn't searched today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation pursuant to a warrant issued by a federal judge upon a showing of probable cause.\u201d— George Conway\ud83c\udf3b (@George Conway\ud83c\udf3b) 1659999656
\u201cWe don't know yet what crimes the FBI had sufficient evidence of to convince a federal judge there was probable cause to search Trump's residence, but the execution of a search warrant isn't a raid. It's a judicially overseen process. Still unknown: the subject of the search.\u201d— Joyce Alene (@Joyce Alene) 1659999880
\u201c/2 To get a federal search warrant, a federal agent submits an affidavit under oath to a federal magistrate judge, setting forth where they want to search, for what items, and what the probable cause is that those things are evidence of a federal crime and are there.\u201d— ComprisedHat (@ComprisedHat) 1659999765
\u201c/4 So the affidavit has to show that there is probable cause to believe that the specified location has the specified evidence of a specified federal crime. That's the ideal at least. Note it doesn't have to establish probable cause a particular person committed a crime.\u201d— ComprisedHat (@ComprisedHat) 1659999765
\u201c/5 This warrant -- the decision to do it, if not the entire thing itself -- was absolutely approved at the very highest level of the justice department, possibly read by Garland himself.\u201d— ComprisedHat (@ComprisedHat) 1659999765
\u201cWhat's the over/under on how long it takes for Trump to send out a fundraising email?\u201d— Joyce Alene (@Joyce Alene) 1660002068
\u201c"Assuming that it's true, what the former president is saying is true...it means that a federal judge signed a search warrant, which indicates that the judge believed that there was good reason to believe that a crime was committed," says @renato_mariotti.\u201d— The News with Shepard Smith (@The News with Shepard Smith) 1660000227
\u201cIf this is true, it is ironic that Trump is under criminal investigation for mishandling classified material, given that he called for Hillary Clinton to be imprisoned for a similar offense.\u201d— Renato Mariotti (@Renato Mariotti) 1660002158
\u201cTrump was not kidding. He is the candidate of law and order.\n\nJust not how he imagined.\u201d— Bradley P. Moss (@Bradley P. Moss) 1659999795
\u201cDonald has another first - first former POTUS raided by the FBI!\u201d— John W. Dean (@John W. Dean) 1659999483
\u201cTrump confirms that federal law enforcement is executing a search warrant at Mar-A-Lago.\n\nThis means a federal judge found that there is good reason to believe that a crime was committed and that evidence of that crime was located in Mar-A-Lago.\n\nTrump should be very concerned.\u201d— Renato Mariotti (@Renato Mariotti) 1659999302
\u201cWhat makes me laugh is Trump keeps protesting that something like this has never happened to a president before, without reflecting on why that may be.\u201d— Dr Jaundice Peterson (@Dr Jaundice Peterson) 1660000608
The news was announced not long after this segment on Ari Melber's Monday show:
\u201c"When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal." Former President Nixon's words have long reaching relevance as Donald Trump faces possible indictment. @mayawiley joins on the legal precedent of indicting a former head of state.\u201d— The Beat with Ari Melber on MSNBC \ud83d\udcfa (@The Beat with Ari Melber on MSNBC \ud83d\udcfa) 1659999669
