By copy of this TRUTH,’ Trump wrote on Sunday, ‘I humbly beg that these papers be returned immediately to the place from which they were removed. Thank you!’
According to The New York Times, before Attorney General Merrick Garland made his first public remark on the raid on Thursday, a source close to Trump contacted a Justice Department official to relay a message from the former president.
“The nation is on fire. Trump sought to convey the idea, ‘What can I do to lower the heat?’, according to a source familiar with the interaction.
By copy of this TRUTH,’ Trump wrote on Sunday, ‘I humbly beg that these papers be returned immediately to the place from which they were removed. Thank you!’
According to The New York Times, before Attorney General Merrick Garland made his first public remark on the raid on Thursday, a source close to Trump contacted a Justice Department official to relay a message from the former president.
“The nation is on fire. Trump sought to convey the idea, ‘What can I do to lower the heat?’, according to a source familiar with the interaction.
Fox News was told by sources with knowledge of the inquiry into the records Trump removed from the White House before he left office that the former president’s staff was notified that numerous documents recovered during the search included attorney-client privilege material.
This sort of information was specifically located in boxes designated A-14, A-26, A-43, A-13, and A-33.
The report also indicates that the FBI took documents that may have been protected by presidential privilege.
According to the sources cited by Fox, the Justice Department rebuffed pleas from the former president’s attorneys for an independent team to evaluate the documents.
Trump said in a Truth post published Monday morning, ‘The FBI has a long and unbroken history of corruption.’
Trump regretted the raid after expressing a number of concerns with the FBI and DOJ, including the “Russia hoax.”
Trump said on his social networking site, “NOW THEY RAIDED MY HOME, barred my attorneys, and, without allowing any witnesses, broke the lock that they had requested us to place on the storage space that we had first shown them.”
He noted that the area they invaded included documents that could have been obtained months ago for free, and without the ludicrous political grandstanding of a ‘break-in’ to a historically significant and highly visible location shortly before the midterm elections.
Trump continued, “The whole world was watching as the FBI rummaged through the residence, including the former first lady’s closets (and clothes!) alone and unsupervised.” They even asked that the security cameras be turned off (we refused), but there was no way to determine whether the items they stole were genuine or if they were planted. After all, it was the FBI!’
The warrant and property receipt for the search on Monday were released on Friday after protests from the Trump camp that the FBI refused to provide a copy of the warrant.
Thursday, Attorney General Garland said that he personally ordered the decision to pursue a search warrant for Trump’s home.
Eric Trump told DailyMail.com on Tuesday that his father’s attorney Christina Bobb was not given a copy of the search warrant, was only seen it from 10 feet away, and was forced to wait at the end of the Mar-a-Lago driveway throughout the FBI search.
In the declassification of papers pertaining to the search, it was discovered that the FBI confiscated secret documents from Trump’s Florida residence, including those designated with one of the highest levels of classification – TS-SCI, which stands for Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information.
Trump continues to dispute the classifications of the files he took and those the agency recovered, saying that any previously secret records in his possession have been declassified.
The Presidential Records Act stipulates that a president’s records and materials from his time in office belong to the American people, not to the president himself. It mandates that all former presidents retain their documents and turn them over to the National Archives.
Trump’s assertion that his papers were not classified does not alter the reality that he took White House materials to his Florida estate.
Trump returned 15 cartons of White House-related materials to the National Archives earlier this year.
The Archives asked the Justice Department in February to investigate whether Trump violated the Presidential Records Act