According to his counsel, Donald Trump observed the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago live from Trump Tower in New York through security camera feeds at his Florida residence.
Christina Bobb, one of Trump’s attorneys, told the right-wing television network Real America’s Voice that Trump probably had a better view than she did since she was at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the raid.
‘I suppose the people in New York – President Trump and his family – probably had a better view than I did because they had CCTV, but they were able to see me as I was trapped in the parking lot collecting paper and answering questions.’ ‘But they were able to view the whole thing, so they have a greater picture of what happened inside,’ she said.
She went on to say that the security cameras were only switched off for a “very brief amount of time” while agents discussed their presence with attorneys.
‘Initially, [the agents] stated you have to turn off all the cameras, and of course, the employees obeyed,’ she said. ‘The attorneys then came in and said, you don’t have to turn them off.’ So they turn them back on soon after. So the cameras were only turned off for a brief time.’
In an exclusive interview, Eric Trump told DailyMail.com that the 30 agents who arrived to the property urged workers to turn off security cameras, but they refused.
‘There are 30 agents there,’ he said of the Monday search during a phone conversation. ‘They instructed our lawyer… you must vacate the property immediately.’ ‘Deactivate all security cameras.’
Eric Trump said that by not turning off the security cameras, they watched the FBI searching portions of the property where they’shouldn’t have been.’
Meanwhile, the search warrant needed to carry out the raid will be made public on Friday.
Attorney General Merrick Garland revealed on Thursday that the Justice Department has filed an application in federal court seeking the warrant and an inventory list of things seized from the former president’s private club and Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
According to Garland, Trump’s lawyers have their own copy of the warrant as well as the receipt for the materials confiscated in Monday’s raid – records that are typically delivered to the subject of a court-authorized search.
If Trump had the order and receipt, as Garland claims, it’s unclear why he wouldn’t just disclose them himself, as he has the legal authority to do.
Trump announced late Thursday night that he would not oppose the move to disclose the warrant and inventory.
He said he was ‘encouraging’ it on his social media site, Truth Social.
‘Not only will I not oppose the release of information pertaining to the un-American, unlawful, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my residence in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago,’ he said, ‘but I will go a step further by ENCOURAGING the quick release of those materials.’
‘Release the docs now!’ he demanded.
The declaration came far before of the Friday 3 p.m. deadline that Trump’s legal team would face if they opted to reject the DOJ’s move to unseal the warrant. The motion might be decided on Friday.
Garland said that he was commenting about the probe because Trump himself had revealed it.
The former president and his family have gone on the defense, criticizing the Justice Department and accusing President Joe Biden of ordering the raid.
According to the White House, the president learned about the raid via public accounts.
Garland said that the operation was ‘personally authorized.’
The raid on Monday was part of a larger inquiry into materials Trump took with him when he departed the White House. All such records, according to the Presidential Records Act, must be handed over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the conclusion of each presidential administration for historic preservation.
Earlier this year, Trump returned 15 cartons to the Archives. Agents looked through storage space at Mar-a-Lago and locations of Trump’s personal house on Monday, removing around 10 boxes during a day-long search.
The contents of the crates remain unknown. The unsealing of the search warrant will provide additional information, but if the files are tagged top secret or classified, the information will be withheld.
According to several reports on Thursday, the raid was predicated on nuclear-related materials.
According to the New York Times, investigators were worried about information from what the government refers to as’special access programs,’ a term normally designated for exceptionally secret activities carried out by the US overseas or tightly guarded technology and capabilities.
According to specialists in classified material, the search demonstrates federal officials’ anxiety about the sorts of information they feared may be found at Mar-a-Lago and could fall into the wrong hands.
That, according to Trump, was a “hoax.” The former president said on his Truth Social social media account that the “nuclear weapons problem is a lie.”
According to News Nation, agents found ‘boxes everywhere,’ including some documents labeled high secrets, from two locations, including a’storage room beside a pool’ and his ‘personal office above a ballroom.’
The report did not indicate which ballroom or pool room the documents were discovered in, but it did mention that some of the documents were Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information, the highest level of security.
