The FBI searched Donald Trump’s Florida mansion without the knowledge of United States President Joe Biden, according to the White House. Presidential spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that the Department of Justice had not previously informed Biden, despite the sensitivity and exceptional nature of the action. The register has caused a political earthquake that could affect both next November’s general election and the 2024 presidential election, exacerbating political polarization across the country.
Incredible as it may seem, the White House asserts that Biden learned about the registry from the news “as just another American” that he had no prior information about it. “The Department of Justice conducts an independent investigation and we leave all law enforcement matters to them. It would not be appropriate for us to comment on ongoing investigations,” the spokeswoman said.
Jean-Pierre gave his daily news briefing Tuesday after neither the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) nor the Justice Department issued a statement on the reasons for the day-long raid in Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. by federal agents. The FBI has followed its usual policy of not explaining ongoing investigations, although that’s not the only case.
There are more unknowns than certainties at the moment, but some details of the investigation have been revealed, focusing on Trump’s handling of documents, including classified papers. The law considers the reports, documents and even handwritten notes that presidents handle in the performance of their duties as public property and requires them to turn them over to the National Archives upon their dismissal.
Trump initially violated that obligation. In May 2021, National Archives staff reached out to the former president to inquire about documents he had not provided. In parallel, the Congressional commission investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol ordered Trump to turn over those writings, and the former president challenged that order in court. The Supreme Court denied his request to keep the documents in his possession.
Faced with threats of more drastic measures, Trump handed over 15 boxes of documents in January 2022. Among them were letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the note left for him by his predecessor Barack Obama on his last day in the Oval Office. In addition, there were documents classified as classified, the Archives Bureau reported to Congress. In February, it emerged that the archives had asked the Justice Department to launch an investigation.
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It has now emerged that federal agents went to Mar-a-Lago last spring, met with Trump’s lawyers and asked if and where the ex-president still had presidential documents. During that visit, four investigators met with two Trump attorneys. The former president himself was at his mansion at the time, greeting them. According to US media, the agents confirmed that Trump still had records and asked that they be carefully guarded.
Trump apparently referred to this process in the statement this Monday in which he announced the search of his villa. “Having worked and cooperated with appropriate government agencies, this unannounced break-in into my home was neither necessary nor appropriate,” Trump said in the statement, in which he foolishly purchased this court-approved recording depicting the Democratic Party’s Watergate spying .
U.S. criminal law punishes anyone who “willfully and unlawfully” conceals, removes, mutilates, deletes, falsifies, or destroys federal documents in its custody with penalties ranging from a fine to three years in prison and disqualification from the exercise of public office . Despite the harsh campaign he campaigned against Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 election for using a personal email account for official business, Trump was not unscrupulous about that rule. Trump’s former spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham admitted this inappropriate handling of documents and records on CNN this Tuesday.
The latest revelation shows photos of allegedly handwritten notes by the former president thrown in the toilet. Previously, during his tenure, numerous reports indicated that Trump tore up reports, documents and memos after reading them, and White House staffers had to lag behind to piece them back together with tape.
The archives confirmed earlier this year that the paperwork returned contained “papers that had been destroyed by former President Trump,” some taped together and others just pieces remaining.
However, it is not known what documents the FBI agents searched their registry for Monday and why they did it now, and some question whether this improper handling of the records is enough to warrant an unprecedented action like the one being carried out justify. In order to obtain the court order, it is necessary to present evidence of a crime to the judge and convince him that there is no other way of obtaining evidence less damaging than entering a private residence, especially in the case of a former president .
Republicans and Trump supporters are demanding explanations for the search and criticize the action as an instrumentalization of the judiciary of a police state. Even Mike Pence, who was vice president under Trump but has distanced himself from him, joined the motion. The attorney general, he said, “must fully explain to the American people why this action was taken and do so without delay.”
The former President broadcast this Tuesday on his social network the video with which he was presented at the Conservative Congress last Saturday, in which he paints an apocalyptic portrait of the United States with a campaign tone that seems to suggest that he wants to run for the presidency again in 2024.
Biden, meanwhile, appeared this morning to sign legislation encouraging production of microprocessors in the United States, one of his most recent legislative victories in Congress. His speech was marred by a persistent cough that had forced him to interrupt on several occasions. The President has issued a statement on the law without asking questions or commenting on the Mar-a-Lago search. He later reappeared to sign Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession documents, but he didn’t leave the script either. Biden’s recent hot streak was abruptly overshadowed by Mar-a-Lago’s record.
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