Donald Trump Makes A Startling New Claim About The FBI Raid Of Mar-A-Lago
The now-infamous FBI raid of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence is nearly a month old as of this writing. In that time, Trump himself has responded with a number of accusations and claims, some of them contradictory. Per MSNBC, the former president has variously accused the FBI of not asking for the documents in the first place, then of planting evidence and of staging a photo of classified documents to make him look careless. He declared that he had already declassified the documents, and petitioned a Florida court to appoint a "special master" to determine whether the seized papers can be used by the Department of Justice.
Trump also expressed outrage over the government agents' search of his residence other than his office and storage room. He railed about the FBI "rummaging" through his wife's closet (via Newsweek), which reportedly sent the former first lady shopping for new undergarments after the raid because she couldn't bear the thought of wearing the ones that had been touched. In the newest chapter of the saga, Trump is now claiming yet another invasion of his family's privacy.
On September 3, the former president visited Pennsylvania to speak at a rally promoting Republican Senate candidates Dr. Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano. As tweeted in this clip, Trump said the FBI "even did a deep and ugly search of the room of my 16-year-old son, leaving everything they touched in far different condition than it was when they started."
One lawyer says the search may have been justified
The Pennsylvania Republican crowd booed loudly at the idea that the FBI could be so heartless as to ransack a teen boy's bedroom, but at least one expert says this could be a nonissue. Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, appeared on MSNBC after the rally to address Trump's claim. Mariotti explained, "If Trump is storing boxes of classified documents or presidential records — or other types of documents that could potentially be one or the other — in the bedroom of Barron Trump, then he should understand that's why the Justice Department is searching there." The affidavit for the search and seizure warrant also includes the request to "search ... any other rooms or locations where boxes or records may be stored within the premises."
Reaction to Trump's claim is divided along party lines. On Twitter, responses include this: "OMG. The FBI rifled through 16-year-old Barron Trump's room," and another: "I was livid when I heard that! Lost all respect for the FBI!" Others were more skeptical. "If Barron's room was really searched by the FBI, we would have heard about it from Trump himself on day one," said a commenter. Opined another, "If it is true that the Feds tossed the kid's room as part of their search and seizure warrant, it would suggest the Feds had inside information that Trump hid classified documents in Barron's room to try to keep them from being recovered."