Former US President Donald Trump said FBI agents "ransacked" his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida. Although the exact causes of the operation are not known, the former White House tenant was being investigated for having classified files on his property.
This Monday, FBI agents raided the house of former United States President Donald Trump, located in Palm Beach, Florida. "A lot of FBI agents were at Mar-a-Lago, they even broke into my safe," the former president said.
A source assured that the United States Department of Justice launched an investigation in April against Trump for the elimination of official presidential records during his tenure, which could be housed in his property in the state of Florida.
"After working and cooperating with relevant government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was neither necessary nor appropriate," Trump said in a statement, without elaborating on why the operation was carried out.
The National Archives and Records Administration of that country notified Congress in February that after months, they managed to recover some 15 boxes with White House documents that were in the Trump house, some of which contained classified materials.
At the time, the House Oversight Committee announced that it was opening an investigation into the former president's actions and asked for additional information. Trump said he agreed to return some of the records, calling it "an ordinary process."
The FBI raid began Monday morning. The agents concentrated in the area of the club where the offices and personal rooms are located, according to a witness. It is known that Trump was not in Florida at the time of the operation.
"It could only happen in broken Third World countries," criticized the former president.
Trump accuses Democrats of being behind the operation
"This is a malpractice of the Prosecutor's Office, the militarization of the Justice system and an attack by the Democrats of the radical left who desperately do not want me to run for president in 2024, especially as a result of the latest polls.
Since he finished his term and was defeated by Joe Biden in the November 2020 elections, Trump has shown his intentions to run for president of the United States again.
The Republican recently won a majority in a poll conducted during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). In the survey carried out in Texas to about a thousand people, the tycoon obtained a 69% advantage in the votes against 24% for the governor of Florida, Ron DeSaints; and 2% marked by the senator of Hispanic origin, Ted Cruz.
Trump's obsession with Mar-a-Lago
Mar-a-Lago is a residential complex in the Spanish architectural style built between 1924 and 1927. Its construction was intended to be used as a place for state visits or as a winter rest space for American presidents.
But due to high maintenance costs due to its valuable location, the US Congress decided in 1981 that the complex would not be used by the government. By 1985, it was bought by Donald Trump for about 10 million dollars, who, as president, used his property as a place of office on different occasions.
The mansion has 126 rooms in 10,000 square meters and the Trump family has their private home in a closed area, which was "searched" by FBI agents.
What is the importance of official documents?
Under US law, every president is required to preserve letters, mail and business documents for later delivery to the National Archives. However, some photos released by the reporter for 'The New York Times', Maggie Haberman, show some notes that, supposedly, the then president Donald Trump flushed down the toilet.
The images are part of the book 'Confidence Man: The making of Donald Trump and the breaking of America', written by the New York journalist. The photos were obtained by the author in collaboration with sources from the former US Administration.
Although the book will go on sale on October 4, this Monday some photographs were released showing a toilet inside the White House and another from a Trump trip abroad.
In one of the torn notes you can read the word "qualified" (qualified) and in the other "Stefanik", possibly referring to the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, an ally of Trump and who became number three in the party in the Low camera.
It is not certain who wrote them, but according to the US network CNN, the handwriting appears to be that of the former president. Haberman said that beyond the content of the notes, the important thing was how that affected the preservation of official documents, since he was the president of the United States.
In her investigation, the reporter found various testimonies from the White House staff, who agreed that the former president used to flush documents down the toilet, eventually covering the pipes in the compound. Accusations that he considered as "categorically false".
In addition to this, among the 15 boxes that the 45th president of the United States took home in Florida and that were returned in February of this year, correspondence documents were found that had been sent to him by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un , during the bilateral thaw.
Similarly, a letter left in the Oval Office by Barack Obama was found. "You have to be pretty desperate to sell books if part of your promotional strategy is photos of papers in a cup," a Trump spokesman said of the Haberman investigation.
Official statements on the findings of the US authorities are expected.
