President Donald Trump announced that the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided his private estate in Florida last night (Aug. 8).
“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” Trump said.
The former President characterized the raid as “political persecution.”
The Department of Justice has not commented on the issue, but the New York Times has reported that the search appears to be focused on records that Trump brought with him to the Mar-A-Lago estate after leaving the White House.
In February, the National Archives and Records Administration formally denied searching the estate for documents.
“Throughout the course of the last year, NARA obtained the cooperation of Trump representatives to locate Presidential records that had not been transferred to the National Archives at the end of the Trump administration,” the NARA wrote in a statement. “When a representative informed NARA in December 2021 that they located some records, NARA arranged for them to be securely transported to Washington. NARA officials did not visit or ‘raid’ the Mar-a-Lago property.”
Trump was in New Jersey when he released a statement saying,
“My beautiful home Mar A Lago in Palm Beach, Florida is currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.”
Fox News has reported supporters of Trump gathered outside of the estate in protest of the raid. Trump posted a campaign ad-style video on his social media platform Truth Social following the raid causing speculation that he may run for President again in the upcoming election.
